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Legend (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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The history that has been copied down the ages from Gildas, Bede, Heny Huntingdon, et al does not tell us that

Bede obviously identified Gildas's stone wall as Hadrian's Wall, but he sets its construction in the 5th century rather than the 120s, and does not mention Hadrian.

It tells us that the natives had originally built an unsucessful turf wall and prior to leaving....... the Romans close by, built a bettter replacement stone wall. Showing that stone was better than turf.

In fact because the legends passed down as history, up to 1850 the consensus was that what we now see in "our" (well, the modern experts), imagination as a 20 foot high Hadrianic wall was in fact a wall by Septimiuus Severus. Hadrian was only credited with..........the mounds.... and Agricola the vallum.

Giving Hadrian his new wall has led to speculation of where was Severus' wall.

The Wall of Severus is believed to be a defensive fortification built by the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus (reigned AD 193–211) during his military campaigns in northern Britannia in the early 3rd century.[1] Although the structure is mentioned in several classical texts, its precise locations is academically disputed due to inconsistencies between sources. Scholarly consensus believes they are most likely referring to the Antonine Wall. However, Hadrian's Wall and Offa's Dyke have both been suggested as possible candidates. Archaeological evidence has been discovered showing parts of Offa's Dyke, on the England-Wales border, is at least as old as the mid 5th century, predating the 8th-century reign of the Saxon King Offa of Mercia by 300 years.[2]

That's the problem with Jigsaws if you discover you have a picece in the wrong place, and you want to try a second piece, you then have to try and find a new home for the original piece........
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Mick Harper
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In Megalithic Empire we identify all ancient linear constructions as either animal barriers or people-directors. Offa's Dyke is one such and separates England from Wales so there is no reason in principle for a 'wall' between England and Scotland.

But there can be no question that while dykes and curseses can be very long, they simply wouldn't be built on anything like the scale of Hadrian's Wall, no matter how exaggerated modern reconstructions may be. We are looking at a definite people-stopper. Not army-stoppers (fixed defences are never much cop for that) but reiver-stoppers. Twenty mounted men on a briganding expedition would get over the wall all right (surprise, night-time etc), it's bringing it back home that's the problem. They'll be waiting for you.

We are, after all, told that the development of the whole of northern England and southern Scotland was held back and their governance dangerously strengthened (dangerous to London and Edinburgh, I mean) because of reiving. So building a wall is not out of the economic question.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Folks wanting to contribute can post up any example, anywhere, of a military turf wall. They of course don't exist, except as a common literary device to highlight the effectiveness of stone walls. Geoff Carter on theoretical structural archaeology makes this point.

Bede wrote:
The islanders built the wall which they had been told to raise, not of stone, since they had no workmen capable of such a work, but of sods, which made it of no use.

There was no original turf wall.
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Mick Harper
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I would have thought not. I'm trying to envisage one. Turves are quite valuable -- more valuable than stone in many ways -- and, as you indicate, not obviously suitable for long-term purposes. That said, aren't sunken lanes in the west country (and the bocage country in Normandy) delimited on either side by 'banks'?

Did Bede say why the British, living as they did in the epicentre of all things megalithic [mega=big, lithic=made of stone] had rejected their ancient traditions? They're a tiresome people in many ways. Ask anyone.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Mick Harper wrote:
Did Bede say why the British, living as they did in the epicentre of all things megalithic [mega=big, lithic=made of stone] had rejected their ancient traditions? They're a tiresome people in many ways. Ask anyone.


It's a good point, but, and we will find constantly in the Boys Book of Imaginary Battles that current historians think folks won and lost (what are imaginary battles) because they undertook incredibly foolish actions....in this case the primitive islanders, not realising the virtues of stone, built a defensive wall of sods from coast to coast. Ortho still believes that the ancients and the Romans used turf walls. Here is a snippet from Wiki on a part of "Hadrians wall"

wiki wrote:
Turf wall
From Milecastle 49 to the western terminus of the wall at Bowness-on-Solway, the curtain wall was originally constructed from turf, possibly due to the absence of limestone for the manufacture of mortar.[21] Subsequently, the Turf Wall was demolished and replaced with a stone wall. This took place in two phases; the first (from the River Irthing to a point west of Milecastle 54), during the reign of Hadrian, and the second following the reoccupation of Hadrian's Wall subsequent to the abandonment of the Antonine Wall (though it has also been suggested that this second phase took place during the reign of Septimius Severus). The line of the new stone wall follows the line of the turf wall, apart from the stretch between Milecastle 49 and Milecastle 51, where the line of the stone wall is slightly further to the north.[21]

