'The western edge of the world': the ancient Greek who voyaged to York

So it’s a little humbling to realize that, back in the day, York was regarded as being … well, nothing but a far-flung outpost at the edge of the known world.

Two small copper-alloy tablets in the Yorkshire Museum that are almost 2,000 years old give a vivid clue as to just how remote and backward a place this was considered to be by the Romans.

They date from the first century AD – when the Romans had only just arrived to found the Roman city of Eboracum (York).

Inscriptions in ancient Greek are picked out on them, the words spelled out using punched dots.

And one of them is dedicated, by a Greek named Demetrius, to ‘Oceanus and Tethys’, Greek gods of the sea and of rivers respectively.

It has long been thought that Demetrius might be the very Demetrius of Tarsus who, according to the Roman historian Plutarch, had been sent to Britain by the Roman emperor to observe for himself how the empire’s newest and most far-flung province was getting on.

That inscription certainly looks suspiciously like a vote of thanks to the gods for a safe arrival across the sea to these far-flung shores, admits York archaeologist Peter Addyman.

The ancient votive plaque at the Yorkshire Museum which was inscribed by Demetrius almost 2,000 years ago 'to Oceanus and Tethys' (Image: York Museums Trust (Yorkshire Museum))

“It’s quite extraordinary,” he said. “There’s this chap from way, way across the empire, sent by the emperor, and he must have come to York, and he is thanking the gods for crossing the ocean!”

But is the Demetrius who inscribed those tablets nearly 2,000 years ago really the same one who was sent by the emperor on a mission to Britain?

A scholarly new article by academic Kelsey Koon in the latest edition of The Archaeological Journal concludes that he probably was.

The tablets were discovered in 1840 during archaeological investigations connected with the building of the ‘old’ railway station inside York’s city walls.

They appear to be of about the right age to have been dedicated by Demetrius of Tarsus – a man who, according to Plutarch, had ‘by the emperor’s order… made voyage for inquiry and observation’ and who had recently journeyed ‘homeward to Tarsus from Britain’.

The debate over whether they were inscribed by Demetrius of Tarsus himself has raged in scholarly circles for over a century.

But in her paper in The Archaeological Journal, Ms Koon marshals impressive evidence to conclude that they were.

“The use of the Greek language, the military-style inscription format … bring to mind a native Greek speaker embedded in the military enclave of York,” she writes.

“Demetrius of Tarsus, an educated scholar with Greek roots on an official imperial mission… would certainly fit the bill.”

Further evidence lies in the punched dots used for the Greek inscription.

The second of the tablets at the Yorkshire Museum, this one inscribed by Demetrius 2,000 years ago to 'the gods of the hegemon's headquarters' (Image: York Museums Trust (Yorkshire Museum))

The York plaques are the only known examples of this in Britain – but the style is similar to that used in tablets found in the Near East, from where Demetrius hailed.

As a Greek, Demetrius would also have been familiar with Alexander the Great’s altars in India, which bore similar inscriptions.

“(He) perhaps saw himself doing the same thing at the western edge of the known world that Alexander had done at its eastern limit,” Ms Koon writes.

“Given the uniqueness of these votives…it seems that these tablets can in fact be attributed to Demitrius of Tarsus.”