Barrack Sizes and fort layouts

[MARCVS PETRONIVS MAIVS]

Typical layout of Roman Fortress.

As you can see the Horrea are not in front of the buildings as you have drawn them.

Also if you look closely at the Housesteads fortress you will see the same.

Furthermore i think the area excavated near the Keep of the Castle is much too small to make any definitive statements about the use of the various buildings... i rather suspect the archaeologists have done what has been done too often, namely to go by the assumption that where there is a keep, there must have been a praetorium/principia.

Also, Roman forts are never square, but in general have rounded edges, which makes defence easier.

Since no Vallum has been excavated, nor, as is rightly put by the previous poster, two separate stretches of fortress wall have been found, you cannot guess or even deduct where the original wall must have been, let alone know its outlines.

M.VIB.M.

Hi Marcus,

The horrea are as the way they are based on archaeological evidence as seen on the 1986 black and white sketch. While I know it may be unusual for them to be positioned this way, we also know not all forts followed the same pattern and a lot of improvisation was used in the later centuries. I have mainly made the colour sketch the way it is based on evidence though, the only thing conjectural is the positioning and location of the barracks.

I know the roman forts where not square but had rounded edges, it was something I just did not include in the sketch. The reconstruction will surely be done with rounded edges.

About the wall, again, yes they are entirely conjectural. However, like I said in my previous post, remember this reconstruction will never be 100% accurate unfortunately and so I am willing to make some mistakes in its recreation. In the future when archaeologists get it right I will make the changes accordingly.