PART 2:
Historiography/Genealogy
Introduction to Part 2
Part 2 is composed of four chapters that provide a critical genealogy of the Antonine Wall’s story as an object of discourse, drawn from written accounts, maps and other depictions from the earliest sources until the present. These chapters follow a chronological format, tracing accounts in their order of authorship, and culminating in a summary and critical analysis of current themes in Antonine Wall research.
This is crucial to the thesis’ primary aims, demonstrating the Wall’s continued—and changing—significance from the Roman period onward. As the previous chapter defined “place” as “a meaningful location,” and outlined a new approach to the
“archaeology of place” that attempts to deconstruct and peel back the various layers of activity, experience, and meaning that come together to form a particular place, such a genealogical historiography is an important starting point.
Another telling of the Wall’s broader story has recently been developed by Lawrence Keppie (2012), whose primary aim is “to provide a history of the
Antonine Wall from the moment the Roman army abandoned it in the later 2nd century AD down to the early years of the 20th century, and to chart developments in our knowledge about it” (p. 1). This is a welcome and significant contribution, providing the first detailed investigation of the Wall’s long-‐‑term historiography since Sir George Macdonald’s (1934b: 1–36) summary review of “the literary tradition.” Keppie’s treatment surpasses that of Macdonald in both its
comprehensiveness and level of detail, particularly for accounts and developments from the early seventeenth century onwards.12 Keppie’s new treatment, however, provides a primarily linear history in which it is tempting to view the Wall’s historiography as cumulative and progressive—with new accounts building on previous ones, and a general trend toward more secure (and authentic?) knowledge.
While both of these characteristics are arguably present within the historiography included in this thesis, it is also characterised by a number of disconnected
12 Macdonald’s (1934b: 1–36) literature review ends at the beginning of the seventeenth century, but while he discusses a number of later accounts, these are scattered throughout the remainder of his text in discussion of particular sites and artefacts. Keppie (2012), on the other hand, brings a much wider range of accounts together, in a broad historiographic discussion, effectively expanding and updating Macdonald’s abbreviated review.
discourses, accounts that are largely ignored or written-‐‑out of current tellings of the Wall’s story, as well as the rediscovery of earlier sources and possible depictions that are later interpreted from within a new context.
Keppie’s book arrived late in the original timeline for this thesis, raising a number of problems with my original aims and obectives, and requiring a change in approach. While I had been aware that Keppie was writing a book on the Antonine Wall, I was unaware that the volume would overlap so substantially with my original historiographic focus. As a result, my historiographic treatment (particularly Chapters Three through Five) has been reframed as a critical commentary on Keppie (2012), instead of an intensive and comprehensive contextual social historiography. Thus, rather than duplicate Keppie’s historical summary, these chapters primarily focus on points of departure, building on Keppie’s chronological narrative to emphasise “eddies in time” (Hingley 2012: 9, 229, 327–33; Witmore 2007: 205–10), disjunctures, moments of rediscovery, and the broader connections and dis-‐‑connections between various accounts. Particular attention is given to accounts that are absent from Keppie’s historiography, or for which Keppie’s coverage is more limited; this is most evident in a greater depth of coverage for pre-‐‑seventeenth-‐‑century accounts (up to Timothy Pont), for which Keppie (2012: 18–29) gives considerably less attention.
This will be both history and historiography, providing a summarised chronological narrative of people, events and accounts of the Wall, but also attempting a form of historiographic “archaeology” or “genealogy” through the careful “excavation” and contextualisation of these subjects and their authors, along with a focus on discontinuities, ruptures, differences, and reversals. Another
departure from Keppie are the chronological parameters: while both these chapters and Keppie’s volume share a starting point (i.e. Rome’s abandonment of the
Antonine Wall in the later second century), they end at different dates: Keppie with
the publication of Sir George Macdonald’s (1911) first synthesis of the Wall, and these chapters with current themes in Antonine Wall research.13
The relevance of each account discussed in these chapters may not be readily apparent. Based on current definitions of the Antonine Wall as a Roman military frontier, some accounts may appear to offer little value to our understanding of the Wall. Some provide no new information or real descriptions of the Roman remains, and may even offer alternative interpretations that are untenable in the light of current knowledge about the Wall’s Roman past. While such accounts may not provide direct contributions to our understanding of the Antonine Wall in the Roman period, they remain important from a genealogical perspective. These accounts are not just “interesting, but irrelevant” because they lack valuable details or authentic historical information about the Wall and its Roman remains, but are relevant in understanding the Wall’s broader story precisely because they have been discounted, redacted, or branded “irrelevant” in the formation processes of the Wall’s current research tradition (Hingley 2011a follows a broadly comparable approach in relation to forms of knowing and “official” knowledge on Hadrian’s Wall). As will be seen, this research tradition has developed from a selective engagement with the Wall’s broader history of speculation and study. While the current Antonine Wall research agenda is relatively limited in scope, the breadth of accounts covered in these chapters will reveal a richer discursive history.
13 Keppie’s primary aim was to tell the story of how knowledge of the Wall developed from antiquarian modes of investigation to systematic archaeological research. My aim, on the other hand, is to offer a critique of current approaches to Antonine Wall research, using broader themes from earlier approaches to highlight the potential of wider concerns. For this reason, my historiography extends up to the present.