Britain’s Stanwick Oppidum: Capital Of Queen Cartimandua And The Brigantes?
Britain's Iron Age landscape conceals many secrets and has many tales to tell and few stories are more dramatic than that of the Brigantes and their queen Cartimandua, when the Romans arrived in Britain. A contemporary of Boudicca, Cartimandua faced the same choice: to fight the invaders or o cooperate with them. Cartimandua is the first recorded female ruler in Britain, yet her choice to ally herself with the Romans has meant that history has condemned her ever since.
Roman legions landing in Britain (Erica Guilane-Nachez / Adobe Stock)
Cartimandua’s life, her people and her origins are, like so much of this era, shrouded in mystery. It is unknown if Cartimandua was her Celtic name, as the Romans very often ignored ‘barbarian’ names and simply gave people Roman ones and she survives only in the writings of the Romans, as the Brigantes themselves had no written language or culture. Historians are therefore forced to rely on archaeological evidence and the words of Rome when searching for Cartimandua and the Brigantes. Surprisingly, archaeology has yielded some tantalizing information not least from the Iron Age site at Stanwick, which is now believed to have been Cartimanduas’ capital.
