Blogging from Newcastle, UK on October 26, 2019
Bloggers: Mack and Halle
Steps Taken: 14,000
Today we saw a variety of different sites: Vindolanda, Vindolanda, and Vindolanda. At Vindolanda we learned about both Roman forts and life on the British frontier and also just how cold the North gets this time of year. It was so cold that Mack even wore Professor Stewart’s purple beanie with a pom-pom on top to stay warm. Fashion at its finest.
We began our time in Vindolanda looking at the walls of the fort and evaluating modern reconstructions of the lookouts along the walls. This portion of our day lasted about twenty minutes before we realized it was going to be very, very cold and that we would have to alternate between the museum and the site in order to stay warm. Naturally, FSP 2019 took a coffee break.
Post coffee break we went back on site and began our work. We learned about a variety of topics, including a general history of Roman Britain, Hadrian’s Wall as a defensive, socioeconomic, and political statement, and the anaerobic conditions of Vindolanda that allowed such pristine preservation of leather and even wooden objects that are nearly impossible to find in Italy itself. Vindolanda is known for over 7,000 leather shoes that have been found on the site, a sort of preservation possible only in anaerobic conditions. Note that we say 7,000 shoes and not 3,500 pairs of shoes, because of the 7,000 shoes we have ONLY THREE SURVIVING PAIRS. Naturally, Mack immediately began theorizing about Roman fashion. One would think that having only three pairs out of 3,500 potential pairs is a result of staggeringly low odds, unless, of course, the Romans in Britain did not always wear their shoes in pairs. Alas, Professor Haynes did not necessarily agree with this hypothesis. But what does he know, he’s only one of the world’s foremost scholars of Roman Britain.
We then went on to Birdoswald Roman Fort where we talked more about the significance of milestones, which informed our thinking about the purpose of Hadrian’s wall (answer pending.) We saw milecastle 49, which the cool people call Harrow’s Scar, which Mila decided would be the name of her jazz-rock band.
From there, we went to Corbridge. which lies at the intersection of the NS road and the EW road. Because of its central location, Corbrige functioned as a legionary supply base. And supply base it was, because guess who got their fill of scones and clotted cream? You’re right again, dear reader, it was FSP 19. We talked about the presence of two different military contingents, the second Augustan and the 10th from York. In the museum at Corbrige, we noticed and discussed the shrine to Jupiter Dolecamus, to Rome Aeterna, and we were most excited to see iconography of Romulus and Remus on one of the shrines which is yet another piece of evidence for religious hybridity on the frontier. Margaret happily took careful notes of each god we observed, depicted on the shrines.
Cheers to the Frontier.