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Impearls: 2004-08-22 Archive

Earthdate 2004-08-28

The Builders of Hadrian's Wall

Plaque commemorating the names of the builders of Wallsend portion of Hadrian's Wall (photographer: Phil Kennedy)

Phil Kennedy, Impearls' correspondent in the far north of England, at Wallsend, sent this photograph of a plaque commemorating the names of the builders of this portion of Hadrian's Wall, a massive complex of stone wall and fortifications erected by the Romans starting in 122 A.D. across the isthmus of northern England (the northern limit of their province of Britannia) as a barrier against the barbarians of what is now Scotland.  (At the time, incidentally, the “Scots” themselves [Scoti] still lived only in Ireland.)  As Phil writes:

I had nothing to do last Sunday afternoon so went to the Segedunum site (about 5 minutes walk from my front door), the end of the Wall itself (hence Wallsend, where I live), and I noticed a mock wall there with umpteen roman names.  When reading the placard beside it, it said that the names were taken from a part of the wall nearby, where the names were listed as men involved in the building of the wall here — back in 122.  So I got a pic or two with my camera and the names are interesting to read, and you wonder what sort of people they were.  Like:  Antonius Felix, Caecilius Clemens, Flavius Bassus, Julius Proculus, Valerius Flavus and so on.

Below are shown the complete list of names on a larger scale.  Notice the many two-letter and even longer ligatures (beyond the “Æ” that we're still somewhat used to today) that for longer names were often used to save space in the inscription.

First portion of plaque commemorating the names of the builders of Wallsend portion of Hadrian's Wall (photographer: Phil Kennedy)
Second portion of plaque commemorating the names of the builders of Wallsend portion of Hadrian's Wall (photographer: Phil Kennedy)

UPDATE:  2005-10-02 23:25 UT:  Changed image hosting; minor additions to wording.




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