Through chance finds, formal excavations, looting, and dredging operations, several pieces of intact, fully functional Roman weapons and armor have been recovered from aquatic contexts in Gaul and Britain dating from the first century B.C.E to late first century C.E. Some scholars have attempted to explain the phenomenon as a series of accidental losses, while others allude to intentional deposition.[1]Although one cannot completely disregard accidental loss, the facts that military equipment was both expensive and heavily regulated and the veneration of water played an important role in Roman religion suggests that, in the majority of cases, gear found in water was a result of a conscious act, most likely of religious nature.
