This small enamelled bronze drinking-bowl was found in 1725 at Rudge in Wiltshire. It is very important from an epigraphic point of view, as a moulded inscription around the vessel's outside rim confirms the names of the first five garrison forts on the Wall. The cup is also decorated beneath the wording with a repeated stylized design or frieze, which depicts the battlements of the Wall and provides the only contemporary drawing of the monument so far recovered. The date of manufacture for the Rudge Cup is not known for certain, but is generally accepted as being sometime during the first half of the second century.
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| A MAIS ABALLA[vae et] VXELOD[vn]VM CAMBOGLAN[ni]S BANNA [et vltra] |
| "From Maia to Aballava (and) Uxelodunum, to Camboglannae, Banna, (and beyond)." |
| MAIA | Bowness on Solway, Cumbria | NY:2262 |
| ABALLAVA | Burgh by Sands, Cumbria | NY:3259 |
| VXELODVNVM | Stanwix, Cumbria | NY:4057 |
| CAMBOGLANNA? | Castlesteads, Cumbria | NY:5163 |
| BANNA? | Birdoswald, Cumbria | NY:6166 |
Two forts have been missed from this list, LVGVVALIVM (Carlisle), presumably because it lay on the Stanegate and not on the Wall itself, and CONCAVATA (Drumburgh), possibly because at the time that the cup was produced, the fort at Drumburgh did not yet exist.
| To fetch the milk I used to trudge |
| Uphill along the road to Rudge, |
| An antiquated hamlet which |
| In local history has a niche |
| Because it owned, the guidebooks tell, |
| A prehistoric Sacred Well, |
| And careless Romans from the Wall |
| Let a precious brass cup fall |
| Among the bones and odds and ends |
| Dropped by other careless friends... |
A vessel which provides further valuable epigraphic evidence for place-names on the Wall, was discovered in 1949 at Amiens in France, and bears a close similarity to the Wiltshire drinking-bowl. The French item is a patera or Roman cooking-pan inscribed with much the same lettering as the Rudge Cup but with an extra addition:
| MAIS ABALLAVA VXELODVNVM CAMBOGS BANNA ESICA |
|---|
| "From Maia (to) Aballava, Uxelodunum, Camboglannae, Banna, Aesica (and beyond)." |
As can be seen (vide supra), the Amiens Skillet also names AESICA (Great Chesters, Northumberland), which is the next fort eastwards along the Wall from Banna, the manufacturers of the vessel having again ignored an intermediate fort on the Stanegate, this time MAGNIS (Carvoran, Northumberland).
It has been suggested that the Rudge Cup and the Amiens Skillet were both produced by the same manufacturer, who was himself located somewhere near the Wall's western end, possibly at Carlisle. It is very likely that these vessels, and perhaps many others yet to be discovered, were sold to Roman sightseers as mementoes of their visit to Hadrian's great monument.
