From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Corbridge Lion
Corbridge Lion
who excavated it commented "when I first saw that there
lion he had a blooming orange in ’is mouth!" (Woolley
1953:16).
At least four other stone lions have been found at
Corbridge, two of them excavated in association with the
enclosure wall around a 2nd-century mausoleum at Shor-
den Brae, in the cemetery just west of the Roman town
(Gillam and Daniels 1961), one built into a wall in the vil-
lage (Phillips 1977:32), and another (now lost) was in the
private museum owned by Bartholomew Lumley during
the early 19th century (Dickinson 2000:114).
The Corbridge Lion is now on display in the Corbridge
Roman site museum run by English Heritage. The Lion of
Corbridge Hotel (closed 2003), immediately south of the
The Corbridge Lion modern bridge, was named after it.
Lion,
The Corbridge Lion Northumberland, England, is an
ancient Roman free-standing sandstone sculpture of a References
male lion standing on a prone animal (possibly a deer) [1] Phillips 1977:31
on a semi-cylindrical coping stone base. Measuring 0.95m • Dickinson, G. (2000) Corbridge – the Last Two Thousand
in length by 0.36m in width and 0.87m high, it was origi- Years (London)
nally a piece of decorative funerary ornamentation from • Gillam, J.P. and Daniels, C.M. (1961) "The Roman
a tomb (symbolising the conquest of Death over Life). It mausoleum on Shorden Brae, Beaufront, Corbridge,
was subsequently re-used as a fountainhead by passing Northumberland", Archaeologia Aeliana (4th Series)
a water pipe through its mouth. It was found in a water 39, 37–62
tank in 1907 in excavations led by Leonard Woolley on • Phillips, E.J. (1977) Corpus Signorum Imperium Romani
Site II (a corridor building with tesselated floors, I,i Corbridge, Hadrian’s Wall East of the North Tyne
hypocausts, and painted wallplaster that has been sug- (Oxford), 31–2, No. 82, Plate 24
gested as a mansio or posting station) on the Roman site • Woolley, L. (1953) Spadework: Adventures in
at Corbridge. It is believed to date to the 2nd or 3rd cen- Archaeology (London)
turies AD.[1]
In his autobiographical volume Spadework, Woolley
noted that it was found whilst he was at the bank in Cor- External links
bridge collecting the workers’ wages, and that when they • Corbridge Roman site
revealed their discovery to him upon his return, the man
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Corbridge_Lion&oldid=442617629"
Categories:
• Roman Empire sculptures
• History of Northumberland
• Archaeological sites in Northumberland
• Roman Britain
• Hadrian's Wall
• Lions in art
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