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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I commend his bolshiness but not his solution which is obvious rubbish. No civil engineer would build 112 miles of trench and then not bother to put a road in it. First off, the trench is the expensive bit so abandoning it at that stage is potty. Secondly, nobody builds a whole project in one stage and then the whole project in the next stage. You have different contractors working on different bits, at different speeds, prioity sections first. Especially if it is true the vallum is unique in the Roman Empire so they would need trial sections to see how it goes.
Try this for size. The vallum was there pre-Roman and is why the Romans built the Wall there. Never forget the AE dictum: if A causes B on the sole grounds of propinquity, always check out whether B causes A.. It's just as propinquitous.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | I commend his bolshiness but not his solution which is obvious rubbish. No civil engineer would build 112 miles of trench and then not bother to put a road in it. First off, the trench is the expensive bit so abandoning it at that stage is potty. |
Geoff has an explanation for this. The wall was designed to prevent invasions from the Barbarian north, however the Romans were forced to retreat southwards after pressures from the North and elsewhere in the Empire..... It's a new idea in an...... old setting, eg the traditional frontier understanding of the wall.
| Mick Harper wrote: | | Secondly, nobody builds a whole project in one stage and then the whole project in the next stage. You have different contractors working on different bits, at different speeds, prioity sections first. Especially if it is true the vallum is unique in the Roman Empire so they would need trial sections to see how it goes. |
Yes I wondered if it was unique, as I have consistently found things that are claimed unique but turn up elsewhere, cf whetstone Sutton Hoo. What is unique, if proven, would be the current orthodox explanation (not Carter's) of a "u" shaped ditch situated behind the wall(!)...a sort of second line of defence to further slow the attack.... as opposed to a "v" shape in front.
| Mick Harper wrote: |
Try this for size. The vallum was there pre-Roman and is why the Romans built the Wall there. Never forget the AE dictum: if A causes B on the sole grounds of propinquity, always check out whether B causes A.. It's just as propinquitous. |
Yes did think about this, but the evidence goes against.
| wiki wrote: | | The Vallum is known to have been constructed some time after the wall was completed, as it deviates to the south around several wall-forts which were either completed or under construction when the wall was nearing completion.[7] There would have been a crossing-point like a causeway or bridge to the south of each wall-fort—several such causeways are known, such as the one at Condercum in Benwell, a western suburb of Newcastle. Causeways have also been detected to the south of several milecastles.[8] |
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Why would there be a need for another road for military and communications purposes when there already existed, south of the Wall, the 'Military Road' and the pre-wall Stanegate Road?
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| aurelius wrote: | Why would there be a need for another road for military and communications purposes when there already existed, south of the Wall, the 'Military Road' and the pre-wall Stanegate Road?
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Precisely, that is the question.
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What about the Vallum being a tranportation canal that was never completed? Envisaged as a means of shifting heavy goods/equipment E-W-E out of sight of the north? Would save on personnel.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Why never completed? Could you tell?
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| aurelius wrote: | | What about the Vallum being a tranportation canal that was never completed? Envisaged as a means of shifting heavy goods/equipment E-W-E out of sight of the north? Would save on personnel. |
That's my feeling, it must be understood E-W-E.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Or having to sail round the north of Scotland.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Well orthodoxy sees it as part of a N-S defence system.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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But I don't buy into this, the marauding hordes drive the Romans back ...then hey come along a Emperor later and we are back up north building the Antonine wall in Scotland, err, without a Vallum in the rear.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Or having to sail round the north of Scotland. |
When this proved to be uneconomic, they built the Antonine Wall and vallum, between Edinburgh and Glasgow, where it was much easier. I don't know how they got on up there.
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| aurelius wrote: | | What about the Vallum being a tranportation canal |
Although the Wall continued east to Wallsend (just over three miles short of Tynemouth) the Vallum did not, stopping short at Elswick, an inner city suburb of Newcastle. Coming from the west, this is about as close as the Wall gets to the Tyne. Orthodoxy argues that if the Vallum served as the southern boundary of the militarised area then from this point the Tyne itself would serve as the continuation of the same. On the other hand if the Vallum was intended to be a canal, Elswick may have been the potential junction with the river.
Unfortunately for this idea of mine no excavation yet made has shown a lining to the ditch, or any reinforcing works which would have strengthened both it and the theory.
Interestingly these observations were made in The Antiquary volume 28, p.79-80 (1893), in Excavation of the Vallum:
| Mr. Fenwick Charlton deserved thanks for giving his engineering experience in superintending the excavations. Canon Greenwell said the first cutting of the vallum had turned out to be of a most valuable character. It had proved conclusively that the mounds and the ditch were all done at the same time. If the mounds were thrown up by the Romans, of which he had no doubt, the bronze axe-head had nothing to do with the people who threw up the works, because bronze had been in disuse for centuries before the Romans set foot on British ground. The axe-head was a characteristic specimen of the Bronze period. He suggested it had found its way into the vallum by being taken up with the surface soil of the adjoining country. The flint scraper had probably got into the mound in the same way. |
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| aurelius wrote: | Why would there be a need for another road for military and communications purposes when there already existed, south of the Wall, the 'Military Road' and the pre-wall Stanegate Road?
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Note though that Stanegate (why is it called stonegate?) does not fully cross E-W-E | Wiki wrote: | The Stanegate, or "stone road" (Old Norse), was an important Roman road built in what is now northern England. It linked two forts that guarded important river crossings; Corstopitum (Corbridge) in the east, situated on Dere Street, and Luguvalium (Carlisle) in the west. The Stanegate ran through the natural gap formed by the valleys of the Tyne and Irthing. It predated Hadrian's Wall by several decades; the Wall would later follow a similar route, slightly to the north.
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.[1] |
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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The alignment between wall and vallum point to the fact they are part of the same project so it's not what came first, A or B? It's (AB)
Something like a motorway and service stations, where the service stations get built first, as they already have a partially effective road.
Before, during and after (when it does not get completed) they are travelling down stanegate.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Well, on the question of whether A causes B or B causes A, perhaps someone would care to point out the significance of this (which transforms the whole matter).
| The Stanegate ran through the natural gap formed by the valleys of the Tyne and Irthing. It predated Hadrian's Wall by several decades; the Wall would later follow a similar route, slightly to the north. | |
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