Hadrian’s Wall, Westeros
Game of Thrones, Murder and other facts about Hadrian’s Wall.
Hadrian’s Wall is an amazing place to visit in the north of England both for its historic value and for the amazing scenery and countryside that it meanders through for 73 miles. It stretches from coast to coast and joins Wallsend in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west. The Roman emperor Hadrian ordered its construction in 122AD and it took 15000 men over six years to complete it. One of his aims was for it to be an example of the Roman Empire’s immense power.
A lot of people think that the wall forms the border between England and Scotland but that is both incorrect and actually impossible as it was built well before either country existed. If it was the border then the Scottish part of Great Britain would be quite a bit bigger than it currently is!
As well as the normal historical facts about Hadrian’s Wall, there are also other more unusual ones to be found involving literature and murder.
From England to Westeros
It was during a visit to the UK and to Hadrian’s Wall in the early 1980s that George R.R. Martin was inspired to create The Wall in his novel “A Game Of Thrones” which was published in 1996. However, unlike Hadrian’s effort, his wall was made of solid ice and dramatically much higher and much longer. Nevertheless, it’s amazing that a wall built in northern England 1900 years ago could prove the inspiration for such an important location in a hugely successful series of books and the subsequent TV series.
Maybe Mr Martin also took note of the purpose of Hadrian’s Wall as both were constructed to keep certain people out. Emperor Hadrian wanted to keep the northern and unconquered barbarians away and, hence, the boundary between Roman Britannia and Caledonia was born. In the novels of Mr Martin, the Westeros Wall was there to keep the dreaded White Walkers out and became the gigantic boundary between the Seven Kingdoms and the Free Folk.
To A Lady
Staying on the theme of literature, Hadrian’s Wall also proved yet more inspiration for the Scottish poet and novelist Sir Walter Scott in his poem “To A Lady — With Flowers From A Roman Wall” which he wrote in 1813. The poem talks of a ruin’d rampart and of Rome’s imperial standard. To me, those words could be a perfect description of Hadrian’s Wall and written in an encyclopaedia.
A Murderous History
A more sinister moment in the wall’s history was revealed during the excavation of Housesteads Roman Fort in the 1930s. During the dig, two bodies were found under a tavern floor and the cause of death pointed towards murder when the tip of a dagger was found in the bones. A coroner’s inquest at the time concluded that they were indeed “victims of murder by persons unknown shortly before 367AD.” Unfortunately, any further investigation was curtailed when the bones disappeared during the Second World War. Imagine how interesting further research would have been.
More recently was the heartbreaking discovery in 2010 of a child’s skeleton that had been buried under a barrack room floor at the Vindolanda Fort near Hadrian’s Wall. The bones are thought to be of a ten-year boy or girl who could have been tied up before death. Unlike the previous discovery of bodies in the 1930s, more investigation was carried out on the poor child’s body that showed he or she came from the Mediterranean area. This led to the belief that the child was perhaps a child slave or the child of a Roman soldier who was stationed on Hadrian’s Wall. Whilst it can’t be concluded whether the death was an accident that was covered up or murder, there is no doubt that this was a truly sorrowful moment in the Wall’s history and one that should never be forgotten.
Legacy
Hadrian’s Wall was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 despite more than 90% of it being no longer in existence. Apparently, its stone made excellent material in the later construction of castles and churches. Maybe it is fitting that Hadrian’s Wall became part of those buildings long after the Romans left it in 402AD. It could even be called their unintentional legacy.
