Unveiling the Forgotten Frontier: Secrets of Hadrian’s Wall Exposed, Uncovering the Roman Empire’s Best-Kept Secrets (1/3) – CNN.co.jp” Alternatively, you could also consider these options: – “Beyond the Barricade: Uncovering the Hidden History of Hadri

(CNN) Party invitations, broken sandals, wigs, letters complaining about the state of the roads and urgent pleas for more beer.

It may look like a scene after a fun-filled spring break, but these relics are nearly 2,000 years old.

These are just some of the remains found at Hadrian’s Wall, a 72-mile-long stone wall built as the northwestern border of the Roman Empire, separating Britannia (modern-day England and Wales) from Caledonia (effectively modern-day Scotland).

When it comes to everyday remains from Ancient Rome, most people think of Pompeii or Herculaneum, but this remote outpost in the north of the empire holds some astonishing discoveries.

“It’s a vivid imprint on the countryside. Nothing makes you feel like you’re stepping into the Roman Empire like seeing Hadrian’s Wall,” said Richard Abdie, lead curator of “Legion,” a British Museum exhibition that focuses on the daily life of a Roman soldier. With a tenth of the Roman army based in what is now Britain, he said, Hadrian’s Wall is a treasure trove of military artifacts.

However, as the excavation findings show, it wasn’t just soldiers who were there.

A multicultural melting pot

garrison town. Darren Eddon/English Heritage”/>

The fort at Housestead resembles a modern-day garrison town. Darren Eddon/English Heritage

Emperor Hadrian ordered the wall’s construction after a visit to Britain in A.D. 122. Hadrian had a different vision for the empire to his predecessors, said Frances McIntosh, curator of English Heritage, which looks after 34 sites along Hadrian’s Wall.

“While all the emperors before him had been focused on expanding the empire, Hadrian was known as the uniter,” McIntosh says. Hadrian “decided to establish borders” by abandoning some of the territorial gains made by his predecessor, Trajan, and built physical borders with wooden posts in Germany and stone in Britannia. Though the wooden posts have long since decayed, the walls remain, providing “a great visual reminder” of the Roman Empire, McIntosh says.

But there was more to it than just the wall. There were castles built about every mile along the wall, turrets every 540 metres and ditches and banks on both the north and south sides of the wall. “You can imagine what that must have done, not just to the landscape but to the people living in the area,” says McIntosh.

Thanks to artefacts unearthed within the walls, we know a surprising amount about these inhabitants.

Historians have long thought of Roman military outposts as secluded, male-dominated places, but excavations along the walls suggest this isn’t the case. Soldiers were accompanied by their families, and civilians settled around the edge of the settlement to conduct business. “Housesteads was a sort of garrison town,” McIntosh said. “There were places you could go for a drink.”

It was a rule of thumb in Roman times not to send soldiers to their home regions due to the risk of rebellion, so Hadrian’s Wall was a melting pot of cultures, with troops coming from what is now the Netherlands, Spain, Romania, Algeria, Iraq and Syria.