Is there any historicity to the concept of Ghost Fences / Walls?
score:7
'Ghost walls' is a concept that is used in archaeology. But maybe not just so fanciful as in these historical fiction books:
Meanwhile, trial trenches at the north end of the adjacent long and narrow meadow—on the surface of which, when ploughed, stray finds of Roman pottery and coins had often been made—revealed a well-defined layer of Roman building debris associated with ‘ghost-walls’, or foundation-trenches from which all masonry had been removed by stone-robbers. Below this was a stratum of dark occupation-earth with an abundance of pottery indicating the presence of an extensive Early Iron Age settlement.
The Oxford Archaeology Dictionary refers to this as:
Or examplified in Hadrian's Ghost Wall:
The key to understanding Hadrian’s Wall is that the Romans built a temporary frontier of wood in the East, and wood and earth in the West, to protect them while they constructed the permanent stone frontier. It follows that there would also be temporary forts and other structures amounting to a whole ghost timber and earth version of Hadrian’s Wall.
It seems reasonable to assume that the fancy name gives rise to imagination if you hear it.
Some books mention 'ghost fences' en passant in the way described in the question:
Alistair Moffat: "The Borders: A History of the Borders from Ealiest Times", Birlinn, 2011.
Alistair Moffat: "The Sea Kingdoms: The History of Celtic Britain and Ireland", Birlinn, 2011
And a few more. Seemingly with a claim to be real science.
But, as you can see, this concept seems to be a pet peeve of one man, outside of fiction and academia.
Upvote:0
Causewayed Enclosure Burials
A causewayed enclosure was a Neolithic site that was enclosed by multiple earthen ditches. Dozens have been identified in the UK.
The purpose of these locations is not well understood, but they have been interpreted by some as early or temporary forts.
It was apparently common to bury the dead in these ditches. As an example, the limited excavation at The Trundle identified a woman buried in a chalk cairn in one ditch.
Significance
It is not known what the significance - if any - these burials had. But it is easy to see how one could construct the story of "Ghost Walls" around them.
These ditches appear defensive at first glance, but don't have evidence of walls or other defensive structures. And many people were apparently buried in them. Therefore - ah! - the ditches must exist for the burials, and they must defend against something walls cannot defend against: Ghosts!
Personally, I lean towards the theory that they were meeting sites for trade or ritual, and they needed some kind of paddock to keep the cattle in, so they dug ditches. Anyone who happened to die while at the meeting place might be buried in the ditch out of convenience.
Upvote:2
Never happened. Celts regarded heads as trophies, they were considered important enough to show guests when they arrived. They had a similar place as trophy heads of modern hunters.
There were a couple of temple sites in southern Gaul such as Roquepertuse where niches were cut into stone pillars and skulls placed in them. This was for display not a warning. The skulls were possibly enemy warriors as the site contained a number of seated warrior statues including what appears to be them holding severed heads on their laps.
A different site at a temple in northern Gaul was the remains of hundreds of headless warriors found at Ribemont-sur-Ancre. The bones were stacked together but believed to have originally been part of a large trophy where the (headless?) bodies of fallen enemies were tied to racks to be eaten by birds and weather away, the remains finally being buried.
It's reasonable to assume that had the Celts created any kind of ghost wall the Romans would have mentioned it as proof of their barbarity. As it was the Romans talked about the sacred groves as places of dread.
More post
- 📝 What is the most widely accepted theory on the ancient "Sea Peoples"?
- 📝 What were John Milton's daily reading habits?
- 📝 How did the central government of the United States finance itself under the Articles of Confederation?
- 📝 Have any national leaders been kept unaware of their own wars?
- 📝 Which edition of de Tocqueville contains the phrase "The great experiment"?
- 📝 Was there a serious proposal to offer India territory in East Africa?
- 📝 Why did Rome adopt Greek culture?
- 📝 What's the Ancient Egyptian word for "benedict"?
- 📝 Were Great Britain and France better prepared for war in 1939 than in 1938?
- 📝 Was Classic Mayan civilization really so gruesome?
