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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Go on.....
My assumption was that this was an ancient road/track they built over?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Question One: why would you build a wall from the Solway Firth to the Tyne estuary?
Answer: because it is the narrowest point of mid-Britain.
Question Two: why would you build a road from the Solway Firth to the Tyne estuary?
Answer: you wouldn't. Not in a bunch of Sundays.
Question Three: why would you build a road from the Solway Firth to the Tyne estuary if there was a wall there?
Answer: to service the wall.
| The Stanegate predated Hadrian's Wall by several decades | |
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Stanegate = pre-existing track, may be as ancient as the Ridgeway, atypical of Roman road building.
Military Road = to service building the Wall initially, then to facilitate troop, supplies & equipment movement.
Vallum =? Not suitable for servicing the Wall, especially with the spoil heap between, & does not extend full length of the Wall anyway.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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You are either missing the point or re-iterating it
| Stanegate = pre-existing track, may be as ancient as the Ridgeway, atypical of Roman road building. |
It matters nought when it was built. Nobody in their right mind would build a trackway from the Solway Firth to the Tyne estuary. (Unless you can think of a reason.)
| Military Road = to service building the Wall initially, then to facilitate troop, supplies & equipment movement. |
Of course. But according to your own map the military road has nothing to do with the Stanegate (except propinquity) and was built according to orthodoxy 'several decades' after the Stanegate.
| Vallum =? Not suitable for servicing the Wall, especially with the spoil heap between, & does not extend full length of the Wall anyway. |
Well then, follow your own logic. The vallum has no connection with the Wall (except propinquity), and must therefore be connected with the Stanegate. You now have to work out which is A and which is B for the vallum and the Stanegate.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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After that you have to work out which is A and which is B so far as the Wall/military road and vallum/Stanegate is concerned. But we already know that because the Wall/military road was built after the vallum/Stanegate. So it's why.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | Question Three: why would you build a road from the Solway Firth to the Tyne estuary if there was a wall there?
Answer: to service the wall. |
Build a wall, a road will come.
Is it not possible that the wall was there as a navigation marker?
Let's say I want to deliver goods to for shipment from either the Solway Firth or to the Tyne Estuary. I don't know how to get to either place. So how do I find them? If I live south of the wall, I walk north. If I live north of the wall, I walk south. Once I reach the wall, I turn east or west depending on my port of choice. Simple system.
Why not build a road? Because a road might be missed. One could walk past it in the night or in fog or in heavy rain---or even if one stumbled upon a poorly maintained portion of the road. But a wall would stop you in your tracks.
But you soon get a road anyway. As people and wagons and animals follow along the wall, they build a road as they go. The result is actually two roads. One south of the wall, made by people who met the wall headed north; and one north of the wall, made by people who met the wall headed south. The northern road will be less firmly established than the southern, as fewer people live to its north.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Build a wall, a road will come. |
The whole point is that the road predates the wall by 'several decades' (probably much longer). Build a road and the wall will come apparently.
| Is it not possible that the wall was there as a navigation marker? |
What's wrong with flagpoles?
| Let's say I want to deliver goods to for shipment from either the Solway Firth or to the Tyne Estuary. |
But this was my point -- the Solway Firth is nowheresville, the Tyne is nowheresville and above all Solway Firth to Tyne is a journey nobody would ever undertake. So why build a road, a wall, a vallum, an anything between the two?
| I don't know how to get to either place. So how do I find them? If I live south of the wall, I walk north. If I live north of the wall, I walk south. Once I reach the wall, I turn east or west depending on my port of choice. Simple system. |
So simple that we pointed out this is how it was done in the Megalithic Empire. With cursuses. Which are about a hundredth the cost of walls.
| Why not build a road? Because a road might be missed. |
Run that past me again?
| One could walk past it in the night or in fog or in heavy rain |
Anyone who walks cross county at night, in the fog or in the rain is a dickhead.
