To What Extent are Nornour's Roman Votive Finds Indicative of Roman Religious Activity on the Isles of Scilly?

This dissertation will examine the finds revealed in a settlement on Nornour, a deserted island in the Isles of Scilly archipelago 28 miles (45km) off the tip of Land’s End, Cornwall. The aim is to contribute to their interpretation. Are they votive in nature? Previous interpretations of the site will be considered, in conjunction with aspects of a settlement at Halangy Down and a fogou at Peninnis, both on St Mary’s, and an altar on Tresco, in an overview of evidence for religious activity on Scilly between the first and fourth centuries AD. After the last glaciation, Scilly was one large island. By the end of the Mesolithic, around 5,000 BC, the westernmost land of Scilly (now Agnes, Annet and the Western Rocks) was separated by the sea; saltmarsh had developed north of St Mary’s in the Road, a major shipping channel in historic times. Roman activity in the seaways around Scilly will be illustrated, drawing on classical writings referring to Phoenician tin trading and Roman archaeology from Scilly and Cornwall. The potential for Roman shipping frequenting Scilly and landing near Nornour will be shown using a modern survey of the seabed. Storms in the 1960s exposed archaeology on Nornour, one of the present-day Eastern Isles, off the eastern end of St Martin’s. Excavations uncovered the largest quantity of Roman period votive artefacts yet recorded west of Exeter, situated in and around a cluster of houses of Bronze Age origin. Four previous interpretations of Roman period activity on Nornour will be reviewed. Was this a centre for brooch manufacture or a shrine? Were the artefacts votive offerings to Sillina, or hoarded spoils from shipwrecks? Through appraisals of site reports and scientific data, including metallurgical analysis using X-ray Fluorescence and Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy, carbon and magnetic dating, and petrology, the timeline of the site will be re-evaluated. Using this timeline, the site interpretations will be examined to see if they remain tenable. Interpretations will be examined with reference to archaeology from other sites in Scilly, Cornwall and Britain. Through this assessment, the use of the site as a shrine will emerge as the likeliest explanation of the evidence. Halangy Down settlement will be reviewed here, and the brooches from its remodelled courtyard house, in a pattern suggestive of a Roman domestic shrine. This will generate the conclusion of the site being of Roman occupation at that time not Romano-British or Romano-Scillonian. Possible meanings of a Roman altar on Scilly will also be explored, in particular evaluating that its carvings resemble iconography used in the Roman cult of Mithras and rejecting its origin as discarded ballast from a ship. The evidence for fogous having served a religious function rather than as storage or refuge will be reviewed. The association of Mithraistic worship with caves and subterranean buildings will be noted and the possibility raised that such practices took place on Scilly. The conclusion will be made that there was significant Roman religious activity on Scilly using the shrines, Mithraic altar and fogou.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

ma

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

masters

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Bennett, Jane Ellen

• CC Archaeoleg
• DA Prydain Fawr

Dc Identifier Grantnumber

UWTSD

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.uwtsd.ac.uk:4315