| Liminality along the limes |
Figure 1. A plan of the castellum Matilo with trench number three marked by the black rectangle, dark blue marks the contour of the fort, and the Corbulo channel is marked by the light blue area( Courtesy of J. de Bruin).
Along the Lower Rhine Limes many Roman military objects have been found in rivers( Nicolay 2007, 124). It has been suggested that these objects were offered by Roman soldiers in rites of passage to Gods in return for their safety( Nicolay 2007, 181; Roymans 1996, 32). However, no direct evidence for this explanation has been found, indicating that other interpretations of these finds can be just as valid.
Around the first century AD the river Rhine in the Low Countries formed the Limes, the border between the Roman world and everything else. In the Roman period this was known as orbis terrarium and terra incognita( Hazenberg 2000, 7; Nicolet 1991 in Driessen 2007, 41). Considering the nature of the Dutch Rhine it is possible that liminality was of importance for the potentially ritual depositions along these frontiers.
Three near complete Roman cavalry helmets were found in in the Lower Rhine Limes region. One of these finds, the mask from Matilo near Leiden, was found during the excavation of the Corbulo channel( which from 50 CE onwards connected the Meuse and Rhine)( fig. 1) while the other two Roman helmets from Bodegraven and Woerden were dredged up from the Rhine( Hazenberg 2000, 36; Klumbach 1974, 54; Van Enckevort and Hazenberg 1997, 38; Vos et al. 2010, 113). Because the Matilo mask is thus far the only helmet with a clear archaeological context it provides the unique opportunity to study a possible deposition of a Roman military object found in a wet, possibly liminal and in situ, context.
This article will answer the research question whether the concept of liminality can be applied to the Matilo mask. However, to answer the research question first the sub question whether the Matilo mask was a ritual deposition will need to be answered.
2016 | INTER-SECTION | VOL II | p. 15