Offa's Dyke - Alternative Theories

Alternative Theories

The Roman historian Eutropius in his book, Historiae Romanae Breviarium, written around 369, mentions the Wall of Severus, a structure built by Septimius Severus who was Roman Emperor between 193 and 211:

Novissimum bellum in Britannia habuit, utque receptas provincias omni securitate muniret, vallum per CXXXIII passuum milia a mari ad mare deduxit. Decessit Eboraci admodum senex, imperii anno sexto decimo, mense tertio. Historiae Romanae Breviarium, viii 19.1

He had his most recent war in Britain, and to fortify the conquered provinces with all security, he built a wall for 133 miles from sea to sea. He died at York, a reasonably old man, in the sixteenth year and third month of his reign.

This source is conventionally thought to be referring, in error, to either Hadrian's Wall (73 miles (117 km)) or the Antonine Wall (37 miles (60 km)), which were both much shorter and built in the 2nd century. Recently, some writers have suggested that Eutropius may have been referring to the earthwork later called Offa's Dyke. Most archaeologists reject this theory.

Recent evidence has been found that strengthens the theory of an earlier date for the wall's construction. In December 1999 Shropshire County Council archaeologists uncovered the remains of a hearth or fire on the original ground surface beneath the raised bank of the ancient Wat's Dyke near Oswestry, England. Carbon dating analysis of the burnt charcoal and burnt clay in situ showed it was covered by earth on or around AD 446. Archaeologists concluded that this part of Wat's Dyke, so long thought of as Anglo-Saxon and a mid-8th century contemporary of Offa's Dyke, must have been built 300 years earlier in the post-Roman period in Britain.