Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Preface
- Introduction: Presenting the Romans – Issues and Approaches to Interpretation
- 1 Tradition and Innovation: Creating a New Handbook to the Roman Wall
- 2 Re-enactment and Living History – Issues about Authenticity
- 3 Reconstruction Drawings: Illustrating the Evidence
- 4 Images from the Past: Fibulae as Evidence for the Architectural Appearance of Roman Fort Gates
- 5 Multimedia Interpretation Techniques for Reconstructing the Roman Past at the Limes Museum in Aalen and at the Limes in Baden-Württemberg
- 6 Vindonissa: Changing Presentations of a Roman Legionary Fortress
- 7 Bringing to Life the Ancient City of Viminacium on the Danube
- 8 An International View of Reconstruction
- 9 A Roman Museum for Vienna
- 10 Woerden – Hoochwoert (Dutch Limes): Showing the Invisible
- 11 Mainlimes Mobil: Presenting Archaeology and Museums with the Help of Smartphones
- 12 Voices from the Past: Presenting (re)Constructed Environments through Multimedia Technologies
- 13 Digital Reconstruction and the Public Interpretation of Frontiers
- 14 Information, Disinformation and Downright Lies: Portraying the Romans
- 15 Romanes eunt Domus?
- 16 The Living Frontier: the Passing of Time on Hadrian's Wall
- 17 The Hadrian's Wall Interpretation Framework: Audience Research
- 18 The Hadrian's Wall Interpretation Framework
- 19 Applying the Hadrian's Wall Interpretation Framework
- List of Contributors
- Index
- Heritage Matters
1 - Tradition and Innovation: Creating a New Handbook to the Roman Wall
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Preface
- Introduction: Presenting the Romans – Issues and Approaches to Interpretation
- 1 Tradition and Innovation: Creating a New Handbook to the Roman Wall
- 2 Re-enactment and Living History – Issues about Authenticity
- 3 Reconstruction Drawings: Illustrating the Evidence
- 4 Images from the Past: Fibulae as Evidence for the Architectural Appearance of Roman Fort Gates
- 5 Multimedia Interpretation Techniques for Reconstructing the Roman Past at the Limes Museum in Aalen and at the Limes in Baden-Württemberg
- 6 Vindonissa: Changing Presentations of a Roman Legionary Fortress
- 7 Bringing to Life the Ancient City of Viminacium on the Danube
- 8 An International View of Reconstruction
- 9 A Roman Museum for Vienna
- 10 Woerden – Hoochwoert (Dutch Limes): Showing the Invisible
- 11 Mainlimes Mobil: Presenting Archaeology and Museums with the Help of Smartphones
- 12 Voices from the Past: Presenting (re)Constructed Environments through Multimedia Technologies
- 13 Digital Reconstruction and the Public Interpretation of Frontiers
- 14 Information, Disinformation and Downright Lies: Portraying the Romans
- 15 Romanes eunt Domus?
- 16 The Living Frontier: the Passing of Time on Hadrian's Wall
- 17 The Hadrian's Wall Interpretation Framework: Audience Research
- 18 The Hadrian's Wall Interpretation Framework
- 19 Applying the Hadrian's Wall Interpretation Framework
- List of Contributors
- Index
- Heritage Matters
Summary
The Handbook to the Roman Wall is an unusual publication. On one level it is a guidebook, albeit a detailed guidebook, to a single monument — Hadrian's Wall — but as that monument is massive in its size and complex in the range of its elements, the Handbook is perforce a considerably larger guidebook than normal. Further, the Handbook is generally regarded as the statement of current knowledge and of those interpretations which command the support of the archaeologists working on the Wall. Hence, it is directed at a wide readership of visitors, archaeologists, cultural resource managers and the mythical general reader. It would not be pitching its claims too high to say that it is the bible for Hadrian's Wall, the place to which all readers seeking knowledge about the frontier would turn first.
The task of preparing a new edition of the oldest archaeological guide in Britain, as I was invited to do in 1998 by the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, was therefore a daunting prospect. How was I to deal with the weight of tradition and the authority of one's predecessors? How far was change possible? Was any innovation possible? How was I to ensure that all available evidence was taken into account in preparing the new edition? Was it possible to produce a corporate view?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Presenting the RomansInterpreting the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site, pp. 11 - 22Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013