Above: Vindolanda Bath HouseBelow: Hadrians Wall as seen from Housesteads Fort
We stayed a night in Hexham after we went to see the reindeer.
Hexham is a small town near to Hardrians' Wall, and we thought it'd be a good idea to overnight it there before taking off to have a look.
First stop was the Housesteads Fort. Amy (who had seen enough "stones in the ground")decided she'd like a walk and trooped on foot to Vindolanda, about four miles walk away while I basically ran from feature to feature (Via Praefectorum to Latrines to Barracks...) before jumping in the car and driving over to meet her.
Vindolanda is a very large site - large enough that the archaeologists expect to not finish up there for something like another two hundred years.
To give you an idea of the complexity of the site, before the stone fort complex was built, there had been something like seven iterations of wood-built fortification on the site, each demolished and then buried to provide a level building surface for the next fort on top as the old one became too rotten to use.
The anaerobic (ie, low in oxygen) soil conditions meant that many organic items survive to this day; this is the sort of thing that's most interesting - old pots are all very well, but there is a magic in looking at 2000 year old leather and textile remains.
Vindolanda is most famous for the letters recovered from the site. Again, preserved due to the soil conditions, they are wooden leaves either written on in ink, or else, a waxen layer is inscribed with a sharp point. These writings are unique in their survival and have no real parallel outside of Egyptian papyrus.
9 comments:
This looks and sounds like a very interesting location. One of those it would be neat to spend a LOT of time exploring.
I hope that you took more photos and will share them with us.
-- Jeff
I did - but I warn you that one looks very much like the rest! A couple of feet of broken wall above a green field!
I've not been t0 the Wall area for many years but it's a wonderful location - almost the whole wall runs through wild northern terrain. It does sound as if you had a very rapid look at it!
Web sites on Vindolanda here: http://www.vindolanda.com/
http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/index.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindolanda
For a quick look at the area a helicopter would probably have been best! :-)
David.
At Housesteads I was literally runing from one part of the fort to the other!
Thanks for the websites, too Dave. Ibought a wonderful little book thats a definitive survey of the Wall, informed by the atest archaeology. It has a new edition every 20 years or so; it's in it's 14th edition currently (latest was in 2006) and is apparently quite collectable.
That wouldn't be J. Collingwood Bruce's Guide to the Wall, would it? Lots of excellent maps, plans, information. :-)
Yes, I remember doing exactly that and running madly round the sites just to try to see everything when I first went - a whistle stop tour!
David.
The very book - "Handbook to the Roman Wall"
vindolanda is an excellent place to visit although I'm always suspicous when something as big as this is privately owned and managed.
There is an excellent drive from Newcastle along the wall that takes in many of the major sites along the way (including the temples and at one point the pick marks where the soldiers dug their way throught the stone.
I'd also reccommend Wallsend and the museum there. recreation of the wall and fort - cavalry barracks - and a complete bath house along with a panoramic view from the gallery.
Fascinating infomration aboout these ruins/sites. My curioisty is piqued!
Best Regards,
Stokes
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