Call made for legion of help; Local people are invited to join digs.

Byline: By Tony Henderson

A PROJECT to re-explore what was once a cosmopolitan and bustling Roman centre in Northumberland is to get off to a roaring start.

Archaeologist Dr Mike Bishop has set up the Coria Project to find out more about the extensive Roman site at Corbr idge.

The community archaeology project would involve local volunteers in excavation, sorting finds and trawling through records.

Corbridge was a booming commercial base with its own garrison which, as well as being near Hadrian's Wall, is thought to have been closely linked to Roman expansion into Scotland.

The project will be launched tomorrow with a day school open to the public on the subject of the best-known celebrity from Roman Corbridge.

A sculpture known as the Corbridge Lion was unearthed exactly a century ago as part of a series of digs on the site which continued from 1906 until they were ended by the First World War.

The sandstone statue of a male lion standing over a prone stag, apparently pausing to let out a defiant roar before devouring his victim, is one of the star exhibits at the Roman site, which is run by English Heritage. Originally a funerary ornament on the tomb of a wealthy individual, the lion was later adapted - with a water pipe poked through his mouth - as a fountain in a richly decorated building overlooking the Tyne.

It is thought the building, next to the Roman bridge over the Tyne at Corbridge, may have been a posting station which offered accommodation and a change of horses for travelling officials.

The sculpture probably dates from the Second Century and is described by Dr Jon Coulston, an expert on the sculpture of the northern frontiers of the Roman empire, as "the most exciting and vibrant piece of Roman funerary art ever to have been recovered from Britain".

The day school will be at Corbridge Parish Hall from 10am to 5pm. People can turn up on the day. It will feature speakers on the early excavations, the art of sculpture and the role of lions in the Roman world. Admission is pounds 7.

Leading figures in the pre-First World War digs were Leonard Woolley, who went on to excavate sites such as Ur in Mesopotamia, and Robert Forster, a lawyer from Backworth in North Tyneside, who was also a historical novelist.

Dr Bishop has worked on publishing the reports from excavations at Corbridge from 1947-80, and now hopes to sink trial trenches in areas which were dug before 1914 and are now farmland.

The English Heritage site is only the central part of the settlement, which extends to about 17 acres.

"Corbridge is a very exciting site and there were people there from all over the Roman Empire," said Dr Bishop, who will seek Heritage Lottery funding for the project.

CAPTION(S):

FAMOUS FIND: The lion and stag statue at the Roman fort in Corbridge.