Archaeological Blogging; Inadmissible Evidence
In terms of its significance, Hadrian’s Timber Wall is the post that stands out, as it encapsulates everything about this blog and why I created it.
It is not even in the top 10 most read posts, or as contentious as those about Class Ei buildings like Stonehenge [1], but the Timber Wall was a totally new concept, an unexpected research bonus, which got worldwide publicity. From the blogosphere via my local paper the Hexham Courant, it found its way into various media including the BBC and even made cameo appearance on the History Channel. Recently, I met someone who had been involved at the time, who was surprised that it had not made my career; sadly, it probably had quite the opposite effect.
Until July 2008 I was unaware that there were postholes in
front of Hadrian’s Wall, but this was precisely the type of evidence I had been
researching, and, intrigued by their layout, I took a close look at them. The result was a rather scruffy analysis of
the Buddle St postholes which I circulated
among colleagues at TWM and Newcastle University, [reproduced in Appendix below]. This was genesis of the
Timber Wall, and for a fleeting moment I imagined there was a possibility of it
being part of the 60th Anniversary Limes Conference, to be hosted by Tyne and Wear Museums with the University the following year.
It was never going to happen; whatever the merits of the case, the latter had effectively blackballed me, and, while the former had subsequent made me redundant, far more
importantly, TWM was the proponent of the theory that these postholes represented a system
of obstacles [or cippi] [2,3].
