DEVANA

Possible Roman Fort
Probable Romano-British Settlement

Aberdeen, Grampian

NGRef: NJ9505 OSMap: LR38 Type: Possible Fort, Probable Settlement.
Roads
Possible Road: SW (36) to Stracathro (Tayside)

Devana - The Town on the Dee

Aberdeen is located, as its modern name implies,¹ at the mouth of the River Dee, in the Grampian region of Scotland. Its strategic location at the mouth of a major river valley extending into the heart of the highland massif and blessed with excellent natural mooring facilities would have made it an ideal military site for Roman campaigns into the far north of Scotland. Although no evidence of any kind of Roman encampment has ever been recorded here, it is possible that one nontheness existed at one time or another.

1. From Gaelic/Welsh aber 'river-mouth', and a contraction of the original Celtic river name Devana.

We have two classical references naming Aberdeen; Ptolemy's Geography of the second century AD names Devana as the only polis ascribed to the Taexali tribe of the eastern Grampian coast; whereas the Ravenna Cosmology of the seventh century lists the name as Devoni (R&C#215) between the towns Litinomago and Memanturum, both unidentified.

The postulated fort at Devana was occupied perhaps for only a single campaign season in AD84 when the militaristic Roman governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola was earning his reputation against the combined Caledonian tribes. The only other Roman campaigns which were to reach this far north were those conducted by the emperor Septimius Severus and his sons Caracalla and Geta during the years AD208 through 212, but the latter must be discounted as a foundation date because the town was mentioned by Ptolemy in the middle of the previous century. It is feasible, however, that during the Severan campaigns an auxiliary unit may well have re-used an old Agricolan site.

Severan and Agricolan Marching Camps in Grampian

The nearest known Roman military site to the probable Romano-British settlement of Devana is the temporary marching camp at Normandykes, which lies eight miles to the west-south-west on the north bank of the River Dee. This camp is part of a chain of such fortifications which lie in an arc across the coastal foothills of the Grampian Mountains, from Balmakewan outside Montrose thirty miles to the south-west, to Bellie overlooking Spey Bay on the northern Grampian coast, over fifty miles away to the north-east. These camps, many of which are neatly spaced an easy day's march apart, have been dated to the Agricolan Campaigns of the late-first century and the Severan campaigns of the early-third century.

See: Historical Map and Guide - Roman Britain by the Ordnance Survey (3rd, 4th & 5th eds., 1956, 1994 & 2001).

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