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A 2000-year-old ancient Roman road was unearthed in Old Inn Cottage's garden near Stirling, Scotland. The site is located a few miles away from Stirling’s city center, next to the Old Stirling Bridge.It has been described as the most important road in Scottish history, the cobbled road was built by the Roman armies of General Julius Agricola in the 1st century AD and would have connected to a ford that crossed the River Forth.The road and the crossing would have been used again by the Romans in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD as units launched fresh invasions of Scotland...

The Antonine Wall, known as the Vallum Antonini, was a defensive wall built by the Romans in present-day Scotland. The wall ran for 39 miles between the Firth of Forth, and the Firth of Clyde (west of Edinburgh along the central belt), and was protected by 16 forts and around 41 fortlets.Construction of the wall commenced during the reign of Emperor Antoninus Pius in AD 142 in Caledonian territories previously held by the Damnonii, Otadini, Novantae, and the Selgovae tribes. The wall was intended to extend dominion over lands conquered by Governor Quintus Lollius Urbicus, cementing a new frontier 100...

The object was listed in the George Petrie Catalogue compiled by the antiquarian William Wakeman in 1867. With the work of the Inventory Project, the object was identified in the Museum crypt and matched with its Petrie catalogue record... The extent of the Roman influence in Ireland has long been debated. The Classical texts imply that due to Ireland's peripheral location, it was not a desirable destination. However the archaeological record has been helping to shed more light on the actual events of this time. Roman objects discovered in Irish contexts exist but they are relatively uncommon, and subsequently the...

Roman artifacts including coins, glass beads and brooches turn up in many Irish counties, especially in the east. Cahill Wilson investigated human remains... using strontium and isotope analysis and carbon dating. Remarkably, this allowed her say where they most likely spent their childhood. One burial site on a low ridge overlooking the sea in Bettystown, Co Meath, was dated to the 5th/6th century AD using radiocarbon dating. Most of the people were newcomers to the area, Cahill Wilson concluded. The clue was in their teeth. Enamel, one of the toughest substances in our body, completely mineralises around the age of...

A metal-working site uncovered in Moray may have helped arm Caledonian tribes against the Romans, before being burned down by the invaders.Archaeologists have described the site at Lochinver Quarry, near Elgin, as fascinating and unusual.Evidence has been found of metal production over a period of up to 2,000 years from the Bronze Age through the Iron Age.Archaeologists believe they could end up excavating as many as 40 iron smelting sites.Prior to these discoveries around 25 such sites have been found for the whole of Scotland.Lochinver appears to have been abandoned suddenly and homes and other structures burned down.Archaeologists suggest one...

Mar 02, 2010 14:30:03 A black woman who lived in Britannia in Roman times "a lady of ivory bracelet" (This article was originally posted in Japanese on 14:30 Mar 02, 2010) Roman EmpireSpeaking of ancient Roman civilizationLatinAnd CaesarGaara's war historyRecord remains inGaulians·GermanicAlthough it tends to embrace the image of a society centered on white people, such as white, the vast empire with the whole region of the Mediterranean coast as a version,Aeeguptus(Now Egypt) toMauretania(Now Morocco) to include the northern African region, there are also many African populations, and it seems that there were many people who moved out of Africa...

Hundreds of Roman huts that would have housed refugees fleeing turmoil in Scotland have been discovered by archaeologist near Hadrian's Wall. The scientists unearthed the structures earlier this year within the site of the Roman fortress of Vindolanda near the border. Experts were struck by the circular shape of the temporary but well-built huts which would have been in contrast to the usual style of rectangular Roman architecture. Archaeologists believe that the buildings were hastily constructed to house hundreds of tribespeople who scrambled over Hadrian's Wall when Scotland was invaded in the third century AD... The community north of the...

A Roman graveyard has been dug up in York. The skeletons all belonged to tall, strong men — and most are headless. Were they gladiators killed in the arena or victims of a deranged dictator?Like nobody else before or since, Caracalla had it coming. On April 8, AD217, four days after his 29th birthday, appropriately on his way to a Moon Temple in modern-day Turkey, this irredeemable lunatic dismounted from his horse, pulled down his breeches and surrendered to the demands of diarrhoea. It was one of his own bodyguards who stepped forward and stabbed him to death. Even for...

Borders folk may be descended from Africans By David Derbyshire (Filed: 11/06/2004) Families who have lived in the English-Scottish Borders for generations could be descended from African soldiers who patrolled Hadrian's Wall nearly 2,000 years ago. Archaeologists say there is compelling evidence that a 500-strong unit of Moors manned a fort near Carlisle in the third century AD. Richard Benjamin, an archaeologist at Liverpool University who has studied the history of black Britons, believes many would have settled and raised families. "When you talk about Romans in Britain, most people think about blue eyes and pale complexions," he said. "But...

