"Seemingly Not Offa's Dyke" Topic

I was interested to see a report pushing back the construction date of Offa's Dyke by 200 years. I've attached the link below.

"Carbon dating tests revealed a 95% probability that the Chirk section of the had been built between 430 and 652."

"It is now likely that parts of the system was in place before Offa's time but it is also likely that he would have consolidated the existing network into what we now call Offa's Dyke," said Mr Belford.

"It is now clear that it was not the work of a single ruler but a longer-term project that began at an earlier stage in the development of the kingdom."

Clearly then, and contrary to the article, this is very unlikely to have been a Mercian (Border)enterprise and as such has implications for our understanding of what was going on in that part of the old Roman Province.

link

Once again, the bleepometer entertains by its robotic limitations. Dyke! !

Interesting article. The radio carbon dating shows this section dates from somewhere between 430-652. The first records of Mercia date to 584, at which time it had not extended as far west as the present dikeline. So, Mercia was only in a position to build a line there for about a quarter of the 430-652 time period. Whoever did build the line certainly had access to significant amounts of manpower, and the British kingdoms were so shortlived, that it is hard to imagine one of them building large earthworks facing towards Wales.

Grelber

We don't really know enough about the British kingdoms to say they were short lived. The ones we do know a bit about Dummonia or Ath Cluth say seem to have lasted a fair amount of time.

The manpower issue is really interesting does any on know how many man hours these s would take. Over the last 20 years more and more of them have been located. They seem to have been on the borders of there makers lands. I also recall Mattingly noting that many of the British towns in the late Roman period were fortified with earthworks.

We do know, not least from Gildas, that inter polity fighting was endemic in the time frame so a western barrier makes a much sense as one in any other direction.

In the US, we spell it "dike". Pretty neat article. I didn't know anything about this.

Ha I'm on holiday about 10 miles from the and plan on visiting the vistor centre on wednesday. I'm also reading chris peers book on offa while on holiday so this is all more grist for the mill as i try to get my head around post roman pre viking britain.

This quote from British Archaeology is interesting too.

"Wat's Dyke,a 40 mile earthwork which runs parallel to Offa's Dyke in the Welsh Marches, has been dated to the 5th century. The was assumed to be a near-contemporary predecessor of Offa's Dyke, built by the 8th century Mercian king. But excavations at Maes-y-Clawdd near Oswestry by Shropshire's archaeological service have uncovered a small fire site, eroded shards of Romano-British pottery and quantities of charcoal, radiocarbon dated to between AD411-561. The discovery appears to link the with the post-Roman kingdom which centred on Wroxeter."

Arthur!

The Dutch!!! Oh, wait…

My aunts very close girlfriend? 8_)

Arthur!

That's not actually unreasonable, given the projected date. Of course, I happen to hold that "Arthur" was based on a real leader. Who he really was, however, will likely remain conjecture. But certainly some unknown leader with significant status and resources caused the dike to be built as a military defense system. Such a decision and effort is not trivial; we may be reluctant to say "Arthur" due to the myth, but whoever he was, he was certainly someone very much like the historical figure Arthur is conjectured to have been.

So this was known as the lesbian defence?

You know this type of construction is what Gildas thinks was used for Hadrian's Wall. He is wrong there of course but it shows how he expected important boundaries to be marked.