What Was Life Like At Rome's Most Extreme Frontier? | Lost Treasures of the Ancient World | Odyssey

[Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] for the ancient Romans Hadrian's Wall marked the very edge of the Civilized world in the winter the wind whips in from the north with snow in its teeth this was obviously not going to be the favorite posting for a Mediterranean Soldier to Capital hostile tribes were never far away here they had to stand the last outpost which covered the whole of the known world [Music] imagine a snake 73 miles long ten feet wide 20 feet high built from millions of tons of stone and turn twisting and turning over the landscape from sea to Sea this is where the Romans drew a line as if to save this far and no further creating a division across an entire country this is the mark to show that This Land Is Ours here is the end of civilization behind us are order law and prosperity Beyond this wall are only barbarians the Romans had actually been in occupation up here for nearly 40 years before hadron's wall is built they'd briefly gone into Scotland had to send a lot of troops abroad for other activities withdrew to more or less the same line that Hayden's wall was eventually built on it was a frontier was a basically a lateral Road from Coast to Coast with forts every seven or eight miles along it for a Roman soldier in a mild castle with his comrades gathered from the corners of the Known World Hadrian's Wall represented safety the military might which had forced conquered lands to give up their men to fight Wars on the other side of the world this was the greatest of all Roman fortifications the Roman legionaries were equipped trained and transported by the great Machinery of the legion they faced mysterious hostile lands occupied by bearded and tainted Warriors uncivilized coming and deadly we know the great wall across the north of Britain was ordered to be built by the emperor Hadrian we also know why it was built as his biographer recalls his reasons the britons could no longer be held under control Hadrian was the first to build a wall 80 miles long to separate the Romans and The Barbarians [Applause] Hayden's war is is the most impressive of all Roman artificial Frontiers and Hadrian himself came here and had a look and obviously set nothing in motion because the Romans were getting attacked by rebellious britons at that time there's no question about it but I think the main purpose of of it was it was a statement for internal consumption hadron really wanted something impressive to say this is the end there's going to be no more expansion therefore he made it as elaborate and as impressive as possible history hit is an award-winning streaming platform built by history fans for history fans history hit is your One-Stop shop for Quality ancient history documentaries with exclusive videos about our ancestors from ancient Britain to the hidden secrets of Karnak there's something for everyone we also aim to bring you the stories and legends that shaped our world through our award-winning podcast Network sign up now for a free trial and odyssey fans get 50 off their first three months just be sure to use the code Odyssey at checkout the wall still stands today as a reminder of the power that was wrong a monument to the vibrant and Powerful Empire which extended from Asia to Britain Hayden's decision to build a wall was undoubtedly due to the fact he knew what the countryside was like around here he must have had reports from his surveyors and Engineers now he's basically going from coast to coast and he's taking advantage in the center of the country of the great Rising Windsor Ridge just a little Ridge just a wild Northwest love that it would look totally spectacular and undoubtedly a certain amount of the wall is a reflection of Hadrian's personality it's a big job I mean fancy building a wall nine foot six or so thick 15 20 feet high ludicrous for the job it was supposed to do but he built it because it's a symbol of himself today many of these remains are strikingly well preserved as they wind over Hillside Valiant crack standing against the rain and the cold in Northern Britain the dark Stones contrast with the green of the land in the midst of some of the wildest and most spectacular scenery in the British Isles the sheer magnitude of the operation was an amazing feat of engineering no bulldozers or mechanical diggers were used to dig the ditches and raise the wall there was precious little technology beyond the simple trenching tools and strong arms of the legionris to wield them this expresses so well the essential flavor of Rome and all it stood for at the height of its power here was a confident people making the Brave and Bold decisions to Mark a line from sea to sea with a wall here was an organized people with the vast reserves of Manpower and money to see that it was carried out here were a people with an eye to history itself having built it they seemed ready to stand and guarded for over 300 years over a million cubic yards of stone had to be torn from the ground transported to the site and set in place by the hands of the legionaries it began as a single wall but it evolved in the building by the time it was finished it had become a complicated defensive system