In the stretch around Milecastle 50TW, it was built on a flat base with three to four courses of turf blocks.[22] A basal layer of cobbles was used westwards from Milecastle 72 (at Burgh-by-Sands) and possibly at Milecastle 53.[23] Where the underlying ground was boggy, wooden piles were used.[21]

At its base, the now-demolished turf wall was 6 metres (20 feet) wide, and built in courses of turf blocks measuring 46 cm (18 inches) long by 30 cm (12 inches) deep by 15 cm (6 inches) high, to a height estimated at around 3.66 metres (12.0 feet). The north face is thought to have had a slope of 75%, whereas the south face is thought to have started vertical above the foundation, quickly becoming much shallower.[21]


Bede wrote:
The islanders built the wall which they had been told to raise, not of stone, since they had no workmen capable of such a work, but of sods, which made it of no use.

According to Bede (or whatever later copyist), this imaginary bit of Hadrian sod wall would have been of no military use........according to Carter there is no archaeological evidence for any turf wall.

Ortho wants an ancient turf wall. So the current version is something like the Antonine wall is a turf wall (it isn't and it's Roman)... so this must be the first wall that Bede is referring to, and as the Romans retreated south they reoccupied the old better Hadrianic stone wall, which was presumably by now in disrepair.

Henc the earlier wiki quote


wiki wrote:
Gildas and Bede
Writing in AD 730, Bede, following Gildas in his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, mistakenly ascribes the construction of the Antonine Wall to the Britons in his Historia Ecclesiastica 1.12:

The islanders built the wall which they had been told to raise, not of stone, since they had no workmen capable of such a work, but of sods, which made it of no use. Nevertheless, they carried it for many miles between the two bays or inlets of the sea of which we have spoken; to the end that where the protection of the water was wanting, they might use the rampart to defend their borders from the irruptions of the enemies. Of the work there erected, that is, of a rampart of great breadth and height, there are evident remains to be seen at this day [AD 730]. It begins at about two miles' distance from the monastery of Aebbercurnig [Abercorn], west of it, at a place called in the Pictish language Peanfahel, but in the English tongue, Penneltun [Kinneil], and running westward, ends near the city of Aicluith [Dumbarton].[20]

Bede associated Gildas's turf wall with the Antonine Wall. As for Hadrian's Wall, Bede again follows Gildas:

[the departing Romans] thinking that it might be some help to the allies [Britons], whom they were forced to abandon, constructed a strong stone wall from sea to sea, in a straight line between the towns that had been there built for fear of the enemy, where Severus also had formerly built a rampart.[20]

Bede obviously identified Gildas's stone wall as Hadrian's Wall, but he sets its construction in the 5th century rather than the 120s, and does not mention Hadrian. And he would appear to have believed that the ditch-and-mound barrier known as the Vallum (just to the south of, and contemporary with, Hadrian's Wall) was the rampart constructed by Severus. Many centuries would pass before just who built what became apparent.[21]


What both ortho and revisionists fail to realise is that the concept of the early turf wall is a fiction, and there is in fact only one wall which was undertaken at the narowest point
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Wile E. Coyote


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Say it quietly but.....

The Romans walled major cities and towns in areas they saw as vulnerable, and parts of many walls remain incorporated in later defences, as at Córdoba (2nd century BC), Chester (earth and wood in the 70s AD, stone from c. 100), and York (from 70s AD). Strategic walls defending the frontiers of the Empire by running across open country were far rarer, and Hadrian's Wall (from 122) and the Antonine Wall (from 142, abandoned only 8 years after completion) are the most significant examples, both on the Pictish frontier. Most defences of the borders of the Roman Empire relied on systems of forts and roads without attempting a continuous barrier.


Run that by me again.

I am just aware of 2 Roman walls claiming to be continous running across country.

If folks can provide others that would be good.

