Jon Allison, front, photographing the inscriptions on the rock face. (Image: unknown)
Posted on 03/08/2020 9:50:39 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Dangling from an abseil rope 30ft up a river gorge rock face, archaeologist Jon Allison certainly felt close to the Romans who had worked on that same spot 1,800 years ago.
They left their mark in the shape of graffiti composed of inscriptions and carved faces, and studying the messages produced the sensation of the quarry work gang communicating across the centuries.
The carvings reveal that soldiers of the Second and 20th legions were detailed to operate in the quarry as part of the major repairing and re-building of Hadrian's Wall.
And as a serving soldier himself for 22 years, Jon imagined how the Roman troopers would have felt about being assigned to a task which was both hard graft and risky...
Jon, a former Army rock climbing instructor, took photographs of the inscriptions, which were used to create a 3D record of the writings near Gelt Wood, 5.5km south of the Wall near Brampton.
"...the inscriptions had not been inspected in detail since the early 1980s, when the path that led to them dropped into the river below.
(Excerpt) Read more at chroniclelive.co.uk ...
It says “Caesar didn’t kill himself”.
Brilliant!
“Kilroy was here “
“Global Warming will kill us all in XII years”
I was taught that graffiti had been most important in philology, especially studies in the development of romance languages from vulgar Latin. Classic Latin and Church Latin are rather static, whereas the graffiti on walls and Roman baths throughout the Empire show how modern languages developed.
The curses, “dirty words” and misspellings can show how people really spoke. There are wall writing over 2000 years old which translate “Caesar sucks”.
Quite a few ancient g's have survived from the Roman era, and not just because of Vesuvius. :^) In one of the Bay of Naples towns' cat houses, someone wrote, "may I always and everywhere be as potent with women as I was here." Wonder how he did? :^)
I hope there is no statute of limitation on vandalism.
Ding, ding ding. You get the ribbon, my FRiend
The rest of the RomanEmpire keyword, chrono, no other editing, so, yow:
The other inscription translates to, "This glyph intentionally left blank".
If not, the Vandals are in big trouble.
I’m pretty sure you set a FR record for most links included in a single post.
“Kilroy was here “
On the fifth post.
Good job!
Hadrian’s Wall is the name of one of my favorite concertos by Felix Mendellsson. It’s usually played as the closing piece for his larger work called “The Scottish Symphony”.
Exciting, but still somehow quite melancholy.
I'm sure of it, but I don't think this was the thread. :^)
Make Rome great again. Build this wall.
#11 How am I suppose to get a grasp of the subject when you post too few links? : )
Consider me schooled. ;^)
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