what you got to bear in mind about hadron's wall as you see it now is that that is the final version you know ditch wall with its mild castles turrets and forts then a lateral road then the great Vellum and then if to the south of the Vellum of course there's the original Frontier line the road running from Coast to Coast with its forts every seven or eight miles along when the Romans landed in Britain they moved through the countryside constructing their crisscross network of Roads building their Forts and dominating the land the forts were mostly of a similar construction with Earth ramparts raised to surround the buildings Within these ramparts were crossed through wooden gate houses and had watchtowers at the corners set to guard the buildings that lay inside [Music] the layout of these buildings usually followed a set pattern at the front facing the enemy were the barracks and stables for the troops stationed here as well as common rooms for the men that were separate rooms for the Centurion and other officers the barracks range down either side of the central row that led to the headquarters building it was here in a square building built around an open courtyard that the day-to-day activities of the fort were organized on the side of this building was a long narrow Hall with a desk at one end this was the tribunal on which the commander stood to address his men behind this room were a series of smaller rooms Central one of which was usually a shrine and below this Shrine was the fort's strongroom alongside the headquarters building was the Commander's house another Square building around an open courtyard and to the rear were more barracks and the workshops the bath house was usually found outside the fort this was the pattern repeated all over the country an outstanding example of a Roman bath house can be found on the wall itself at Chester's built right next to the river a complicated system of aqueducts brought water straight up into the bathhouse comprehensive excavations have revealed a system of boilers hot rooms warm rooms cold rooms and even changing rooms which paint a complete picture of the Romans love for bathing it was a line of thoughts like this that was first used to Mark the northern Frontier of Roman occupation in Britain this line of thoughts two of which can still be seen at Corbridge and findelanda were linked by a road which we now call the stain gate further south within Striking Distance of the wall were other Roman fortifications this is hard knock fought in the Lake District and its construction follows the classic Roman pattern of building on a chill Winter's day the evocative landscape still gives a glimpse of what it must have been like to be a part of the Garrison in these last outposts of the empire like the wall and the network of ports the Roman roads which connected them were no mean engineering feet in themselves built of layers of stone upon smaller stone with a metaled and cambered surface to let the water drain into the ditches at its side they provided the occupying troops with a quick means of getting from place to place ports were usually built 14 miles or so apart as this was reckoned to be a day's March along a Roman Road by this means the forces of occupation had both the communication structure and the power base to hold Europe the exact reasons why Hadrian decided to replace this well tried and tested system of ports along a road which worked in so many countries with a wall is not clear it was a Crisis general crisis on when hadron became emperor I mean the circumstances were very difficult his predecessor died on his way back from a disastrous campaign in the East he was proclaimed Emperor by the Army he was in command of in Syria and then there were rebellions all around all around the Frontiers including in Britain now I mean as far as Britain is concerned that our source says the britons could not be kept underground and control so you asked the question what what sort of rebellion was it and where was it I think the lindelander tablets have shown to light on that for example there's one tablet which is obviously a report on Britain's who've been conscription to the Roman army and they're described as the naked britons and they're described as a as the britonculi which is a previously unknown word obviously means something like nasty or pathetic little Brits no love was lost between the Romans and these Northern tribes the brigantes salgovia and nivanti these war-like peoples living in the harsh climate of the north of Britain were never really defeated they may have been subdued and pacified but smoldering resentment directed at the invading Romans appears to have been quick to burst into Flame the fact that they kept a large army up here and you're talking of many thousands of men is to a certain extent as a sign that they failed in what they were trying to achieve up here because normally uh by moving an Army in and keeping people under control for a while they sort of civilized those people as they like to call it and they then gradually withdrew their forces as they did in Spain as they did in parts of North African so on here they never succeeded now that is presumably due to the the nature of the people they were dealing with up here a document