Hadrian's Wall is a rock wall, built by the Roman Empire across the width of England south of its modern border with Scotland. The construction runs for a distance of ~75 miles, from Wallsend on the east coast of England in North Tyneside westward to the salt marshes of the Solway Estuary in Cumbria. Hadrian's Wall is south of the Roman period Antonine Wall by some 100 kilometers and earlier by some 20 years.
Hadrian's Wall Construction
Hadrian's Wall was built by the Roman emperor Hadrian about AD 122, and underwent major repairs by decree of the emperor Septimius Severus ~AD 193-211. Much of the wall today is in good to excellent preservation, and in many places even the earthwork supports are still in evidence.
Forts, turrets, mile castles, and ditches are still extant, as are remnants of the earthwork ramparts known as vallum. Archaeological sites associated with the Roman period wall include eleven Roman forts and museums, including Housesteads (known as Vercovicium when built), Chesters Fort, Vindolanda Fort and Corbridge.
Hadrian's Wall was built along an earlier frontier system called the Stanegate Frontier, and Fort Vindolanda predates the wall by some 40 years. The original purpose of the wall was to mark the boundary of the Roman Empire. But its continued existence over the centuries eventually made it part of the dangerous border between Scotland and England during the Anglo-Scottish wars of the 13th-16th centuries.
Hadrian's Wall and Archaeology
The first excavations of Hadrian's wall were undertaken in 1600, and off and on continue to this day. Hadrian's Wall was made a World Heritage Site in 1987, and it attracts an estimated 1 million visitors annually who walk, bike, bus or drive its length, and visit the Roman forts and museums open to the public.
Sources and Further Information
See the article Hadrian's Wall: 30 years on in Current Archaeology.
Dark P. 2005. Mid- to late-Holocene vegetational and land-use change in the Hadrian's Wall region: a radiocarbon-dated pollen sequence from Crag Lough, Northumberland, England. Journal of Archaeological Science 32(4):601-618.
Guiver J, Lumsdon L, and Weston R. 2008. Traffic reduction at visitor attractions: the case of Hadrian's wall. Journal of Transport Geography 16(2):142-150.
Kinghorn N, and Willis K. 2008. Valuing the components of an archaeological site: An application of Choice Experiment to Vindolanda, Hadrian's Wall. Journal of Cultural Heritage 9(2):117-124.
Nesbitt C, and Tolia-Kelly D. 2009. Hadrian's Wall: Embodied archaeologies of the linear monument. Journal of Social Archaeology 9:368-390.
Witcher R, Tolia-Kelly DP, and Hingley R. 2010. Archaeologies of Landscape: Excavating the Materialities of Hadrian's Wall. Journal of Material Culture 15(1):105-128.
