Geophysical Survey

Date 2011

Event ID 964770

Category Recording

Type Geophysical Survey

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/964770

NO 125 397 The geophysical survey begun in 2009 (DES 2009, 145) of the fortress and its surroundings, continued. It had been intended that the work would concentrate on the area of the temporary camps to the SW of the main fortress area, but the late harvest caused by an unusually poor summer delayed things considerably. Instead, large scale resistance work was continued inside the fortress, and some of the principal internal buildings which had already been covered magnetically, were re-scanned at higher resolution (0.5 x 0.125m). This produced superb detail, in places showing features that had not been detected by the Richmond excavations. The best image was produced by the hospital building, and its surrounding barracks, where individual posts could be seen, but the principia and fabrica also produced excellent data (for example a passage between rooms in the NE wing of the latter). Outside the fortress, a large oval feature detected near the NE gate in 2009 had caused speculation that it might represent an amphitheatre. The higher resolution data refuted this, however, by showing the feature to be caused by two different features that had previously appeared conflated.

Some work was also possible in the arable fields further W. Magnetic work in 2010 (DES 2010, 137) had cast doubt on the identification of a rectangular enclosure, towards the SW end of the plateau, as a small Roman temporary camp because only three sides could be detected and no entrance breaks were found in the remaining sides. Aerial coverage had produced the same picture, and in 2011 so did a resistance survey. As resistance can often locate ditches missed by other remote sensing techniques, this seems to be a further indication that the feature is unlikely to be a completed Roman camp.

Continued survey of the large temporary camp, nearer the fortress, confirmed the indications gained in past seasons of an even denser pattern of internal (and indeed external) pits than that seen in air photographs. Finally, coverage of the so called 'officers' compound' further E revealed what is likely to be a third barrack to the S of the two already known from excavation.

Archive: The Roman Gask Project

Funder: Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust

The Roman Gask Project, 2011