found at vinderlander close to the wall reveals how these britons appeared to the Romans it has been translated to read the britons are unprotected by armor there are very many Cavalry the Cavalry do not use swords nor do The Wretched britons take up fixed positions in order to throw javelins over the years a number of folk Legends have grown up which include mythical victories over the Romans by barbarians one of these is The Disappearance of the ninth Legion Rosemary Sutcliffe the great children's author used it as a basis for her famous Story the eagle of the night in the book she describes how the ninth Legion marched out of its Barracks near York in the year 117 A.D to deal with an uprising amongst the caledonians and was never heard of again [Music] the sobering facts are rather less flattering to the Barbarian tribes records from this time show that the ninth Legion moved from Lincoln to York when the new Barracks were finished there they did indeed then move further north to do battle with the British tribes this was under the leadership of the then governor of Britain Gaius Julius agrical he is recorded as leading a campaign to civilize the northern tribes during the first year of this campaign he failed to bring the caledonians to battle instead he was attacked himself in a night attack by the tribesmen he lost nearly one-third of his army including elements of the ninth Legion this is probably the incident that has passed into the folklore as the legend of the Lost Legion but like all great myths there is an element of Truth discoveries over recent years have proved that the ninth Legion was actually destroyed in the line of duty but in Syria over 40 years later in 161 A.D if a whole Legion had been lost to the Caledonian tribes it certainly would have been cause for comment a Roman legion of that time consisted of nearly 6 000 men as well as the legionres that were Cavalry auxiliaries and support troops offering all sorts of different trades and skills to keep the Army on the move it would have been extremely rare for all these to have been in the same place at the same time nowadays it's thought that the ninth Legion was probably withdrawn from Britain shortly after 155 A.D at that time relations with the northern tribesmen and the British in general were becoming more settled [Music] they moved to another trouble spot through Holland and Germany where records have been discovered to do battle in the Middle East against the parthians it was during this campaign that they were indeed wiped out a long way from the mountains forests and valleys of Northern Britain thank you [Music] nevertheless the legend of the destruction of the ninth Legion Echoes down through the Mists of time even today people standing on or near the wall have claimed to have heard and seen the ghosts of marching Roman soldiers the legend of the Lost Legion risk continues to hold the popular imagination the general tone of popular myths like these suggest that the Romans were losing the war in this area this was not the case although in order to hold their own the Romans had had to make a series of incursions into Northern Britain Hadrian seems to have simply decided that too many scarce resources were being deployed and that enough was enough he ordered that a line had to be drawn to Mark the Northwestern Frontier of Roman influence it was across the wild Countryside north of the stain gate forts that the wall was built naturally they chose the more defensible parts of that landscape in the absence of a natural barrier such as a river hilltops and ridges were ideal it was Hadrian himself on a visit to Britain in 120 A.D who ordered the wall to be built right from coast to coast such a wall is built in spite of the fact that in this Central sector here there was never any threat from the north no no Army has ever come down the center in this area it's it's all MERS and bogs and swamps up there and the puno soda is actually building the wall on the top must have known this you know what on Earth is the point of building a wall here and the Centurion were quietly saved because you're told to do it and that's the only reason you need to know and first it was to have a purely military function the original wall was to be styled on the mound and fence constructions found in Germany and on other boundaries of the Roman Empire the age of Roman expansion had come to a halt and the time of consolidation was upon them the wall was simply to mark this Northwestern limit of the Roman Empire separate the Romans from The Barbarians in Germany he had a similar sort of Frontier and these were these are the first type frenches the Romans had up to that point up till Hadrian the Roman attitude was that their empire was going to go on expanding Without End so having having a frontier was was was was as as below their dignity as as the idea of having wolves around the city of Rome they didn't need it they were Invincible Hadrian Hayden changed this initially the orders were given to build a single wall in the East where Stone was plentiful it was to be all Stone 10 feet wide and 20 feet high in the west they were building it all from Turf because there wasn't enough Limestone to make them mortar and so to start with they they had a Turf wall uh we know