Glasgow Archaeological Society [Hrsg.]

Seite: 65
1 cm
the antonine wall report.


Outside the ditch, the outer mound is very prominent with
a sharp curved crown and then a steady rapid slope descending
northward. It may almost be called triangular in section, as its
crown, only some 3 or 4 feet wide, is little more than a point
compared with the dimensions of the same part of the work
in other sections. It is everywhere full of very large stones,
both embedded in it and lying strewn over its northern slope.
The base breadth scarcely admits of being estimated, because
the steep slope makes it impossible to distinguish, with any
clearness, between the slope of the outer mound and the natural
slope of the hill face.

Croy.—Section No. 8. PLATE I.

This cutting, 427 feet west of Croy No. 7 (and 152 feet west
of the junction point of three stone dykes), is the highest in
level of any of the sections made on Croy Hill, for the ridge
here swells to a crest or peak some 470 feet or so above sea
level, and the cutting is only 44 feet east of the extreme
summit. Beneath the vallum line, the precipitous and rocky
face of the hill descends to the north, and the ditch runs round
the foot of this height about 42 feet below. Here, for the
first time, the vallum is found standing to an appreciable
extent. From crown to stone base, the depth of the section,
or height of the vallum at the middle of the section, is fully
4 feet 9 inches. The kerbs, the faces of which are 14 feet
apart; are of whinstone. The bottoming, of rough stone instead
of having as usual the same surface level as the kerbs, has its
surface a foot lower than the top of the kerbs. The soil is red
earth with small admixture of whitish sand, and some of the
whitish clayey matter. One of the places where a piece of the
whitish sand appears is on the south face of the vallum, at a
point nearly perpendicular to the kerb. In character and colour,
it contrasts so distinctly with the earth above, below, and beside
it, that its dimensions are clear—it is 14 inches long horizontally,
and a little over 3 inches broad vertically. The layering is
systematic and pronounced. The whitish clayey matter is also
in thin layers, occasionally swelling into little lenticular strips of
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