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The 73-mile long Roman wall, built in AD 122 to defend the Roman Empire from hostile Celtic tribes, created a thriving economy to serve the occupying army, according to aerial surveys. Farmers, traders, craftsmen, labourers and prostitutes seized the occasion to make money from the presence of hundreds of Roman troops... The research carried out by English Heritage has revealed over 2,700 previously unrecorded historic features, including prehistoric burial mounds and first century farmsteads, medieval sheep farms, 19th century lead mines and even a WWII gun battery, sited along the 15 foot high wall which stretched from Wallsend on the...

Archaeologists have uncovered a small - but vital - clue to the use of a chariot in Moray. The piece for a horse harness was found during the latest dig at an Iron Age site at Birnie, near Elgin. Dr Fraser Hunter, of the National Museums of Scotland, said it was further evidence of the high status of its inhabitants. Excavations would have been unlikely at Birnie if not for the discovery of Roman coins 10 years ago. Glass beads that may have been made at Culbin Sands, near Nairn, in the Highlands, a dagger and quern stones for making...

It begins in Old Kilpatrick, on the River Clyde, and ends in Bo'ness on the Firth of Forth. It runs inconspicuously by cemeteries, schools and rows of shops, along streets where pedestrians walk, probably unknowingly, along its spine. In some places railway tracks and roads cross it, in others the trains and traffic race alongside. The Antonine Wall is Scottish history's forgotten legacy. Yet when members of Unesco's World Heritage Committee meet in Quebec tomorrow, the wall -- built by the Romans in AD142 -- will be on their agenda. Having applied for World Heritage Site status, it is on...

Excavations In Iran Unravel Mystery Of 'Red Snake' ScienceDaily (Feb. 18, 2008) — New discoveries unearthed at an ancient frontier wall in Iran provide compelling evidence that the Persians matched the Romans for military might and engineering prowess. The 'Great Wall of Gorgan'in north-eastern Iran, a barrier of awesome scale and sophistication, including over 30 military forts, an aqueduct, and water channels along its route, is being explored by an international team of archaeologists from Iran and the Universities of Edinburgh and Durham. This vast Wall-also known as the 'Red Snake'-is more than 1000 years older than the Great Wall...

The Romans carried out cataract ops By Jane Elliott Health reporter, BBC News An eye stamp: the equivalent of the modern medicine label Think of the Roman legacy to Britain and many things spring to mind - straight roads, under-floor heating, aqueducts and public baths. But they were also pioneers in the health arena - particularly in the area of eye care, with remedies for various eye conditions such as short-sightedness and conjunctivitis. Perhaps most surprisingly of all is that the Romans - and others from ancient times, including the Chinese, Indians and Greeks - were also able also to...

An outing for Hadrian at the British Museum By Nigel Reynolds Last Updated: 2:48am GMT 11/01/2008 An exhibition on the Roman emperor Hadrian - the first staged anywhere in the world - is to be mounted at the British Museum this summer, replacing the First Emperor terracotta warriors show which closes in April. Negotiations over several years will see more than 200 loans from 31 countries - most of them once under the Roman yoke - being put on display in London. The British Museum’s Ralph Jackson with the bronze bust of Hadrian fished out of the Thames Though Hadrian,...

An unexpected historical discovery has been made at Scottish Water's site at Glencorse, near Penicuik -- a Roman marching camp nearly 2000 years old. The revelation has provided another clue as to how the Romans organised their occupation of the Lothians. It had not been confirmed whether the site was, in fact, a Roman marching camp, which had previously only been suggested by aerial photographs... It is believed the site, which is part of a network of other bases, watchtowers and camps across lowland Scotland, was situated to guard a gap in the Pentland Hills to the northwest of Flotterstone...

Roman tombstone found at Inveresk The tombstone was found near the line of a Roman road The first Roman tombstone found in Scotland for 170 years has been unearthed at Carberry, near Inveresk. The red sandstone artefact was for a man called Crescens, a bodyguard for the governor who ran the province of Britain for the Roman Emperor. The National Museum of Scotland said the stone provided the strongest evidence yet that Inveresk was a pivotal Roman site in northern Britain. It was found by amateur enthusiast Larney Cavanagh at the edge of a field. It had been ploughed up...

Archaeologists have found a camp thought to have been built to accommodate Roman construction workers who constructed the Antonine Wall. It was discovered in a dig following the demolition of the former OKI factory at Tollpark, near Castlecary, North Lanarkshire. Ross White of CFA Archaeology said the rectangular camp's outline was first identified in cropmarks on aerial photographs taken in the late 1940s, before the development of the area. The camp was situated about 400 metres south of the Antonine Wall and midway between the Roman forts at Westerwood and Castlecary... Construction of the Antonine Wall began in 142, during...

Hunting for Hadrian Published on 25/01/2007 HISTORIANS hope to unearth evidence that Roman emperor Hadrian once stayed in a fort along the magnificent wall bearing his name. Archaeologists will be digging along Hadrian’s Wall this summer in an attempt to confirm speculation about why and when it was built. They hope their work at Vindolanda in Northumbria will prove that the emperor once stayed there on a visit to the wall, as well as unlocking secrets about the Roman army and people’s political and social lives. The 73-mile stone barrier – stretching east to west from the River Tyne to...