this because there's one section where there's slightly re-jigged it when they finally came to replace it in stone which may have been a matter of 10 years it may have taken a bit longer and they built it on a slightly different alignment so there's one stretch in Cumberland whether the actual Turf War which was the first sort of temporary structure was still there alongside most of the length of the wall on the Northern Barbarian side except where the local landscape made it unnecessary a ditch was to be dark this was to be about nine feet deep and 27 feet wide the whole length of the wall was to be peppered with fortlets and turrets [Music] the fortlets each with gates to the North and South were to have accommodation for up to 32 troops and were to be built every Roman mile between each of these mild castles there would be two turrets from these the small garrisons stationed on the wall itself probably drawn from auxiliaries recruited into the Roman Legions from the British people themselves looked northwards into the Hostile Lands Beyond the Wall here they watched for signs of trouble and if it looked like it was going to be more than they could handle they would send urgent signals back to their fellows in the forts on the stain gate reinforcements would then arrived it seemed like a perfect solution to the problems of this turbulent Frontier and very soon men from every British Legion were hard at work on the wall it's a common misconception that the all the rotten jobs of building on the wall are probably done by the natives with a few Romans in charge supervising but that's definitely not the case the the native britons would be a very unreliable labor force and apart from anything else they weren't used to building in stone at all they wouldn't have known what they were doing we've got plenty of evidence that the wall is actually built by the men the skilled Craftsman drawn from three Legions that were in Britain at the time the second Legion the 20th and the sixth and they've left their building Stones all the way along the wall and we know they built it obviously a legionary gang is given a sector of maybe a hundred yards or so of wall to build and the Centurion in charge once it's built normally signs his name off on a special little tablet on the wall many of which we've found even before it was finished the plans were altered orders went out that the main fighting force was to be moved onto the wall itself presumably they were being attacked or it was taking too long for the regiments to get up if there was an emergency so they decided to put Fort actually on the wall in some cases across the wall in the end there were a total of 17 forts which are more or less on the wall but one or two such as vinderlander which were left although it's a mile away there are a few others which are not actually joined on physically to the wall but in in many cases they actually were astrider war with with three gateways two at the side and one one on the North side Beyond the Wall probably for Cavalry so Cavalry could could could come out in strength simultaneously from the three gateways but that was what you can call a third stage and it must have been absolutely Madden because they'd already built the wall and and turrets and Marcus in some cases had to be demolished and then they put the fort there it was also ordered that the wall itself should be narrowed to eight feet rather than 10 and that it should be extended in stone at each end to protect the flanks as long as they could get the limestone [Music] perhaps this was an indication of heightened tension or increased threats you can still see the signs of this change of plans today in Parts a narrow wall sits on Broad foundations and there are turrets and Mild castles that were built to fit into the wider wall and had to be changed to fit into the new narrower gauge this radical change of plan has been dated to about 124 A.D at the same time work had begun on extra defenses to the immediate south of the wall this was the battle two Earth Mounds Rising some six feet above ground level flanking a central ditch some 10 feet deep with a total width of about 120 feet this would have presented a formidable obstacle to any would-be attacker they build a wall with a great ditch in front of it and they have all these male castles and turrets along it and then a few years later they decide well we've got to put the regiments absolutely on the wall too so they built these forts like houses and they built this great earthwork to the South now there's no conceivable reason for that except to to seal off the military zone and therefore the the the implication is that the natives are creeping up at night and setting fire to Roman Roman installations um which suggests that their control over this this area the penins was not was not absolutely uh 100 under control boundary of the military area a sort of Roman barbed wire as with the mild Castle Gates which they faced The valon Crossing points offered a measure of control over the north-south traffic in the region rules about Contraband and weapons could be enforced and more importantly taxes could be collected it was the Customs barrier of its day it's not built for defense although he's got a lot of troops stationed along