On Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:04:18 -0500, S Viemeister
wrote:
>Martin wrote:
>> On Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:40:09 -0500, S Viemeister
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Mike....... wrote:
>>>> Following up to S Viemeister wrote:
>>>>> And an absolutely unbeatable view from the livingroom window.
>>>> I think you mentioned you have a good view
>>> I'll see if we can manage to put up a few photos on a website somewhere
>>> - meantime, here's one a friend took, from the top of our drive.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The hedge in the foreground has been tidied up a bit since then.
>>
>> Brilliant photos :o)
>>
>
>Not mine - they were taken by a friend.
>
>> What are the " "Lilia" (defensive pits) on the Antonine Wall at Rough Castle"?
>
>The pits would have made an attack on the wall more difficult.
but handy if used to bury the dead. :o)
There seem to be more of them
http://romanarch.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_archive.html
Antonine Wall's "Fields of Lilias" Nothing to Sneeze At
"Excavations of the 38-mile Antonine wall at Mumrills Fort, near Falkirk, have
revealed evidence of the Romans' defensive structures, which were designed to
cause the maximum damage to attackers, and even the daily cooking routines of
foot-soldiers.
Archaeologists have discovered that the frontier, which briefly supplanted
Hadrian's wall in the second century AD, was lined with pits filled with stakes
which may have been dotted with sharp objects such as glass.
Similar fortifications, known as lilia because they apparently reminded Romans
of lilies, are shown on Trajan's column in Rome and were described by Julius
Caesar in the Gallic Wars, his description of one of his own campaigns.
Geoff Bailey, keeper of archaeology and local history at Falkirk Museum, said:
'We have now found these lilia on eight separate occasions and it looks like
they will have gone along the whole 38 miles of the wall. They are another part
of the defensive system which had never been discovered before. The Romans would
have had the ditch, the wall and these lilia, which you could call the ancient
Roman equivalent of the minefield.
'The Germans had similar structures called wolf pits in the first world war, and
they were used relatively recently in the Vietnam war where they were smeared
with animal fat, so that any injury inflicted would become infected.
'
We just don't know if the Romans did something similar here, but they provided
an extra obstacle for people moving north to south and channelled people into
the heavily guarded gateways where they could be easily controlled.'
--
Martin
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