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A 16-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage in connection with the felling of the world-famous Sycamore Gap tree on Hadrian’s Wall. The boy remains in custody and is assisting officers with their inquiries, Northumbria Police said on Thursday afternoon. Superintendent Kevin Waring, of Northumbria Police, said: “This is a world-renowned landmark and the events of today have caused significant shock, sadness and anger throughout the local community and beyond. “An investigation was immediately launched following this vandalism, and this afternoon we have arrested one suspect in connection with our inquiries. “Given our investigation remains at...

Bizzare theories are swirling tonight over why the world famous Sycamore Gap tree, which appeared in Kevin Costner's 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, was chopped down in the middle of the night, as a 16-year-old boy is quizzed by police. The much-loved landmark at Sycamore Gap, next to Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland. Mystery surrounds how the damage could have been done, with some theorising that 'a professional who knew where they were going to cut' was responsible, perhaps requiring a torch to complete the job at night. It is possible the perpetrator would have required an accomplice to...

A nearly 1,800-year-old silver military medal featuring the snake-covered head of Medusa has been unearthed in what was once the northern edge of the Roman Empire.Excavators discovered the winged gorgon on June 6 at the English archaeological site of Vindolanda, a Roman auxiliary fort that was built in the late first century, a few decades before Hadrian's Wall was constructed in A.D. 122 to defend the empire against the Picts and the Scots.The "special find" is a "silver phalera (military decoration) depicting the head of Medusa," according to a Facebook post from The Vindolanda Trust, the organization leading the excavations....

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...

Archaeologists excavating at the Roman fort of Vindolanda have found a phallus made of wood, which may have been a Roman sex toy from almost 2,000-years-ago. Vindolanda (translated as “white field” or “white moor”) was a Roman auxiliary fort, situated on the fringes of the Roman Empire near Hadrian’s Wall to guard a major highway called the Stanegate. No less than nine Roman forts were built of timber or stone at Vindolanda from around AD 85 to AD 370, creating one of the most complex archaeological sites in Britain and a unique cultural legacy of frontier life. The phallus was...

Archaeologists have been carrying out research into a huge late fist century AD defence system, which stretches 120 miles across Scotland. A total of 14 forts and several fortlets, which formed part of a defensive network built in the AD 70s, have so far been investigated over the past decade by the team, led by Dr Birgitta Hoffmann and Dr David Wolliscroft, both of the University of Liverpool. The network, which is thought to have run from Montrose or Stonehaven, south of Aberdeen, on the North Sea coast to the Firth or Clyde, was built some 50 years before Hadrian's...

Dylan Herbert uncovered a stone with a drawing of a phallus and an insult - with it expected to amuse visitors for many years to come...Earlier this year, a Roman Altar from the 3rd century AD was uncovered, thought to be from a similar time period to the most recent discovery. Though this one is quite a lot ruder!Not only was there a drawing, but the 40 x 15cm stone is also engraved with SECVNDINVS CACOR, making the graffiti a very personal insult. Specialists in Roman epigraphy, Drs Alexander Meyer, Alex Mullen and Roger Tomlin, recognised it as a mangled...

Archaeologists have discovered 134 ancient settlements north of Hadrian’s Wall from around the period of the Roman occupation.Hadrian’s Wall (Vallum Aulium) was a defensive Roman fortification that ran 73 miles (116km) from Mais (Solway Firth) to the banks of the River Tyne at Segedunum (Wallsend).Following Hadrian’s accession to the throne in AD 117, he constructed a wall like no other in the Roman world, a wall that was a physical expression of Rome’s power to solidify the Roman policy of defence and indicate the most northern frontier of the Empire.Whether this would have deterred a threat from the northern tribes...

Michel Wal / Wikimedia Commons The Vindolanda tablets (also known as Vindolanda Letters) are thin pieces of wood about the size of a modern postcard, which were used as writing paper for the Roman soldiers garrisoned at the fort of Vindolanda between AD 85 and 130. Such tablets have been found at other Roman sites, including nearby Carlisle, but not in as much abundance. In Latin texts, such as those of Pliny the Elder, these kinds of tablets are referred to as leaf tablets or sectiles or laminae—Pliny used them to keep notes for his Natural History, written in...

Francis Pryor examines the relics of the Dark Ages to build a fuller picture of this much-maligned era. Popular belief has always held that the departure of the Romans led to barbarism in Britain, but archaeological finds have shed light on a cultured, literate society that embraced the growing Romanised Christian religion and embarked on a profitable trading relationship with the Byzantine Empire.Sheep-farming archaeologist, Francis Pryor, presents a brand new historical series which explores Britain A.D, the British national character and the ultimate British icon King Arthur.Finding new and previously unexplained evidence, Francis Pryor overturns the idea that Britain reverted...

A 5th-century chalice covered in religious iconography has been discovered in Northumberland, to the astonishment of archaeologists, who describe it as Britain’s first known example of Christian graffiti on an object. With its complex mass of crosses and chi-rhos, angels and a priestly figure, as well as fish, a whale and ships, it is believed to be without parallel in western Europe. Made of lead and now in 14 fragments, it was unearthed at the Vindolanda Roman fort, one of Europe’s foremost archaeological sites, near Hadrian’s Wall, during an excavation that has also discovered the foundations of a significant church...

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

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...

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...

Dangling from an abseil rope 30ft up a river gorge rock face, archaeologist Jon Allison certainly felt close to the Romans who had worked on that same spot 1,800 years ago. They left their mark in the shape of graffiti composed of inscriptions and carved faces, and studying the messages produced the sensation of the quarry work gang communicating across the centuries. The carvings reveal that soldiers of the Second and 20th legions were detailed to operate in the quarry as part of the major repairing and re-building of Hadrian's Wall. And as a serving soldier himself for 22 years,...

Nearly 1,900 years ago, Roman Emperor Hadrian built a great wall across Britain. It was 73 miles long, and divided the Roman province of Britannia from the realms of the “painted men” to the north. Why? The northerners were not particularly dangerous. Even if they were, they could quite easily climb the wall—or row around it! Perhaps more importantly, Queen Boudicca’s rebellion proved that Britannia’s greatest threat was its native Celtic population. And what exactly was Hadrian protecting? Britain’s north was an empty expanse of pastures and forests. Who cares if tattooed peasants herded their sheep in the hills? Rather...

An ancient quarry near Hadrian’s Wall in northern England offers a smutty glimpse into the lives of the Roman soldiers who built the famous fortification. Archaeologists from the U.K.’s Newcastle University and Historic England are working to record the unique inscriptions carved into the walls of the quarry, which provided stone for Hadrian’s Wall. The sandstone inscriptions include a caricature of an officer and a phallus, which denoted good luck in Roman culture. Other carvings at the quarry in Gelt Forest have helped experts date the rare inscriptions. One inscription, for example, describes ‘APRO ET MAXIMO CONSVLIBVS OFICINA MERCATI,’ a...

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...