The daggers of Deva

Collaborative research on a museum collection 

Archaeology is not just about new discoveries. Museums hold vast collections of artefacts awaiting study, everything from pots to… well, mosaics. Digs conducted in Chester between the 1920s and 1980s produced a wealth of material from the Roman legionary base of Deva, underlying the medieval and modern city. Today the finds are held by Chester’s Grosvenor Museum. Recovered legionary equipment included remains of ten decorated iron daggers from the first century CE. October 2026 sees publication* of a small collaborative research project on these ancient weapons.

David Hare, armourer of the Ermine Street Guard, Britain’s leading Roman military research and re-enactment group, wanted to examine the Chester daggers to understand their construction, and to inform manufacture of replicas for Guard displays. Simon James, professor emeritus in the School and then Guard President, agreed to propose a joint research project to the Grosvenor Museum.

Archaeology curator Julie Edwards kindly lent the material for study in the School. David and Simon examined and photographed the pieces, while Dr Rachel Armitage created x-rays revealing the rust-obscured decorative inlays; used x-ray fluorescence to identify the metals (mainly tin and silver); and undertook microscopy of important details.  

The project revealed the intricate ways the weapons were manufactured, especially their sheaths: riveted assemblies of wooden frame, hinged iron suspension rings, and iron face-plates generally inlaid in geometric patterns. Paradoxically, the most significant results related to the wooden components, despite these having mostly rotted away. Corrosion on several iron sheath-plates preserved mineralised traces of timber-grain, which revealed that the wooden parts had not been carved from single billets, but were assembled from multiple, intricately-shaped elements—probably including thin ply resembling the famous Vindolanda writing-tablets.

This small project has, then, contributed to knowledge on Roman military craftsmanship, and to documentation of the Grosvenor Museum’s collections.

Background articles on the paper by David Hare have been added to the research section of the website

* David Hare, Simon James, and Rachel Armitage, 2025 'Roman military dagger ("pugio") material from Chester legionary base (Deva), UK', Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies, vol. 25/26 (2024/2025), pp. 1–29 - available on Amazon