What Primary and Secondary Evidence is Available to Prove Roman Forts Existed in Britain, and how Reliable is this Evidence

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What Primary and Secondary Evidence is Available to Prove Roman Forts Existed in Britain, and how Reliable is this Evidence

Due to the lack of roman evidence, we must build up a picture of Roman Britain like a jigsaw piece by piece. To build up this jigsaw we have to use all the evidence available to us primary and secondary. Whilst using this evidence to build up a picture of Roman Britain we also have to be aware of new evidence, which becomes available to us. Such techniques as aerial photography and computer enhanced imaging become more advanced so will more information become available and this may or may not change our ideas on Roman Britain.

We are going to look at a city called Chester to find out more about Roman Britain and see if they did build forts in Britain. In Chester there is a selection of primary and secondary evidence to look at from the Roman conquest in Britain.

In Chester there is a Garden called The Roman Gardens this is a tourist attraction where Roman artefacts have been moved to because of lack of space in the city of Chester. In the Roman gardens there is some Pillar bases from the Roman period. There are 24-sandstone bases. The gardens have recently been rearranged. There is secondary evidence, a plaque saying that these Pillars came from the Principia Headquarters

These Pillar bases tell us many things about Roman Chester. The pillars tell us that Chester must have been an important town, probably an administrative town because it has principia in it. Because Chester has principia it would suggest that it would need some kind of military defence.
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Also in the gardens there is a Hypocaust with 16-sandstone bases each 2ft tall. The hypocaust is an original form of roman heating. On these sandstone bases rest slabs of paving stone, which are secondary evidence.

The hypocaust suggests that important people may have lived in Chester because there are not a lot of hypocaust's found around Britain and this would suggest that they are rare and not everyone could afford one.

The fact that this evidence is not 'in its original situation tells us how difficult it is to preserve Roman evidence, because of lack ...

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