Having looked at the bathhouse and its attendant latrines (anyone notice a theme developing here?) fish and I headed on down the hill, along with Steven, to find the museum where he hoped that he would find the remaining answers to his quiz. The remains displayed in the museum are amazing, with all sorts of leather goods, tools, weaponry, domestic items, the wooden writing tablets that Vindolanda is so famous for and, ludicrously, a black wig woven from moss that was thought to be a midge deterrent!

Within a few minutes we had arrived at the Birdoswald car park where a notice board promised us that “Jefficus” would be doing presentations on the weaponry of the Roman soldier. We walked up to the site entrance where there was an impressive stretch of the wall disappearing eastwards and having paid our entrance fees the first part of the visit was an audio-visual presentation on the history of the area. From there we went into a small museum which not only had a reconstructed latrine and a model Roman, it also had a model archaeologist! On inspection though, we all agreed he couldn’t be a real archaeologist – his boots were too clean! 

After the museum we went out to the fort where the entire outline of the defensive outer wall could be seen. Near the museum some of the excavated buildings had been laid out with coloured gravels to differentiate between periods. 

The handout recommended a route across the site that took us to the far side of the fort, known as Banna to the Romans, where there were wonderful views across the valley. By this time the weather gods had decided to smile on us and there was warm sunshine for our perambulation. The route back to the museum took us to the most spectacular upstanding remains on the site – the east gateway where the gate post stand as high as the springers for the arch and the hinge slots can be seen in the stones

Back at the museum we caught up with Andy and Marion who had arrived before us, Nicholas and Yvonne having left after Vindolanda to tackle their long drive home. We waited for the talk to discover that Jefficus would be replaced by “Martinus”. Eventually Martinus arrived and told us that there were inscriptions from the wall naming a Martinus so the name was not as silly as it seemed. He had an impressive array of weaponry to demonstrate, from the lorica segmentata armour worn by the legionaries and the chain mail of the auxiliaries to the swords, shields, daggers, and spears that were the main weapons. The talk was very entertaining and erudite but was spoiled for most of us by an irritating child called Andrew who reckoned he knew everything and had his hand up in the air for most of the time wanting to show off his knowledge! His poor embarrassed mother kept telling him to pipe down – the rest of us just wanted to strangle him with our bare hands!!! 

The end of the talk left us just enough time to look round the shop before making our way to the car park and saying our goodbyes. We all went our different ways, promising to meet up again soon, and as I had Chris with me we headed eastwards to the station at Gateshead, tracing our way back along the Wall.

We made a short stop on the way back at Carrawburgh. Little can be seen of the Brocolitia fort itself, but to its south are the excavated remains of one of Britain’s few known Mithraic temples. To quote my guide book:- “It is a typical Mithraeum with a small antechapel, screen and nave flanked by benches leading to a temple sanctuary containing three altars. Each altar is dedicated by a cohort officer who was stationed at the fort sometime in the third or fourth centuries.” One of the altars has an ingenious carved niche at the back to take a lamp, which would shine through and illuminate the rays around Mithras’ head, as Mithras was identified with the sun. Another of the altars really startled us, as the depression on the top to take sacrifices was full of coins! Out there in the middle of nowhere with no security, people were offering coins (including foreign currency such as dollars and euros) to the old gods – and even more remarkably it would appear they don’t get stolen! Chris and I felt that we should also make our offering before leaving. It made a reflective end to a day spent in the Roman world.  

Back at the museum the final part of the visit was to ascend the Viewing Tower from which you could see the whole site laid out beneath you like a map. There was also an interesting computer presentation taking a trip through the centuries showing what you would have seen from the same point as the years rolled by.  

