The open courtyard of the HQ building at Bar Hill C2nd Roman fort near Glasgow, Scotland, UK, looking S over the well (votive shaft?) to the crosshall
The open courtyard of the headquarters building at Bar Hill Roman fort near Glasgow, Scotland, UK, looking S over the well to the crosshall, offices & shrine of the standards. At 145m OD, Bar Hill is the highest fort on the line of the Antonine Wall with wide views over the Kelvin Valley. Emperor Antoninus Pius had the Wall built AD140-42/3 as the Empire's NW frontier. It runs for some 39 miles (62km) across Scotland's central belt from Bo'ness on the Forth westwards to Old Kilpatrick on the Clyde. The wall was built of turf with a deep ditch to the N & a military road to the S. Forts were attached to the S side of the Wall at intervals of around two miles; Bar Hill is the only detached fort being set back on slightly higher ground just S of the Wall. Bar Hill was built around AD142 to be abandoned around AD163. It was manned by auxillaries: the First Cohort of Hamians (Syrian archers) & the First Cohort of Baetasians from Lower Germany, plus the Second & Twentieth Legions. The Antonine Wall was in active use, with one temporary abandonment, for only 20 years or so before the Romans finally withdrew S to Hadrian's Wall. The well, first excavated in 1902-5, is 43ft (13m) deep x 4ft () across & is lined to the bottom with shaped stones. It contained a wealth of deposits including: an altar, ballista balls, four crudely carved stone busts, fragments of three building inscriptions, building stones, wooden beams & more than 20 stone columns with bases & capitals. Iron hoops from the well bucket, part of the pulley wheel & a piece of rope, a bag containing workmen's tools, other iron tools, weapons including arrowheads, bronze ornaments, a copper pot, a bell & a compass leg. Lots of pottery, coins & tin denarii made in a mould as votive tokens not struck as genuine coins. Many leather shoes & sandals & a wooden comb. Walnuts, hazel nuts, oyster shells, bones & skulls of the short-horned Celtic ox. These finds have been variously interpreted as evidence of the fort's s
Size: 4961px × 3732px
Location: Bar Hill Roman Fort, Twechar, Kirkintilloch, Glasgow, East Dumbartonshire, Scotland, UK
Photo credit: © Mick Sharp / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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