The reason is clear: forts and roads are more effective which is the given reason why the Romans built Stangate..........
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Mick Harper
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There's something called the limes in Germany but I've always fought shy. I'm still intrigued by these 'wood and earth ramparts'. We should get some of these 'reconstruction archaeologists' to build us some. If they can stop knapping flints for five minutes and be tempted out of their round houses (made of ... )
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Wile E. Coyote


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Bede wrote:


[the departing Romans] thinking that it might be some help to the allies [Britons], whom they were forced to abandon, constructed a strong stone wall from sea to sea, in a straight line between the towns that had been there built for fear of the enemy, where Severus also had formerly built a rampart.[20]



The Romans walled major cities and towns in areas they saw as vulnerable, and parts of many walls remain incorporated in later defences, as at Córdoba (2nd century BC), Chester (earth and wood in the 70s AD, stone from c. 100), and York (from 70s AD). Strategic walls defending the frontiers of the Empire by running across open country were far rarer, and Hadrian's Wall (from 122) and the Antonine Wall (from 142, abandoned only 8 years after completion) are the most significant examples, both on the Pictish frontier. Most defences of the borders of the Roman Empire relied on systems of forts and roads without attempting a continuous barrier.


Given their singular, previous and unfortunate experience with a continuos wall this might not have been as helpful a gesture from the Romans as Bede thought.......
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Wile E. Coyote


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wiki wrote:
The Stanegate (meaning "stone road" in Northumbrian dialect[1]) was an important Roman road built in what is now northern England. It linked two forts that guarded important river crossings: Corstopitum (Corbridge) on the River Tyne in the east, and situated on Dere Street, and Luguvalium (Carlisle) on the River Eden in the west. The Stanegate ran through the natural gap formed by the valleys of the River Tyne in Northumberland and the River Irthing in Cumbria. It predated Hadrian's Wall by several decades; the Wall would later follow a similar route, slightly to the north.

The Stanegate should not be confused with the two Roman roads called Stane Street in the south of England, namely Stane Street (Chichester) and Stane Street (Colchester). In both these cases the meaning is the same as for the northern version, indicating a stone or paved road.

The Stanegate differed from most other Roman roads in that it often followed the easiest gradients, and so tended to weave around, whereas typical Roman roads follow a straight path, even if this sometimes involves having punishing gradients to climb.[2]


It's a case of once you have conquered an area connecting the dots, what would you choose: a wall/ a straight road/ a winding road ?

wiki wrote:
Much of the Stanegate provided the foundation for the Carelgate (or Carlisle Road), a medieval road running from Corbridge market place and joining the Stanegate west of Corstopitum. The Carelgate eventually deteriorated to such an extent that it was unusable by coaches and wagons. In 1751–1752, a new Military Road was built by General George Wade in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745.[4]

This tells us what happens in the event of an uprising.

General Wade built the Military Road (Not to be confused with the so called Roman Military way....). To rebuild Stonegate/Carolgate he needed hardcore for the construction of the road so he used what was available. As this was a military road he of course built straight and took stone from the local eviroment The Military Road runs close to the Wall from Heddon to Greenhead, a distance of 30 miles.

If the Romans had wanted to leave the Britains safer, they would surely have prioritised a straight functional military road from coast to coast rather than a wall.

[the departing Romans] thinking that it might be some help to the allies [Britons], whom they were forced to abandon, constructed a strong stone wall from sea to sea, in a straight line between the towns that had been there built for fear of the enemy, where Severus also had formerly built a rampart.[20]

Wiley reckons this was written by someone who either lived in a castle or a walled city.......
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Wile E. Coyote


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The idea of a continuous Roman militray wall from coast to coast to protect a national border is myth. If the Romans had attempted it, it would have been done at the shortest point at the site of the Antonine wall.

Orthodoxy has asked the question which of these walls was the famous, imperal posh Hadrianic wall, mentioned in the historical sources... the answer is neither.
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Wile E. Coyote


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THe Romans were faced with two options they could like General Wade update Stanegate, a longer winding road civilian road suitable for carts and animals, which were unable to manage steeper gradients.

Or, to build a straighter connecting military road in front of Stanegate but still behind the forts and milecastles which would enable the fastest movement of troops
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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I can tell this thread is creating a real buzz......
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Mick Harper
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Don't do an Ishmael on us. We're all begging to be led. You just won't say where. Or how we can help. Or how much you are prepared to bung us. It's a harsh world out there, sonny, I don't make the rules.
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Wile E. Coyote


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It is indeed. Still chin up Wiley, there is now a thriving market for non-alcoholic beer.
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Mick Harper
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Let me know if they bring back beer-flavoured water which, unlike alcohol-free beer, was dirt cheap, had nil calories and didn't require rooting through drawers looking for a bottle opener. The taste? Couldn't tell the difference.
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