Professor Anne Strachan Robertson, M.A., D.Litt., F.M.A.

Anne Robertson was born in Glasgow on 3 May 1910, and educated at Hillhead High School, Glasgow High School for Girls and Glasgow University, where she won the Cowan Medal and graduated with a first in history. In 1933 she studied for an M.A. at London University under Mortimer Wheeler and gained practical experience in the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum. Back home in Glasgow, she was appointed Dalrymple Lecturer in archaeology in 1939 and in 1952 under-keeper of the Hunterian Museum and curator of the Hunter Coin Cabinet. As a student her scrupulous attention to minutiae had impressed her teachers and it was this quality hat made her an ideal numismatist. When Robertson joined the Hunterian Museum, S. N. Miller had recently deposited the material from his extensive excavations on the Antonine Wall and to her fell the task of ordering and displaying the small finds. Her knowledge of these was not purely academic, since she had always been an active worker in the field. A member of the Glasgow Archaeological Society she assisted, during the summer of 1937, in the survey of Castledykes, near Lanark, the first operation in the Society's ambitious project to investigate all the Roman roads and forts in south-western Scotland. Fieldwork lapsed during the war but in 1947 Robertson undertook an emergency excavation on the eastern slope of Golden Hill, Duntocher, in Dunbartonshire, a Roman site that had intrigued antiquaries since the eighteenth century and was now threatened by a housing scheme. Her notable discoveries led to further work between 1948-51, revealing the exact site of the fort. Her report, An Antonine Fort: Golden Hill, Duntocher, (1957), describes the development of the fort and the structures associated with it. In 1949 the resumed air surveys of Dr J. K. St Joseph, begun in 1939, led to the discovery of a number of unrecorded Roman sites in Nithsdale and Galloway and, by any standards, these were exciting times for the Scottish archaeologist. Robertson returned to Castledykes in 1950 when her excavations proved the presence there of soldiers of the Second Legion and evidence of a temporary structure preceding the permanent Flavian fort. The Roman Fort at Castledykes, was published in 1964. In 1962 the Scottish universities, together with the Scottish Regional Group of the Council for British Archaeology, founded the Scottish Field School of Archaeology on the Roman site at Birrens, Dumfriesshire, appointing Robertson director for a period of five seasons, later extended to six. The site offered opportunities for students to examine the rampart sections, investigate stone buildings and handle pottery and other finds, but it was not expected to produce results of outstanding archaeological importance. How wrong this was is described in Robertson's final monograph, Birrens (Blatobulgium) (1975). She was always an enthusiastic supporter of the Council for Scottish Archaeology and established the Robertson Awards for achievement and sound practice in archaeology. Glasgow Archaeological Society elected her president for its centenary celebrations in 1955-6; she was one of the first arts-orientated Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the last surviving speaker from the inaugural meeting of the Limeskongress in 1949, and a regular contributor to it. Robertson was promoted to Reader in Roman Archaeology and Keeper of the Cultural Collections and the Hunter Coin Cabinet in 1964 and, the year before her retirement in 1975, the University awarded her a titular professorship in Roman Archaeology. Although Robertson was probably an archaeologist at heart, her numismatic achievement was considerable. Sylloge of Anglo-Saxon Coins in the Hunter Coin Cabinet, was published in 1961 by the British Academy and her five-volume Catalogue of Roman Imperial Coins in the Hunter Coin Cabinet (1962-82) was an important element in the classification of the miscellaneous collection bequeathed to Glasgow University in 1783. The Royal Numismatic Society awarded her its Silver Medal in 1964 and the American Numismatic Society its Silver Huntington Medal in 1970. Her long retirement was spent in homely pursuits with her sisters and their families, church work and service to the Samaritans. She died in Glasgow on 4 October 1997.