- 📝 Could someone identify this uniform? The photograph is a tintype
- 📝 Could Egyptian hieroglyphs accurately record conversational day-to-day discussion?
- 📝 Why did the musket become the standard infantry combat weapon in European armies around 1700?
- 📝 Roman Legion composition
- 📝 When was the Yemenite Jewish community isolated from the rest of the Jewish world?
- 📝 What were the legal and societal conditions concerning "interracial love" during 1870s?
- 📝 When did Emperor Hirohito gave an address about suicides and non-productive jobs?
- 📝 What is the relationship between land claims and ranks of nobility?
- 📝 Ethnic Germans in Russian service in Poland
- 📝 Are the dimensions of bricks used in Sumerian monuments like the great Ziggurat of Ur the same as in the Indus Valley Civilization?
- 📝 Languages spoken by Josephus?
- 📝 During World War 1, were any policies in place to handle large scale troop mutiny?
- 📝 Protected Merchant Ships in WWII used for the relocation of Prisoners of War
- 📝 What were paper airplanes called before there were real airplanes? (i.e. untethered winged flyers, not kites or balloons)
- 📝 Was there any official affirmation from the US government that they would win the Vietnam War?
- 📝 Why were diamond mining plots 31-foot squares?
- 📝 Why is this Roman bust identified as Arminius?
- 📝 Which were the continent-wide common languages in human history?
- 📝 How close did Germany come to interdicting Soviet oil shipments from the Caucasus in 1942?
- 📝 When was the last state militia abandoned?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Is there any historicity to the concept of Ghost Fences / Walls?
- 📝 Is there any evidence to support the claim that the United States was "suckered into WW1" by Zionists, made by Benjamin Freedman in his 1961 speech?
- 📝 Are there any accounts of everyday life during the Black Death?
- 📝 In the "Christmas truce" of 1914 were there any football (soccer) matches between British and German troops?
- 📝 Is there any evidence of armies enrolling women in fighting roles in significant number in antiquity or the middle ages?
- 📝 Is there any documented criticism of the brutality of the Colosseum from citizens at the time?
- 📝 Were there any drunk driving laws before the automobile?
- 📝 Has there been any "invasive plants warfare" in the past?
- 📝 Is there any evidence that Cleopatra and Caesarion considered fleeing to India to escape the Romans?
- 📝 Were there any travel restrictions during the Black Death pandemic?
- 📝 Were there any Germans in Japan after the surrender of Germany in May, 1945 and if so, what happened to them?
- 📝 Were there any high-ranking female soldiers during the Middle ages?
- 📝 Are there any documented examples of wooden ships which were in active service for 100 years or more? If not, what is the longest?
- 📝 Is there any evidence that the Catholic Church slowed innovation during the Middle Ages?
- 📝 Is there any evidence to support the claim that the US Strategic Defense Initiative played any significant role in undermining the USSR?
- 📝 Is there any documentation that indicates the Aztecs were as violent as they are made out?
- 📝 Was there a pre-determined arrangement for the division of Germany in case it surrendered before any Soviet forces entered its territory?
- 📝 Were there any crops and livestock common to both the Old and New Worlds prior to the Columbian exchange?
- 📝 Is there any instance of part of a country successfully seceding and then unifying with a neighbouring country in the last century?
- 📝 Was there any theological opposition to the lightning rod?
- 📝 Isn't there any positive legacy of the Mongolian occupation in Russia?
- 📝 Was there ever any doubt which side the USA would join?
- 📝 Have there been any efforts by the countries of Europe to restore their monarchies?
- 📝 Are there any scientific estimates for the population of Mycenaean Greece?
- 📝 Is there any archaeological evidence for the Dorian Invasion of Greece?
- 📝 Is there any possible way to count provinces of the Achaemenid Empire to be 127?
- 📝 Are there any existing foreign language teaching texts from the Ancient Near East?
- 📝 Are there any historians who believe that the crusades were not motivated as a distraction from internal conflicts?
- 📝 Were there any successful attempts by the Allies to "turn" groups of Axis soldiers?
- 📝 Were there any pilots that declined to carry out the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
