On March 13, Hadrian's Wall – all of it – will be lit by gas beacons, a once-in-a-lifetime event called Illuminating Hadrian's Wall. From Wallsend in the east, to Bowness on Solway, approximately 500 beacons spaced every 250 metres will cover the 84 miles of the Hadrian's Wall.
The first beacon will be lit at Wallsend at approximately 5.35pm (sunset is at 6.11pm), and lighting will progress in sequence east to west with a six-second delay between each beacon firing up; 50 minutes later, the last beacon in Bowness should be lit.
Robin Birley was formerly the Director of Excavations at the Roman site of Vindolanda; he set out to excavate the fort of Vindolanda and its civilian settlements in 1970, taking over from his father Eric Birley. He has over 50 years of excavation experience on the site, over 30 of which have been as Director of the Vindolanda Trust. He now heads the Vindolanda Research Committee. This is, therefore, a book written by someone who knows the site very well.
Submitted by Bija Knowles on Fri, 11/20/2009 - 13:54
For any solider fighting wars away in foreign lands, letters to and from family and loved ones take on enormous resonance and importance. We've all seen the TV and movie versions of army life in the world wars, in which the handing out of letters is a ritual frought with excitement, emotion, and rivalry. The same situation was probably played out thousands of years earlier, as some remarkable ancient letters attest.
While the first letters ever written were probably cuneiform imprints onto clay tablets, penned in Mesopotamia and Egypt, by the time the Roman civilization began to expand around the Mediterranean, papyrus was being used as a lightweight and durable alternative.
Highlighted Quote:
you neglectful man, who have sent me not even one letter
Dr John Pearce is a lecturer in archaeology at King's College London. He is interested in archaeology of the Roman empire, the archaeology of documents and literacy, as well as Roman and pre-Roman landscapes.
He has three main areas of research. One is death and burial in the Roman world. Dr Pearce wrote his doctoral thesis on the evidence for Romano-British society found in funerary data, including epigraphs and archaeological evidence.
Before taking his lectureship at King's College, Dr Pearce did some research on the Vindolanda writing tablets, found at Vindolanda in Northumberland, near Hadrian's Wall in the 1970s. He worked as a research assistant on the third volume of the Vindolanda Tablets at the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents.
Dr Pearce has also initiated a field survey project with researchers from Oxford and Durham, in the Marche region of Italy – in an area known as the upper Esino Valley, where there are Iron Age tombs and a network of Roman towns.
Submitted by Sean Williams on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 13:55
Heritage Key is evolving - we never stop adding to the huge number of heritage sites, artefacts, great personalities, publications and experts listed on these pages - not to mention King Tut Virtual, and the forthcoming arrival of Stonehenge Virtual.
Yet there's much more to HK than the huge range of in-depth articles, great interviews red-hot videos. Our directory is choc full of info about the most important artefacts around the world.
This collection of objects includes: a mason's trowel, which has a wooden handle and the pointed metal end (it is still dirty from a day's use); a complete hammer with a metal head and wooden shank; a whole wagon axle; red shovels; and other smaller objects such as a needle case with graded needles inside and a little wooden comb in a leather case. According to the Vindolanda Museum website, the rare wooden objects also include massive building timbers, water pipes and pine barrel staves, as well as storage boxes, parts of furniture and tent pegs.
Submitted by Bija Knowles on Tue, 10/06/2009 - 10:38
A date has now been set for the return of some of the Vindolanda Tablets to the museum at Vindolanda in Northumberland, following an announcement this week that the UK's Heritage Lottery Fund is to donate £4 million towards the costs. The date now set for some of the tablets to be housed at the Vindolanda museum is spring 2011 – they will come on loan from the British Museum for a period of five years, after which the loan can be renewed.
The tablets – a collection of 1,600 documents etched on thin wooden boards – represent the earliest forms of written language in Britain. The Latin incriptions were found at the Roman fort of Vindolanda in 1973 and include records of the Roman army's expenses as well as personal letters.
The Roman army had a fort and garrison at Vindolanda from 85 AD – its foundation came after Agricola defeated Britannia's northern tribes at the battle of Mons Graupius. The fort defended the central section of a supply route that ran from east to west of northern Britannia. Hadrian's Wall was built some 40 years later in the 120s AD.
The buildings of the early fort were made of timber, much of which survives up to six metres below ground level. The Vindolanda site museum displays a vast range of bronze, wood, iron, leather and textile objects found at the site. The Vindolanda tablets – correspondence, accounts and other documents written on wooden sheets – are the most important discovery to have been made at the site. They are the earliest archive of written material in British history, dating from the year before Hadrian's Wall was built.
The site was inhabited continuously until the end of Roman rule at the beginning of the fifth century AD, and even after that there are signs of occupation for another two centuries. The site is now managed by the Vindolanda Trust, who estimates that it will take at least another 150 years to thoroughly excavate the site, such is the complexity of the different archaeological layers.
Submitted by Bija Knowles on Thu, 06/11/2009 - 10:43
Early Roman Texts to be Sent Back to Vindolanda
Roman soldiers based at Vindolanda, the Roman fort and settlement at the coldest extremity of the Roman Empire, were not so different to modern Britons. While they had a job to do in maintaining order and control of the north western border (along Hadrian's Wall, although Vindolanda was inhabited before Hadrian built his frontier), they also ensured they weren't out of pocket for their troubles.
Discovered in 1973, the Vindolanda Tablets are wooden message boards dating back to 85 AD. Their messages include an invitation to a birthday party as well as expense claims for all those Roman soldier essentials (mostly items of food and basic clothing to keep those Mediterraneans warm in the cooler climes of northern Britain). These wooden boards were then sent around the empire in the Roman postal system.
Earlier this month 