it there are more troops stationed to the north and a lot more troops also to the south I mean a Roman Frontier is a frontier in depth the physical barrier uh well what he does by building that is Achieve something that he probably had in mind an excellent excellent Customs line um there are all sorts of gates in the wall and whoever is going to be Trading North and South has got to go through those Gates where of course the Roman soldiers can search them tax them do all sorts of things to them but why make changes to plans hardly begun things were not going well in this part of the Roman world and the natives were getting restless they didn't like the Romans and they didn't like their walls [Applause] [Music] it was like a modern day Motorway cutting through the landscape severing long used footpaths and trade routes and even cutting off fields from farmsteads what happened after the wall is built and was the war for example successful did it do the job Hayden wanted to do did it quite the latest down did it actually separate this lot from that lot up there the short answer is that from Roman historians we know absolutely nothing um again we go back to this business they had to remain here so presumably there was always a problem but the you know the natives on both sides weren't fools and although they're all these gateways leading through the wall man certainly where they might be taxed and so on I'm sure that a certain amount of Ingenuity would be used and they must have known of the odd corrupt Roman soldier and they could get through Ismail castle if they went at the right time and also of course in the ultimate Resort if they really had trouble in along the wall they could get into a ship and sail around it soon the British on both sides of the wall were plotting and planning against the Romans and their wall very soon the wall had become for the Romans a way to divide these allies from each other rather than keeping the enemy at Arms left [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the military purpose had changed as well no longer the passive line of watchtowers if there was a threat from the northern tribes the Roman troops could mass under the excellent cover of the wall their enemies would be unable to see this and could not foresee where the mighty Army would Sally Forth against them meanwhile the vallum protected their backs life on the wall was hard this was no fertile region of Roman influence there were no locals to adopt Roman waves such as the were in the South there was no one who was prepared to come to this Stark Wilderness region to build their Villas and Farms to share the administrative load The Garrison town and Supply base at Corbridge were the sole example of urbanization small settlements for retired legionaries and traders made a brief appearance and civilian Villages grew up under the protection of the force but this remained mainly a military area other documents found at finderlander give more of an insight to this one written on thin oak bark and dated to a day in May around 1890 gives an account of the forces stationed at that fort at that time there were 751 men led by six centurions assigned to the Fort although 470 were not actually there they were absent on other duties some were collecting the pay others were in London and some 300 and their Centurion were at corpage this was likely to be a group of new British recruits undergoing their basic training before taking their place in patrolling the war [Music] [Music] there was a further small group of 46 or so with the legend the Region's Chief administrator who was either in York or London at the time that left only 270 or so actually holding the fort in case of local hostilities but they were lucky the same piece of Oak records that there were only 30 on the sick list and only some of these were suffering from wounds this seems to point to minor local skirmishes rather than a major pitched battle in the area life in the forts was routine after a breakfast of porridge bread and fruit the normal day would be taken up with duties around the fort physical fitness and weapons training were important to keep the troops in Tip-Top conditions and there were jobs around the fort itself that had to be done [Music] supplies of food and building materials had to be gathered the workshops had to be manned and there are even records of legionaries being detailed to clean the armor of the commanding officer foreign [Music] duties were not confined to the Fort but covered important local resources like mines and Mills or escorting trading Caravans the main duties however would probably have been patrolling either along the line of the wall or to the lands to the north the local British tribes were known to be hostile and ready to attack without warning Hadrian sent over we know from an inscription three thousand leaderies from other from Spain and Germany to presumably to replace gaps in the ranks the Regiment of tongruence that were stationed here was a thousand strong and for a few years it was down to 500 well that again as an example so I think there were pretty heavy losses Hadrian had to do something the local British tribes were forbidden to gather in large numbers except at times and in places defined by treaty keeping an