#eboracum

Because I've completed the Italian module I sometimes dip into the Latin module on Duolingo, which is basic but fun, and I'm delighted that they've decided that the Latin for "New York" is Novi Eboraci. That's literally new "Eboracum", which is what the Romans called the original York in England. It's totally rational and also super hilarious somehow.

Roman defensive walls at York (England).

Head of Constantine the Great, York.  This part of what would have been a much larger marble statue.  It was found in Stonegate (a medieval street in York), sometime before 1823.

Stonegate ran over part of the Roman legionary fortress of Eboracum, so the statue probably was originally erected there.  The fragment is 42cm high, 27cm wide, 30cm deep, and the diameter of the neck (as it is now) is 17.5cm.  The original statue would have been twice life-sized.  It was made of a coarse, crystalline marble, possibly from Italy.

The marble head may actually be a reworked version of an earlier emperor, probably Hadrian.  The original statue may have been built in the 100s AD, and then remodelled around 306 AD, when Constantine was proclaimed Emperor in York.

Jorvik/York at the time of the Brunanburh Series, (and before) #histfic #nonfiction #newrelease #KingsOfConflict