| or even if one stumbled upon a poorly maintained portion of the road. But a wall would stop you in your tracks. |
If you could afford to build and maintain a wall, you could build and maintain ten roads.
| But you soon get a road anyway. As people and wagons and animals follow along the wall, they build a road as they go. |
Possibly but as |I pointed out nobody wants to go to Solway or Tyne in the first place. The wall would simply get in the way if you were making any other journey.
| The result is actually two roads. One south of the wall, made by people who met the wall headed north; and one north of the wall, made by people who met the wall headed south. The northern road will be less firmly established than the southern, as fewer people live to its north. |
So now we have a central reservation. I quite like that.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: |
So simple that we pointed out this is how it was done in the Megalithic Empire. With cursuses. Which are about a hundredth the cost of walls. |
That's where I stole the idea.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Lets recap.
Orthodoxy says that the Vallum is a unique defensive structure, a sort of reserve defensive system behind Hadrian's Wall. Your heathen hordes have come down to rape the cattle and steal the wives etc....they breakthrough the Wall so need to be slowed down by the ditch before the Army (who have desperately signalled from the wall) arrive.....
Geoff Carter says no it's a road. Auro is going for a dip in a canal.
I called it Hadrian's Road......This gives it equal status to the wall. But I made a mistake. It is more important than the wall. The Romans don't normally build stone walls, as fortifications. No you throw up a great earthern barrier coast to coast like the Antonine wall.
The Antonine Wall, known to the Romans as Vallum Antonini, was a turf fortification on stone foundations, built by the Romans across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde. Representing the northernmost frontier barrier of the Roman Empire, it spanned approximately 63 kilometres (39 miles) and was about 3 metres (10 feet) high and 5 metres (16 feet) wide. Security was bolstered by a deep ditch on the northern side. It is thought that there was a wooden palisade on top of the turf. The barrier was the second of two "great walls" created by the Romans in Northern Britain. Its ruins are less evident than the better-known Hadrian's Wall to the south, primarily because the turf and wood wall has largely weathered away, unlike its stone-built southern predecessor.
Construction began in AD 142 at the order of Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius, and took about 12 years to complete. Antoninus Pius never visited Britain, whereas his predecessor Hadrian did. Pressure from the Caledonians may have led Antoninus to send the empire's troops further north. The Antonine Wall was protected by 16 forts with small fortlets between them; troop movement was facilitated by a road linking all the sites known as the Military Way. The soldiers who built the wall commemorated the construction and their struggles with the Caledonians in decorative slabs, twenty of which still survive. The wall was abandoned only eight years after completion, and the garrisons relocated back to Hadrian's Wall.
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So let's forget about any stone wall (or timber wall) That leaves a huge ditch running coast to coast (well almost...some think it was c-c). Who in their right minds would build that ditch/vallum?
Err Offa.......(?)
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Construction .... took about 12 years to complete. .... The wall was abandoned only eight years after completion, and the garrisons relocated back to Hadrian's Wall. |
It sounds to me they had completed the task they were sent to fulfil. and then went home. Whatever that task was.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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One of my favorite bits so far as I research this is how all the experts get taken in by the new discovery and naming of Roman Roads Cities and err new provinces.
A lot of this is down to Charles Bertram......who found a map and medieval manuscript by one Richard of Westminster......
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jul/19/history-roman-map-18th-century-hoax
Once Bertram got into the historical record they couldnt get him out......
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Always wondered about the Pennines/Appenines!
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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Fantastic article Wile!
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | After that you have to work out which is A and which is B so far as the Wall/military road and vallum/Stanegate is concerned. But we already know that because the Wall/military road was built after the vallum/Stanegate. So it's why. |
The vallum as it's dubbed seems to be a drovers' trackway/thru-route, with the 'central reservation' of Stanegate being an obligatory tollpoint and 'service station' cum overnight stop.
Roman, and later, roads are frequently built alongside if not over existing routes, some of which are Megalithic in origin as appears to be the case here. There wouldn't be much point in spending vast amounts on brand new roads to serve sparsely populated areas.
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