This past weekend, the famous Roman ruin called Hadrian's wall was lit up end to end, all 75 miles of it. A gimmick to kick of British Tourism Week, the lighting of the giant ribbon of wall was lit by over 1,100 volunteers to celebrate the 1600th anniversary of the collapse of the Roman Empire. It was a pretty amazing site, as you can see in the image below, and in this video from the Guardian.
Lighting Hadrian's Wall, March 14, 2010. Photo by Kristi Herbert
So, for the fun of it, I pulled together a little bit about what archaeologists have learned in the last 400 years about this amazing testament to imperial Rome.
New Stories about the Lighting
- Hadrian's Wall in giant light show, Independent, 16 March 2010
- Legions of sightseers attend Hadrian's Wall illumination, Guardian, 14 March 2010.
Comments
Really, as AD 410 is ‘just a date’ for the end of Roman Britain, I see no reason to repeat this next year?
We live and work in the shadow of the wall and have watched for many years as the tourists drive past without stopping on their way to the English District or to the sandy Northumberland beaches. So its been a great time to see the publicity and interest that this has generated. Especially when you consider that this was a relatively low tech event.
Two thoughts remain though…
1. How can we perpetuate the benefit? Will it be repeated?
2. How can we better control the access to these events. I mean the wall is 83 miles long but along the most scenic part the small military road was virtually blocked with cars and people were climbing the over the dry stone walls and disturbing farm stock.
Overall a brilliant idea though
I wish it had been better advertised as we would have driven up there from Oxford. What a wonderful celebration of these visitors to our country and the magnificent heritage they left behind!!
I have a question, is there not a similar wall, but much older, built entirely of very large stones, called the Cycloptian Wall???
It’s marvelous when people celebrate their heritage in such a dramatic fashion and setting. I hope they continue do it once a year and that the habit spreads to other connections that we still have with our past. Why not a similar event on the Great Wall of China, the Appian Way, and routes of the ancient Inca, to name just a few. It makes history relevant and alive.
Of course, this was only the end of the western Roman Empire; the Eastern Empire survived another thousand years!
Father Innocent
Nova Scotia