The Tombstone of Regina (South Shields)

Interesting post about the tomb stone of Regina, found in the far north of the Roman Empire. She was a freedwoman who married her former master, a man from Palmyra in Syria. We tend to think of travel as a modern concept, but there was a great deal of mobility under the Romans - it tended to be of soldiers moved around on Imperial orders, but also included private citizens usually working as merchants.



  1. Mobility also included slaves, of course, who made up roughly one-third of the population of Rome (and the majority of them would have come from other provinces of Italy and elsewhere in the Empire). Not sure what percentage of the remainder of the Empire slaves made up, though.

  2. That's true! We always forget the poor slaves unless the bones suggest they come possibly from somewhere amazing like China ... This couple is interesting, as the woman was an ex slave, but the freeborn husband moved from one end of the empire to the other. I wish we had more information about slaves, as some of them were genuinely fascinating men and women

  3. Wirklich eine effektive Stylization von einer attraktiven Frau, vertieft in ihre Handarbeit. Schöne Farben und irgendwie anders und aber zugleich wieder schön. Erinnert mich an die handarbeitende Frau von dem amerikanischen Impressionisten Frederick Carl Frieseke http://WahooArt.com/A55A04/w.nsf/OPRA/BRUE-8DP6G8.
    Dieses Gemälde kann dort angeschaut werden und als Druck erworben werden.