After a bite of lunch it was time to move on. It is difficult to trace the Wall through the middle of Newcastle so I picked it up at Heddon on the Wall and drove alongside the obvious Roman remains. When I got to Chesters fort (Cilurnum = The Cauldron Pool) which I had planned as my next stop, the rain which had been a tolerable few drops as I wandered around Segedunum had turned to a veritable downpour. So I drove on past vowing to come back on some future occasion. Plan B was to investigate the place we had rejected the previous day – The Roman Army Museum, as I figured that “museum” ought to equal “undercover” – no flies on this girl! The museum is owned by the trust that looks after Vindolanda and has yet more interesting displays on the life and work of the soldiers stationed on the Wall, including a full-sized model of a Syrian archer, as they are one of the cohorts known to have been at the adjacent fort of Carvoran or Magnis (The Rocks). Little survives of the fort here, but excavation shows it to have been pre-Hadrianic in origin. 

2nd set photos by Dougal

The full roll call read:- Co., Jacks, Nancy (their mother), with Siobhan and Amy (both 8), Douglas, Laura, and their girls Catriona and Eleanor, Alison and her friend Lorraine, myself (Valerie), Joshua, and my friend Lorraine (yes, another one – either very confusing, or it made it easier to remember people’s names, according to one’s preference!)We exchanged greetings with old friends, and got acquainted with new ones, then moved into the museum to purchase tickets for the exhibition we had come to see. As has become customary with our visits (after all some people have to travel a fair distance to our meetings), the first stop was the coffee shop. A good natter soon got folk in the mood for the activities of the day, and we all moved into the exhibition room. We had come to see “Digging For Dreams : Treasures from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London“. The exhibition had various themes. As well as the standard displays of Egyptian artefacts, and the timelines comparing Egyptian history with events in other parts of the world, the exhibition explored some less familiar ideas. The first section looked at why we, in the modern world, find ancient Egypt so fascinating. An interesting display asked the viewer to attempt to differentiate between real ancient artefacts and some very clever fakes. 

Fortunately for most of us, the answers were available underneath the label! This part of the exhibition ended with a clip from the old black and white film “The Mummy”, just to reinforce our modern stereotype of ancient Egyptian culture. The exhibition also makes an interesting point about our view of “Egyptian culture” by showing that Tutankhamun’s time was as far removed from the builders of the pyramids, as we are from the Vikings! So, to talk about one Egyptian civilisation is, at best, misleading.Another section of the exhibition looks at the career of Flinders Petrie. The catalogue of the exhibition tells us that “as well as being a scholar, Petrie was also a great popularist. He believed that archaeology had a great deal to teach and was relevant to the important issues of his time. He also believed that non-specialists deserved high quality information about the ancient world.” Makes him sound like the Tony Robinson of his day!!

Everyone enjoyed their tour of the displays, there was plenty of serious information to satisfy the academic interest, whilst at the same time there were hands-on things to keep the youngsters happy (e.g. look into a polished bronze mirror and see yourself in Egyptian make-up). There was also the obligatory computer to play with, but I was told that it could have done with an overhaul as the mouse was extremely difficult to control.

One part of the exhibition that was dealt with particularly sensitively, was that dealing with the Egyptian cult of death. There is much debate today about whether it is ethically or morally correct to display the remains of the long-dead. However, it would be difficult to get around our expectations of Egyptian exhibitions and not to display something about mummies. There were no complete mummies to be seen here, but there were unwrapped body parts – a hand and a head. They were in a case with a curtain over it, giving the visitor the choice of whether or not they viewed this particular display. Visitors were also invited to make a voice offering to the individuals represented in the exhibition, as would have been the tradition of their religious practices.

After everyone had had their fill of “Digging For Dreams”, a little extra time was spent looking round other parts of the Burrell, either the rest of the displays, or the shop (each according to his own!). At this point unfortunately, one of Douglas’s young daughters was not feeling well, and so the family had no option but to cut short their day out and take her home. Regretfully, we said our goodbyes with promises to meet at the next SFF outing! The remaining group piled into our cars and set off for the local family-friendly pub for a convivial lunch (and no, that doesn’t mean a lot of alcohol was consumed – we were driving remember!)