For a great deal of its length a third lower mound, the so-called marginal mound occupies the south berm (flat area between mound and ditch), right on the southern lip of the ditch. The Vallum comprises a ditch, nominally 6 metres (20 ft) wide and 3 metres (10 ft) deep, with a flat bottom, flanked by two mounds about 6 metres wide and 2 metres (7 ft) high, set back some 9 metres (30 ft) from the ditch edges. In fact all these elements date to Hadrian's reign, with the stone wall having been built first. It was long thought that the Vallum predated the stone wall, whose most elaborate phasing was presented in 1801 by William Hutton, who thought, wrongly, that the south vallum mound and the marginal mound, with a ditch between, were the work of Agricola, that the vallum ditch and north mound were added by Hadrian, and that the stone wall was the work of Severus. The earliest surviving mention of the earthwork is by Bede ( Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, I.12), who refers to a vallum, or earthen rampart, as distinct from the wall, or murus the term is still used despite the fact that the essential element is a ditch, or fossa. Unique on any Roman frontier, it runs practically from coast to coast to the south of the wall. The Vallum is a huge earthwork associated with Hadrian's Wall in England. Vallum of Hadrian's Wall, near Milecastle 42 (Cawfields)
0 kommentar(er)