Nearly two thousand years ago most of Britain was a settled province of the Roman Empire. But those in the north held out against the world superpower and insurrection flared across Hadrian's Wall. So, in 208AD, the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus marched into Scotland with 40,000 men - one of the largest invasion armies Rome ever mobilised.When Septimus Severus Invaded Scotland | Britain's African Emperor | Timeline | Published May 17, 2020

A hillfort in Aberdeenshire is one of the largest ancient settlements ever discovered in Scotland, researchers have said. University of Aberdeen archaeologists say 4,000 people may have lived in more than 800 huts perched high on the Tap O' Noth near Rhynie. Many had thought it dated from the Bronze or Iron Age. The team said carbon dating suggested it was likely to be Pictish, dating back as far as the third century AD. They believe at its height it may have rivalled the largest known post-Roman settlements in Europe. Archaeologists from the university have conducted extensive fieldwork in the...

At the beginning of the 3rd century civil war raged in Britain as the Roman emperor Septimius Severus sought to quell unrest in the north. But unknown to the fighting cohorts and Caledonian tribes, high above their heads two stars were coming together in a huge cataclysmic explosion. Now 1800 years later the light from that collision will finally arrive on Earth creating a new star in the night sky - dubbed the ‘Boom Star - in an incredibly rare event which is usually only spotted through telescopes. Before their meeting the two stars were too dim to be seen...

The disappearance of Rome's Ninth Legion has long baffled historians, but could a brutal ambush have been the event that forged the England-Scotland border, asks archaeologist Dr Miles Russell.One of the most enduring legends of Roman Britain concerns the disappearance of the Ninth Legion. The theory that 5,000 of Rome's finest soldiers were lost in the swirling mists of Caledonia, as they marched north to put down a rebellion, forms the basis of a new film, The Eagle, but how much of it is true? > Hadrian's Wall was designed to keep invaders out of Roman territory as well ensuring...

The Roman writer Tacitus says that 30,000 Caledonians massed to stop the Roman invasion under Agricola in AD 84. The bloody battle of Mons Graupius may have been fought near Inverness. Now a major site of the period has been uncovered in the area -- complete with two huge residences, a cluster of smaller houses, and the biggest industrial complex ever found in Iron Age Scotland... In June 2005 we began excavating a palisaded enclosure at Culduthel Farm on the southern outskirts of Inverness in advance of a housing development... we uncovered part of an astonishingly wellpreserved Iron Age settlement...

Juvenal's claim was dismissed as poetic exaggeration until archaeological discoveries suggested that the Romans may, after all, have extended their power across the Irish Sea. In 1927 a unique group of burials was unearthed on Lambay, a small island off the coast of County Dublin... Irish archaeologist Barry Raftery plausibly suggests that the burials may represent Britons fleeing reprisals after the Romans crushed a revolt by the Brigantes in the year 74... At Drumanagh in County Dublin, trial explorations have revealed traces of a Roman coastal fort on a promontory jutting into the Irish Sea. The 40-acre site is defended...

The Roman Ninth Legion's mysterious loss 16 March 2011 The disappearance of Rome's Ninth Legion has long baffled historians, but could a brutal ambush have been the event that forged the England-Scotland border, asks archaeologist Dr Miles Russell, of Bournemouth University. One of the most enduring legends of Roman Britain concerns the disappearance of the Ninth Legion. The theory that 5,000 of Rome's finest soldiers were lost in the swirling mists of Caledonia, as they marched north to put down a rebellion, forms the basis of a new film, The Eagle, but how much of it is true? It is...

Pytheas was a contemporary of Aristotle and Alexander the Great. He reached the Arctic Circle in his search for new sources of tin (essential for the making of bronze) and amber (usually sourced from the German coast) around 330 to 325 BC... As Pytheas continued his journey north along Britain's west coast he came across Ireland and rounded the tip of Scotland. At that point in his journey, he learned of an island situated further north at a distance of six days sailing which he refers to as "Thule" (most probably Iceland). Geminus of Rhodes (1st century BC) quoting directly...

Early Roman "horseshoes" unearthed during an excavation at a fort near Hadrian's Wall are to go on display. Barbara Birley, curator at Vindolanda, near Hexham, in Northumberland, said it was "incredibly rare" to find a full set of four iron hipposandals. She said the hoof protectors were so well preserved that their tread to stop horses slipping was clearly visible. The haul was found by a volunteer - one of 250 who carry out digs at the fort every year. Because the Romans were in Britain for between 400 and 500 years, Ms Birley said, teams could dig at the...

A medieval gaming board has been found by archaeologists working to find a lost Pictish-era monastery in Aberdeenshire. Archaeologist Ali Cameron said the board found near Old Deer was a "very rare" find with it used to play the Norse strategy game of Hnefatafl. A date for the board has yet to be established but a similar piece found in Birsay, Orkney, in 1989 was dated to the Late Iron Age/Pictish period from the 5th to 9th Century AD. Ms Cameron said: "It is a very rare object and only a few have been found in Scotland, mainly on monastic...