This month the Archaeology Gallery on the second floor at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum celebrates its 10th birthday. To mark this momentous milestone, our Object of the Month is the Tripontium milestone.

Standing at over one metre tall, this impressive stone was discovered during the excavation of a Roman well by Rugby Archaeological Society in the 1960s. Found in three pieces, the red sandstone forms a tapering column with an inscription carved into one side. The lettering has been painted over in red by the Society to make the inscription easier for visitors to see. 

The expanded form of the inscription reads:

IMP(ERATORE) C(AESARE) / FL(AVIO) VAL(ERIO) / CONSTA / NTINO / PIO FEL(ICI) / IN(VICTO) / 
AVG(VSTO) / DIVI /
CONSTA / NTI PII / AVG(VSTI) FIL(IO)

This translates as: ‘Emperor Caesar Flavius Valerius Constantinus, Good, Fortunate, Unconquered Augustus, son of the deified Constantius, Pius Augustus’

This tells us that it is a milestone erected during the reign of Constantine the Great (AD.306-337), who was the son of Constantius, and died in York in AD.306. 

Constantine the Great was the first Roman Emperor to convert to Christianity and founded the city of Constantinople. 

It is believed that milestones such as this were erected along main imperial routes (in this case Watling Street) at the beginning of a new emperor’s reign. to inform the public of the change in leadership.