Hadrian\'s Wall II

[mcbishop]

Another pressie (and Kate guessed the nature of this one).

Be warned: don't try this at home if you use Opera, Seamonkey, or a KHTML-based browser like Safari or Konqueror. For reasons best known to Micro$oft, it only works with Internet Exploder or Firefox (probably something to do with the Javascript). On the other browsers, all you see is a rather crummy search engine interface.

Here are aerial atlases of the milecastles, forts, and outpost forts of Hadrian's Wall.

The Microsoft 'Virtual Earth' system (also known as local.live.com and maps.live.com) is much flakier and more clumsy than Google Maps or Google Earth (which I would have used by preference) but has the virtue of having the Getmapping hiresolution aerial photographic coverage of England and Wales, so makes it preferable for a project like this over the landsat covereage available elsewhere. You may have varying success getting the server to work (the collections are stored on a central server, whereas Google saves .kml files on your computer) so be patient and don't blame me; just petition Google to buy the Getmapping coverage ;-)

Another, very different, present follows, possibly tomorrow.

Mike Bishop

[richsc]

Great job! Many thanks Mike!

[Caballo]

Thanks Mike!!! D

[markusaurelius]

Thanks Mike!

Great pics.

Have all of these Forts etc. been properly excavated? Or is there still much work to be done on them?

[mcbishop]

For those who lamented (or, indeed, even noticed) their absence, here is a catalogue of the turrets of Hadrian's Wall.

Where is this all leading? Wait and see ;-)

Mike Bishop

[mcbishop]

Have all of these Forts etc. been properly excavated? Or is there still much work to be done on them?

I think it is true to say that all of the forts have had some degree of excavation undertaken on them, but very few 'properly' (much of it was late-19th- or early 20th-century clearance). A slightly smaller proportion of milecastles, turrets etc have been looked at, but many have been taken out by post-Roman building activity (particularly where the Military Road was involved). They reckon it will take them dozens of years to finish excavating at Vindolanda, and the tendency is always for archaeology to get more complicated, rather than less, even allowing for advances in technology, and many forts have not been touched for years, let alone had anything near the attention lavished on Vindolanda (and it is unlikely to be the only deeply stratified, waterlogged site on the Wall). The money is not there and the mantra these days (rightly or wrongly) is 'preservation in situ'.

Mike Bishop

[Kate Gilliver]

I didn't guess it would be anywhere near as good as this though, Mike. This is a fantastic resource for both research and teaching that makes Hadrian's Wall (and associated features) available to everyone in a way that no book could. It also shows what can be done through the integration of different media. Thanks very much.

Can't wait to show my students! And it's immediately given me ideas for student dissertations for next year should some poor sod come along and say (vaguely) they want to do something (vague) on the army!

[mcbishop]

I didn't guess it would be anywhere near as good as this though, Mike. This is a fantastic resource for both research and teaching that makes Hadrian's Wall (and associated features) available to everyone in a way that no book could. It also shows what can be done through the integration of different media.

At the moment the most serious limitation is that any one 'collection' (as M$ call them) is limited to 200 items, hence my original goal of all elements of Hadrian's Wall in one collection was torpedoed. Second to that is that the raw material of the collection is 'locked' into the server and what I am always after is data interchangeability and extractability (the sort of 'mashups' that are done by the BBC's experimental boffins with Google maps and BBC traffic data etc). I also worry slightly about the seemingly flaky nature of the server holding the data. Sometimes it's there... and sometimes not!

Things can only improve with time. Meanwhile, I may have some more 'inspiration' for your students in due course ;-)

Mike Bishop

[hansvl]

Fantastic Mike! Thanks!

I first tried to open it with firefox but it didn't work. On IE it works fine. Great resource on the wall. Many thanks.

Hans

[mcbishop]

I first tried to open it with firefox but it didn't work. On IE it works fine.

Are you using the latest version of Firefox? It works with no problems for me with Firefox 2.0 on both Linux and Windoze XP. I know there were some improvements to the implementation of Javascript in FF2 and the whole live.com interface seems to be heavily dependent on JS.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, here is a list of the museums along the Wall to help you plan your visits.

Mike Bishop

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Stuff for a great new book by MCBishop!!!!!!!

Or so I hope!!!!!!!

What a lovely photos!!!!

M.VIB.M.

[hansvl]

Are you using the latest version of Firefox?

Well I wasn't, but then I downloaded the latest version (2.0) and it works fine. Thanks, Mike.

Hans

[richsc]

Stuff for a great new book by MCBishop!!!!!!!

New book, maybe new printer, say on demand?

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

YUP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



M.VIB.M.

[mcbishop]

Stuff for a great new book by MCBishop!!!!!!!

New book, maybe new printer, say on demand?

It would require buying the rights to the Getmapping imagery for the appropriate portions. They have published several books using their photos (I have one on British battlefields) but the fact that none have appeared recently suggests that they did not exactly sell like hot cakes. I have certainly thought of looking into it, but suspect it would not be financially viable.

I have another scheme for aerial photos of Hadrian's Wall, however... of which more later... ;-)

Mike Bishop