Understanding Hadrian's Wall in slowly moving pictures with sound

Factuality

 A recent episode of illness, has made me reconsider my route to market and the future of this blog.  I have been working on a book, but the complexities of 3D modelling are not well suited to text.

However, there is another darker issue; my work will not be accepted while I am alive.

As a result of my year as a postgrad at Newcastle University, the use of engineering to understand the archaeology of engineered structures, and more specifically, in this case Hadrian’s Wall, has been ruled worthless and without value, although it might have been considered a courtesy to have read it first. However, in a mindless dystopian world governed by a code academic omertà, I am now verboten, persona non grata, outcast in a vale of tribulation and mixed metaphor. 

Having been sentenced to a life of the living dead, where only my demise will make this form evidence acceptable, I not going to pull any punches.

If, in less than an hour, you can deconstruct a course that costs students hundreds, if not thousands of pounds, discouraging people waste their money studying archaeology at these bottom feeding Russel brand universities is a public service. 

If, as in this case, people are being charged real money for a bunch of ill-assorted ideas that were nonsense when they dreamt up by medieval monks and Victorian gentlemen, but have been passed on for generations with all the credulous zeal and fact checking of a medieval scriptorium, - don’t expect acquiescence from any archaeologist with a passing acquaintance with soil science.

I am starting with the Hadrian’s Wall, as it is relatively simple archaeology, and while much of the contemporary narrative is immutable balderdash, it can’t hold a candle to imaginary ritual landscape that illuminates contemporary British Prehistory, a topic I have promised [Andy] to return to. 

Lies

While I was confined to YouTube by illness, I was amazed to discover that ancient civilisations of pyramid builders had been found on Mars and well as under the Ice Caps, just one of the many things that archaeologists like me have been keeping secret. I must have had a stroke and forgotten everything.   But then again, someone taught the Sumerians to use Tablets several millennia before the advent of the Samsung Galaxy - it makes you think, or why else would tens of thousands of people rush to watch these videos within hours of them being posted……..

..  So I resolved to find some eccentric item of dress, perhaps a hat, rent the whole wall of books, liberally sprinkle it with extraneous exotic artefacts, perhaps a weapon or two, and a model of Stonehenge descending from the ceiling surrounded by dancing …….

….. After I recovered sufficiently from whatever pestilence was attacking my temporal gland, I decided it would be best if I reproduced the talk that I was giving on The Wall last year at the Twice Brewed Inn.  I already had the slides, so there was no reason for me to become visually involved, that’a a treat reserved for the real people who come to the real thing, and not something to expose to all the imaginary virtual people on YouTube.  

All you have to do is keep talking for 60 minutes without making too many mistakes, while recording it to a reasonable standard, and after all, people who have time to find pyramid shaped rocks on Mars seem to manage it, so how hard could it be?

The creative process has been interesting, in its most ironic and antonymous sense,or so my Production Executive Tiny informs me, although he is partial to a good animation.  We have been learning together, so hopefully, future output ~ Parts 2 & 3, will be of a more consistent standard and quicker to produce.

Truth

The video aims to explain Hadrian’s attempt to build his Wall, using the very latest structural research and modelling. This is the first instalment of a three part presentation originally intended for people from all over the world who come to walk the Wall.  Therefore, it assumes little prior knowledge, and is a general introduction to Hadrian & the Romans in the North of Britain in the period 122 ~ 138.

In this introduction, I have to cover much well trodden ground, but as a general rule, I don’t want to waste time telling you what you could read in any guide book.
It lasts 37 minutes; there are no sweeping shots of the modern landscape peppered with snow, accompanying blaring trumpets heralding marching feet, and a booming voice telling you about a distant frontier of the greatest empire the world has ever hyperbolised - that’s all on order with the shed load of books, the sharp suit and the eye-catching neckwear.
So look out for more video content on my new YouTube Channel;

Geoff Carter ~ Theoretical Structural Archaeology Channel.