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Luguvalium (or Luguvalium Carvetiorum) was an ancient Roman Empire city in northern Roman Britain located within present-day Carlisle, Cumbria, and may have been the capital of the 4th-century Roman province of Valentia. It was the northernmost city of the Roman Empire.
Today the Roman city is located mainly under the modern city of Carlisle, but the Roman fort around which the settlement developed is mainly beneath the grounds of the later Carlisle Castle.
The fort was refurbished in 83 using oak timbers from further afield, rather than local alder, indicating the greater Roman control of the area, and was garrisoned by a 500-strong cavalry regiment, the Ala Gallorum Sebosiana.
The 'Stanegate' frontier established from about 87Andrew S. Hobley, The Numismatic Evidence for the Post-Agricolan Abandonment of the Roman Frontier in Northern Scotland in Britannia xx (1989) pp.69-74 which consisted of Luguvalium and several other forts on the road east to Corbridge, was proving a more stable frontier against the Picts than those established deeper into Caledonia. By the early 2nd century, Carlisle was established as a prominent stronghold. The fort was deliberately demolished around 103 but rebuilt before 105 and retained its garrison until the Hadrianic period. One of the Vindolanda tablets records a centurio regionarius, a Stanegate officer, stationed at Luguvalium in 103.
In 122 the province was visited by the Emperor Hadrian, who approved a plan to build a wall along the frontier slightly to the north of the Stanegate. A new large fort, Uxelodunum, was built therefore on the wall in the Stanwix area of Carlisle north of the river and within sight of the Luguvalium fort and became the largest fort along the length of Hadrian's Wall.Hadrian'
The civilian settlement ( vicus) that developed outside the fort probably became the civitas capital of the Carvetii tribe some time in the 2nd century.Charlesworth, D, 1978 Roman Carlisle, Archaeol fourn 135, 123 It was eventually enclosed by a stone wall assumed to have followed the line of the later medieval wall. Industry in the town included copper working and tanning, while merchants are also in evidence. Inscriptions show there was a Mithraeum in the town and possibly a temple to Mars, who was identified with the Celtic mythology Belatucadros.
The town was listed in the Roman Antonine Itinerary (from beginning of the 3rd century).
Coins excavated in the area suggest that Romans remained in Carlisle until the reign of Valentinian II, from 375 to 392.
Cair Ligualid was listed among the 28 cities of Britain in Nennius (composed after 830).Nennius (). Theodor Mommsen (). Hosted at .
Three large marching camps near to Carlisle at Plumpton Head, Crackenthorpe and Rey Cross have all been attributed to the campaigns of governor Cerialis and dated sometime around 72/73AD. Tiles and pottery with stamps of the Legio IX Hispana (the fabled "Ninth Legion") have also been found at Scalesceugh 8km south of Carlisle, which indicates that a Vexillatio was probably involved with the early presence at Carlisle.
Excavations in 1981-84 and 1990 discovered around 50 wooden writing tablets within the Roman fort, containing unique evidence for the cavalry regiment, the ala Gallorum Sebosiana, and its consumption of barley, wheat and weapons.Tomlin, R. S O. (1998). Roman manuscripts from Carlisle: the ink-written tablets. Britannia 29. Vol 29, pp. 31-84 The collection is second in importance only to that from Vindolanda.
In 2017 imperial baths larger than any found near Hadrian's Wall, and possibly belonging to a mansio
/ref> Uxellodunum was abandoned like the rest of the wall when the Antonine Wall was built in 142-144, but was rebuilt in stone in about 165 when Hadrian's Wall was reinstated as the frontier. Uxelodunum housed a nominal 1,000-strong cavalry regiment, the Ala Gallorum Petriana,RIB 957 the sole regiment of this size along the wall. Milecastle 65 was also built on the wall about 1km northwest of the fort.
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Medieval
Romano-British occupation of Luguvalium seems to have continued unbroken after the Roman withdrawal from Britain around 410. Possible 5th-century buildings have been identified during excavation, and the settlement has been identified as the court of Urien Rheged's North Rheged. Saint Cuthbert visited the town in the 7th century and, according to Bede, described the high stone walls and an impressive fountain, presumably fed by a still-functioning aqueduct.The Venerable Bede's "Life of Cuthbert", Chapter 27 The place was under the control of a praepositus civitatis.
Excavations
Excavations in the 1950s identified the site of the fort of Luguvalium to the south of the present medieval Carlisle Castle, which lies over the north-eastern corner of the Roman fort. More recent excavations revealed the well-preserved timber structure of the Roman gatehouse and its adjoining rampart.
/ref> Archaeological artefacts discovered in 2021 suggest that the Roman emperor Septimius Severus and his consort Julia Domna may have spent time in Luguvalium around AD 208-211, since engraved stone fragments dedicated to the empress were found, as well as the emperor's personal workshop-stamped tiles (Severus was campaigning in Scotland at the time). Two oversized sculptures of heads were discovered in 2023, and another one was found in 2024.
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