eye on to be sure they were obeying this treaty would have been a major part of the duties for the soldiers stationed on and near the wall [Applause] Hadrian's Wall was finished and life had settled into a routine but again all this was to change Emperor antonina's Pious who replaced Hadrian after his death ordered a fresh assault on the Northern Clans in 138 A.D this was a highly successful campaign and pushed back the northern tribes a new wall the antonine wall was built further north from the fourth to the Clyde but they kept the bath houses inside these forts perhaps a sign of Greater hostilities in this region it also had more thoughts than hatreds which also perhaps goes to show they were experiencing greater Danger thank you meanwhile back at Hadrian's Wall the evidence shows signs of evacuation the Valen Mounds were breached and the ditches filled in the garrisons in the forts were reduced to caretaker size even the gates at the mile castles were taken off their hinges the frontiers of Rome had been pushed further into the lands of The Barbarians but not for long 17 years later the brigantes revolted and within six months Hadrian's Wall had been reoccupied and its defenses hardened in the face of this new threat this pattern of events expansion followed by retreat was to be repeated at least once more in the following 20 years until the wall ceased to Be an Effective Frontier marker for the once proud Empire one of the things you've got to bear in mind about Hadrian's Wall is that it was a typical multi-million pound government job um you know it was built and completed in Hayden's lifetime a few years later Hadrian then dies what happens to this huge vast project short answer is it's it's abandoned it's boarded up and they go back into Scotland for a while undernus Pius and for 10 odd years it must have just been mothball down here now as it happens they find they they don't want to stay in Scotland for a variety of reasons and the wall is then reoccupied and it is more or less maintained with a few hiccups to the end of the Roman period of rule on all the thoughts there are signs of Destruction from time to time and rebuilding um but the destruction it's difficult to say whether that's destruction enemy hands or whether it's destruction because the Roman soldiers had gone away and the natives abundant in pinched what they could now the story is of decline records speak of the British tribes crossing the wall in force about 180 A.D it looks like they were able to burst through the center without opposition but the rest of the wall was untouched it was after this that Roman troops were pulled back towards Rome from Britain to help with Claudius albinus's attempt to become empty and the British tribes saw their chance thank you there were great battles and much destruction [Music] [Applause] [Music] shortly after this a various lupus was sent from Rome to buy off these Northern tribes it seems that Roman money was still highly valued by the britons for the next 200 years or so there was peace on the wall there are signs of refurbishment and rebuilding but by 400 A.D the final Garrison had gone the wall was left deserted to the elements and the sky the slow process of Decay and destruction now began the Anglo-Saxons replaced the Romans and while a few of their objects have been found on the wall in the main these newcomers passed it by maybe they feared the might and power that had raised this set of marking stones perhaps some descendants of the soldiers continue to live in the forts or their Associated civilian settlements we cannot say they withdraw their Authority from Britain tell the britons to look after themselves and you get chaos you get the breakdown of Law and Order and with the breakdown of Law and Order the breakdown of trade and with that you no way can you maintain this huge population up here people drift away a few people would stay on subsistence farming and so on and then eventually you get the Anglo-Saxons the Vikings and all this lot coming in um and the wall ceases to exist only at vinderlander has any post-roman inscription been found and that dates to about only 500 A.D but the wall had not been forgotten and accounts by writers of the time after the Romans have persisted to the present day most notable is that of the venerable beat who in about 730 A.D gave a good description of it he said it was then eight feet wide and 12 feet high this account May well have resulted from his own observations as his Monastery at jarrow lay close to the Eastern end of the wall but when it came to dating war or to its purpose he depended more on local garbled eggs he assigned a date some 250 years too late for its building and presented the erroneous view that it had been built to keep out the pits and the Scots this view has continued until the present day [Music] through the centuries that followed the wall became a quarry Stone won so hard from the ground by the hands of Roman legion risk was easy pickings for those building churches houses Farms or even simple dry stone walls people begin to settle in here again you then get the enclosure movement and people create these fields they need to feel boundaries Roman cites again wonderful hadrians will look at all this Stone all the field walls around