Scotland's culture minister has thrown her weight behind the bid to make the Antonine Wall a World Heritage Site... Five local authorities are also supporting the bid, which was officially launched in 2003. The Antonine Wall runs 37 miles from Bo'ness, near Falkirk, to Old Kilpatrick in West Dunbartonshire... built in 140AD to keep Pictish warriors out of the Roman Empire after the conquest of southern Scotland... The Antonine Wall was built after the Romans invaded southern and central Scotland almost 2,000 years ago. It became a monument to the reign of Emperor Antonius Pius but was abandoned after just...

Spectacular brooch find may 'unlock secrets of Hadrian's Wall' Publisher: Jon Land Published: 17/05/2006 - 12:08:01 PM Hadrian's Wall A 'spectacular' small brooch has been uncovered at a Roman fort that may reveal secrets about the men that built Hadrian's Wall. The discovery of the legionary soldier's expensive and prestigious cloak brooch has excited archaeologists in Northumberland. Experts have discovered that the brooch belonged to soldier Quintus Sollonius who would have been stationed at the forefront of the Roman empire 2,000 years ago. Historians are continuing to examine the artefact and believe it could reveal more secrets behind the men...

Sungbo's Eredo, as it is called, is really an earthen embankment with an accompanying ditch. Whatever you call it, it does enclose an area 25 miles north-to-south and 22 miles east-to-west. That's a lot of earth-moving, for at some spots the "wall" measures 70 feet from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the embankment. Today, this impressive structure is mostly concealed by the Nigerian jungle. A thousand years ago it enclosed a flourishing African kingdom.

Romans may have learned from Chinese Great Wall: archaeologists The construction of the Roman Limes was quite possibly influenced by the concept of the Great Wall in China, though the two great buildings of the world are far away from each other, said archaeologists and historians. Although there is no evidence that the two constructions had any direct connections, indirect influence from the Great Wall on the Roman Limes is certain, said Visy Zsolt, a professor with the Department of Ancient History and Archaeology of the University of Pecs in Hungary. Visy made the remarks in an interview with Xinhua...

Everyone who lived at the Roman fort at Brougham, Cumbria, was buried in a cemetery close by. Excavation of the graves revealed an astonishing world of pagan beliefs. Hilary Cool explainsSome sites are dug before their time. Such was the case with the cemetery at Brougham in Cumbria. Brougham was long ago identified with Brocavum, a place noted in the 3rd century AD road book known as the Antonine Itinerary. Antiquarian reports had recorded Roman tombstones from the area east of the fort and vicus, an attached civilian settlement, alongside the trans-Pennine road. So excavations were planned when it was...

The archaeological season has begun at the Roman site of Vindolanda, bringing in volunteers from all over the world. Jamie Diffley went along to ask why they dig it.Pressed down in the clay, almost completely covered by the dirt, lies an object. Could be a piece of Roman pottery, perhaps some glass. To the untrained eye it could just be a piece of ordinary rubble. "It is ordinary rubble," says archaeologist Andrew Birley, loading it into a wheelbarrow, which will then be dumped by the side. Unlike me Andrew does have a trained eye. Indeed he has two. They're trained...

Gruesome secret of Antonine wall STEPHEN STEWART February 19 2004 RESEARCH into the largest relic from the Roman Empire's invasion of Scotland has given historians a dramatic insight into the daily life of ordinary soldiers and the gruesome nature of ancient warfare. Excavations of the 38-mile Antonine wall at Mumrills Fort, near Falkirk, have revealed evidence of the Romans' defensive structures, which were designed to cause the maximum damage to attackers, and even the daily cooking routines of foot-soldiers. Archaeologists have discovered that the frontier, which briefly supplanted Hadrian's wall in the second century AD, was lined with pits filled...

Roman souvenir of wall found The bronze pan has the names of Roman forts on it A unique Roman "souvenir" of the building of Hadrian's Wall has been discovered. The bronze pan, dating from the second century AD, when the Romans built the dividing wall across the north of England, was found in the Staffordshire moorlands. Archaeologists are excited because the names of four forts located at the western end of Hadrian's Wall - Bowes, Drumburgh, Stanwix and Castlesteads - are engraved on the vessel. The discovery was being made public at the Institute of Archaeology in London by the...

How we really loved the Romans New research explodes myth that Scots were untameable barbarians By Juliette Garside The enduring myth that the Romans left the 'barbarians' of Scotland untouched during their conquest of the rest of the British Isles has been shattered by a new archaeological find. Not only did they settle in Scotland for around 15 years in the first century AD ... they even got our ancestors to swap their beer and lard for wine and olive oil. For hundreds of years, historians who based their theories on the classical writer Tacitus have always assumed the first...

The site of Roman Vindolanda, in the central section of Hadrian’s Wall, had over 300 years of Roman occupation, with at least nine forts and settlements built one on top of the other... was one of the main military posts on the northern frontier of Britain before the building of Hadrian’s Wall. Excavations there in 1973 uncovered writing tablets which had been preserved in waterlogged conditions in rubbish deposits in and around the commanding officer’s residence. These, and hundreds of other fragments which have come to light in subsequent excavations, are the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain, containing everything...