Hadrians Wall

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Having walked ythe ground with Brian on my first visit to the wall, and back again there in 2009, I am a little skeptical myself...and I can't see anything in the satilite pics that would resemble a gyrus...It is also quite close to the bathhouse.....as brian says there are better locations for a horse training arena! :-)

[PhilusEstilius]

Byron.

I have just sent you an e-mail.

[Kegluneq]

The revamped Roman Army Museum too is a big improvement with lots more original archaeological finds on display. However if you don't agree with the view that the Roman army always looked like The Ermine Street Guard, then you will be in for a disappointment!

At one point they describe lorica segmentata plates as being attached to a leather jerkin... (Contradicted by the reconstruction obviously.)

[D B Campbell]

I can't see anything in the satilite pics that would resemble a gyrus...It is also quite close to the bathhouse.....as brian says there are better locations for a horse training arena!

All very good points. However, the feature no longer survives above ground -- it was located by geophysical survey in 2003 (by Timescape Research Surveys). This plot (published in Britannia 35, 2004, p. 274) shows the result of "electrical resistance" (sometimes called resistivity) -- a circular feature of around 50m diameter can clearly be seen outside the minor east gate, where it effectively blocks the path to the bathhouse.
[attachment=4662]Britannia35_2004_p274.jpg[/attachment]

If this is a gyrus -- and I'm not sure that even the feature at The Lunt has definitely been identified as such -- it was presumably sited to enable cavalrymen to exit the fort, using the minor east gate, directly into the ring. Prospective bathers would make the long way round.

[Vindex]

Thank you Duncan. I had just written - and lost - a post saying EH's web site doesn't list the report.

Thank you for the reference; I'll look it up on Monday :mrgreen:

Edited to say: If that is a gyrus, due to the slope in the ground there as Brian says I think it would be more like a cavalryman's equivalent to a Wall of Death!! :wink: Good fun though but perhaps not so good for the horses' legs...

[Crispvs]

I had the impression, walking over the site, that the slope had probably increased somewhat due to subsidence over the past eighteen hundred or so years. It seemed to get much steeper close to the bath house and I found myself wondering whether the bath house might have been built on a flat space created by digging out an existing slope and shifting the spoil uphill to create a more level space for the gyrus. If this was the case, over the intervening time it would naturally have slipped back to something like its original profile. Any soil which had slipped down onto the ruined bath house would have been removed when it was excavated. I suppose though that the area would have to be dug to establish whether this could actually have been the case.

Thanks for the picture by the way, Duncan.

Crispvs

[PhilusEstilius]

Where some might say gyrus I think what this may be is a Neolithic circle for there are a few scattered on the hill sides as we go up out of the North Tyne Valley and to the south of the fort is the major one on Warden Hill.
There would not have been much to clear for the Severan bath house for it is ontop of a Hadrianic Grannery with the buttresses still going under the bridge ramp.
The Porta Quintana Destra I'm sure was not blocked in anyway for the ramp climbs up over this mound area to the gate.

[Vindex]

Vindolanda has found evidence of round houses too.

No reason why there can't have been a gyrus at Chesters; I just think there is a lot more flatter land available for one without crowding the fort wall or the bath house.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Someone deleted my post?
i guess we agree there is a round object between the fort and the bath-house, but I still
am dubious as to it being a horse ring.
Even the Romans would have issues with horse urine and manure leaching down to the bathhouse.
Why could it not be a temple?

[PhilusEstilius]

I think from the religious point of view the Romans may have respected even an ancient Tumulus, but their fort protecting the river crossing of Hadrian's wall would most certainly have taken priority over any earlier structures.
I can't see it being a Roman Temple for that would not have been where this thing is there may well be a Mosolium down stream of the fort in the large gridded grave yard that comes all the way up to the south east of the fort just less than a stones throw from the bath house.
If we use the Google map that Jurjen provided just south of the fence near the bath house there are indeed Roman graves by the tree that can be seen, this is most strange for the Romans to allow graves to be so near to the fort but then there are many things going on at Chesters that do need some investigation and excavation.

[Crispvs]

When I looked at the images that were shown to me when I visited, there appeared to be a triangular shape projecting from one side of the circle towards the road, which appeared to be the same shape as the funnel shaped entrance to the Lunt gyrus. It was this which for me clinched it as being the same type of structure as that which was found at the Lunt. It was also not me who proposed that it was a gyrus. What I would assume to be wiser heads than mine had already done so.

As to manure and urine leaking down to the bath house, the Romans were pretty adept at laying drains everywhere they could, to judge from most sites I have visited, so I don't seen why the drainage of fluid which include urine should have been any problem for them. I would be very surprised if there was not some sort of gutter behind the bath house to drain away runoff from the slope behind in any case, regardless of whether or not there had been a gyrus there. Manure need not be any problem either. A standard part of horse care is the mucking out of stables, which produces soiled material which must be disposed of, most probably for use as fertiliser for crops, and there is no reason to suppose that manure dropped in a training ring would not be cleared away and similarly disposed of. We don't see modern equestrian exercise yards knee deep in manure and I doubt ancient ones were either.

Crispvs

[D B Campbell]

When I looked at the images that were shown to me when I visited, there appeared to be a triangular shape projecting from one side of the circle towards the road, which appeared to be the same shape as the funnel shaped entrance to the Lunt gyrus.

Does it appear in this survey plot (again from Britannia 35, 2004, p. 274)? (Not sure which "road" you're referring to.)
[attachment=4674]Britannia35_2004_p274b.jpg[/attachment]

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Yes, I'm sure they were adept at running drains. However, are there any in the ground?
As for it not being the right place for a temple, they found alter stones in Vindolanda,
something which is also not supposed to be there.
Considering there is a large and ornate bridge comming into the fort, why not have a temple too?
In the last picture Duncan posted, i see a few other structures inside the circle.
In the previous one posted, there is a linerar shape running across it.
There is a running water way on the north side of the raodway, plus another aquaduct running down from the North west side of the fort, possibly the same waterway, if I remember Brian correctly?


But since it is a cavalry fort, you would think it would have a gyrus, if these are what they are supposed to be in the first place...

[Crispvs]

Hello Duncan,

Thanks for the image.

The road I was referring to is the one leading from the south east gate to the bridge. I can't see the funnel shape that I recalled but it could have been the trapezoid shape with the two square enclosures which points towards the road which I noticed. It was certainly at about that point. I must confess that I did not remember that there were so many other features visible in the area concerned. Time does dull the memory!

At the time I was shown the scans (either May or June 2008) the staff at the site were most enthusiastic to show them to us. They covered a sizable area including the river banks as well as the fort and I gained the impression from the staff that the geophysical survey had been conducted only a few months previously. I was therefore quite surprised to learn more recently that a survey had been done in 2003, five years before. As it seemed unlikely that two separate surveys had been done, I have to assume that the scans I saw were already five years old, despite the bubbling enthusiasm of the site staff. I recall the copy they showed us being either four or six A4 pages taped together edge to edge, as they had to unfold it to show us.

Crispvs

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

[ [attachment=4662]Britannia35_2004_p274.jpg[/attachment]

If this is a gyrus -- and I'm not sure that even the feature at The Lunt has definitely been identified as such -- it was presumably sited to enable cavalrymen to exit the fort, using the minor east gate, directly into the ring. Prospective bathers would make the long way round.

Actually, the east gate and road run to the north of the bath house and the round thing.