New Dating For Wat's Dyke

History Today ^ | August 1999 | Keith Nurse

[SunkenCiv]

The new information places the construction of the dyke within the shadowy period that began with the formal withdrawal of the Roman administration (AD 410) and ended with the absorption of the area into Mercia. The report concludes: 'The dyke should therefore be regarded as being contemporary with that other great fifth-century linear earthwork, the Wiltshire Wansdyke, rather than Offa's Dyke, and should be considered as an achievement of the post-Roman kingdom of the northern Cornovii, rather than the work of seventh- or eighth-century Mercia.'

[SunkenCiv]

1999 isn't so new now, but the information may be new to everyone. [original URL]

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[SunkenCiv]

Ping!

[SunkenCiv]

Google

[SunkenCiv]

The Romans in Ireland
Archaeology Today | 2000? | L.A. Curchin
Posted on 07/18/2004 8:54:58 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1173950/posts

[SunkenCiv]

Just updating the GGG information, not sending a general distribution.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[SunkenCiv]

an oldie, from 2004, perhaps of interest.

[Blind Eye Jones]

Thanks, but I usually don't date dykes... unless their buying;-)

[SunkenCiv]

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·
	Gods Graves Glyphs	Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are Blam, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
· Google · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology magazine · Biblical Archaeology Society · · Mirabilis · Texas AM Anthropology News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · · History or Science & Nature Podcasts · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·

[SunkenCiv]

• Ancient Offa's Dyke ... was built 200 years before King Offa was born [2014]
• Ancient graves hint at cultural shift to Anglo-Saxon Britain [2014]
• 'Travellers' flatten 50 yards of Offa's Dyke with a bulldozer: [2013]
• English Heritage steps in to rescue prehistoric earthwork ["Roman Ridge"] [2011]
• Ancient Britain Had Apartheid-Like Society, Study Suggests [2009]
• Medieval canals spotted from air [2008]
• Space Age Lasers Reveal Offa's Dyke Missing Link [2007]
• Work Begins To Uncover Secrets Of Silbury Hill [2007]
• 100-Mile-Long Wall in Africa [Sungbo's Eredo] [2006]
• Was Arthur a king or just a battle commander? [2005]
• Genes show Welsh are the true Britons [2002]

[SunkenCiv]

The Roman historian Eutropius in his book Historiae Romanae Breviarium, written around 369, mentions the Wall of Severus, a structure built by Septimius Severus who was Roman Emperor between 193 and 211:

Novissimum bellum in Britannia habuit, utque receptas provincias omni securitate muniret, vallum per CXXXIII passuum milia a mari ad mare deduxit. Decessit Eboraci admodum senex, imperii anno sexto decimo, mense tertio. Historiae Romanae Breviarium, viii 19.1

"He had his most recent war in Britain, and to fortify the conquered provinces with all security, he built a wall for 133 miles from sea to sea. He died at York, a reasonably old man, in the sixteenth year and third month of his reign."

This source is conventionally thought to be referring, in error, to either Hadrian's Wall, 73 miles (117 km), or the Antonine Wall, 37 miles (60 km), which were both shorter and built in the 2nd century. Recently, some writers have suggested that Eutropius may have been referring to the earthwork later called Offa's Dyke...

The Venerable Bede also mentions the wall built by Septimus Severus. But Bede says that the wall was made of earth and timber, a description which would closer match Offa's Dyke than the Hadrian Wall Antonine Walls.

After many great and severe battles, (Severus) thought fit to divide that part of the island, which he had recovered, from the other unconquered nations, not with a wall, as some imagine, but with a rampart. For a wall is made of stones, but a rampart, with which camps are fortified to repel the assaults of enemies, is made of sods, cut out of the earth, and raised high above the ground, like a wall, having in front of it the trench whence the sods were taken, with strong stakes of wood fixed above it. Thus Severus drew a great trench and strong rampart, fortified with several towers, from sea to sea. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of England, Bk 1-5

[Wikipedia, Offa's Dyke]