here are built out of the Stone from these Roman remains in the 18th century for example after Bonnie Prince Charlie had been through creating Panic they decided to make sure that Communications were better so they built a new road a few years later between Newcastle and Carla and when they got to the Adrian's wall area they said ah just what we need to make a road and nobody thought twice about it Stones were carried miles and other Raiders came to plunder the once proud War King John in 1201 sent men to dig for treasure they found only Stone local brigands in the 17th century used housetheads as their base from which to range out over the local Countryside and the local Gentry when they wanted to decorate and Adorn their great houses with inscriptions and sculpture came to the wall to join in with the destruction it was 300 years after the excavations of King John that the age of serious observations began Counts from the 16th century still prove they're useful if not valuable record of the state of the wall at that time in fact it was not until the writings of the Reverend John Hodgson in 1840 that the wall its Forts and valum were correctly attributed to Hadrian and his time this was also the time of excavation along the wall site reports record the continuing Decline and disappearance of this once proud Frontier marker this was reversed mainly through the work of one man John Clayton of Chesters during his long life 1792-1890 he bought many miles of the wall and several of its forts from the local landowners he then proceeded to dig up the walls turrets mild castles and parts of the forts at Chesters and Houston's he even built a museum into which he gathered his fives that still stands today and can be visited at Chester's he set the pattern for the work that was to follow and which continues to this day it was during the years leading up to 1939 that many of the puzzles and problems about the wall its Associated buildings and defenses and overall purpose were solved nevertheless there are still large areas where our knowledge is imperfect there remains much to be discovered about the wall and its true place in Roman history the remains that haven't yet been excavated and that must be about 98 percent of aliens War hasn't yet been excavated they're safe under the turf protected as well as they can be by ancient monuments legislation which means that even archaeologists if they want to look at these remains have to get special permission from the Secretary of State to excavate and examine what's under the ground so it's reasonably safe now what's left of it large swathes of the wall have now passed into the care of the nation some parts are looked after by English Heritage others by The National Trust while still more areas are cared for by charitable trusts now the main work is conservation rather than restoration and much of the wall itself has been Consolidated following the ravages of time and stone robbers the wall is photographed and drawn as it is before the stones are removed one by one they are numbered and placed to one side when the original Roman mortar is reached everything is cleaned and washed then the stones are replaced in what is thought to have been their original position using modern mortar no attempt is made to restore the wall and no new stone is added at sites like vinderlander there are reconstructions of Roman buildings this blend of old and new makes the site an ideal one to visit the tourists or School parties wishing to learn more about the life of Romans in Britain and on the wall this is a form of experimental archeology because actually building something on the lines of of Hadrian's Wall or some of these Turf and Timber constructions and digging ditches to Roman specifications you get an idea of how many man hours it takes and you know how much water you need to mix the cement and all that kind of thing and then the other point is uh 15 20 years on you can see what sort of status of it's in whether these Turf ramparts or wooden Towers have started collapsing or not so you can get some idea of that aspect of it too so as you stand at halsteads and Survey where once Roman soldiers from across the Empire lived and worked under the shadow of the northern threat and as you stand at steel rig or on any of the cracks looking North into the same biting wind and feeling the same hail on your cheeks think of the men who worked on the wall belgiums syrians and Moroccans pulled far from their homelands to guard this furthest fun part of a once proud and Powerful emperor [Music] foreign remember too those archaeologists of the 19th century and beyond without their work Hadrian's Wall would be one of Britain's and the worlds lost treasures

Channel: Odyssey - Ancient History Documentaries

Views: 107,961

Keywords: ancient history, classical history, ancient civilisations, classical antiquity, history documentary, classical documentary, roman empire history, roman empire movies, hadrians wall, hadrians wall board game, emperor hadrian, emperor hadrian and antinous, roman army structure, roman army march, roman army documentary, roman britain documentary, roman britain documentary bbc

Id: voBhEUWa5zg

Length: 48min 6sec (2886 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 28 2023