However, it will not be forgotten, as a book of verse inspired by its collections will be launched at the same time as the artefacts are transferred out of the former coke testing station on the campus, to the new Great North Museum.

Commissioned from poet Maureen Almond and richly illustrated, the book contains 28 poems about Roman items - from the famous Aemelia finger ring found at Corbridge, to a bronze figurine of Hercules, with one arm raised as if about to strike.

“Like most men of Shields he loves clubbing / chasing daughters of the night beyond dusk,” reads the poem about the latter.

“I’d like people to see them not just as objects that have been dug out of the ground, but as poignant reminders of the men and women who might have worked with them, worn them, worshipped them or gone into battle with them as part of everyday life in Roman Britain,” said Maureen, who is studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at the university.

The collections will be open to a wider audience at the Great North Museum, currently under development on the site of the Hancock Museum. The £26m museum is scheduled to open in 2009.

The poetry collection, Recollections, is available from the Museum of Antiquities. It is published by Flambard Press and is priced £10.