A horde of Roman Legion artifacts unearthed near Hadrian's Wall

Remains of the Vindolanda fort.
Credit: mramoeba.

This should interest both ancient history buffs and wargamers. Archaeologists discovered a previously hidden room under a Roman-era fort named Vindolanda and as they put it, won the lottery:

Archaeologists are likening the discovery to winning the lottery. A Roman cavalry barracks has been unearthed near Hadrian’s Wall, complete with extraordinary military and personal possessions left behind by soldiers and their families almost 2,000 years ago. A treasure trove of thousands of artefacts dating from the early second century has been excavated over the past fortnight.

The find is significant not just because of its size and pristine state, but also for its contribution to the history of Hadrian’s Wall, showing the military build-up that led to its construction in AD122. The barracks pre-dates the wall: the Romans already had a huge military presence in the area, keeping the local population under control.

The room, which was sealed when the Romans covered it with a concrete floor, contained two Roman cavalry swords, lances, wooden practice swords (one of which has a gemstone set in the hilt, fancy!), and even mundane items such as bath clogs, styluses, combs, hairpins, and more. The concrete floor itself apparently is what preserved all of these items by creating an airtight seal.

It's really fascinating to think that all of that stuff was just laying there for near two millennia and is now just being found. It really goes to show how much history is still left buried in the ground and that archaeology is not a field that will be going away anytime soon.

Under Renovation - Keep Clear

A seawall under construction in Galveston, Texas.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Without intending to, I let this blog lapse into nearly two years of inactivity, which is unfortunate because while I never posted with any kind of frequency, I did enjoy posting here. I also let the focus of this blog slip into more modern, less historical concerns and that I regret. So, I'm going to try and remedy it and bring A Matter of Expedients back. Here's some ideas I have in mind:

I don't think I ever had any kind of limitation imposed on what time periods I posted about, but it did seem like most of what ended up on here was 19th century stuff. I'm aiming to maintain that but at the same time, I want to avoid touching on anything recent, so I'm going to impose a limitation: nothing beyond the 1950s. Maybe I'll push that line further back later on, but for now, I just want to avoid touching on subjects that are still sensitive or have become heavily politicized by today's political climate.

So basically, anything from the very beginning of history (or even before) up to December 31, 1959.

Another thing I noticed is that a lot of my posts are military history related and while that's fine because wars and battles and such interest me, I want to post non-military history items too. There's a tremendous amount of meat there, with major events and larger than life figures to post about, so it's not like I'm going to be scrapping the bottoms of any barrels for subject matter.

In terms of posts, I'm aiming for both long and short. The former will roll out less often than the latter because I want to take my time crafting them and not everything needs a 1000+ word article.

On a minor note, there might be a blog redesign in the works. Blogger added new templates a few months back and I think one or two might work for this.