Flipping the Script on Colonial Narratives: Replicating Roman Reliefs from the Antonine Wall

Abstract

Our understanding of the Roman presence in Scotland during the second century has traditionally been viewed through a Roman lens, influenced by the fragmentary, non-contemporaneous, and heavily biased accounts of Roman historiographers. Perceived wisdom has perpetuated this through embedded colonial language referring to indigenous occupants of the region and in the way that colonial objects are presented in museums. The welcome paradigm shift from Romanization to postcolonial discourses provides fertile ground for challenging Romanocentric narratives when (re)considering the materiality of Empire, particularly from frontier contexts. Replicas are an integral component of this narrative with power to express multiplicities of meanings and engage audiences in new and creative ways. These aspects are explored through newly carved sandstone replicas of Antonine Wall Distance Sculptures, including one inspired by the originals but presenting an alternative, provocative narrative from the perspective of Iron Age occupants of the region who came into conflict with Rome.

keywords:

• material culture
• Roman sculpture
• Distance Sculptures
• replica
• Scotland
• Antonine Wall

Introduction

The perceived value of replicas has ebbed and flowed in different times and contexts, but this appears to have come full circle from their antiquarian origins, particularly for conservation, presentation, and collections management (Foster & Curtis, 2016, 137) with facsimiles possessing their own, connected, trajectories (Latour & Lowe, 2011). Their value is now increasingly recognized through a plethora of publications investigating their cultural significance as original ‘extended objects’ worthy of exploration as part of ‘composite biographies’ that link the copies and originals (Foster & Curtis, 2016; Foster & Jones, 2008; 2019a; 2019b; 2020). Their trajectories can be extrapolated further through materialisms and object itineraries (Joyce, 2015; Bauer, 2019) with recent episodes inspiring conferences and symposia (Frederiksen & Marchand, 2010) as well as the renovation and reopening of galleries dedicated entirely to the display of casts or their conservation (Payne, 2019a) and reconstructions either digitally (Payne, 2019b) or physically in full polychrome (Brinkmann, et al., 2017).

Despite increased interest in replication through plaster cast, concrete, fibreglass, and metal (Foster & Jones, 2021: 3), surprisingly little research has been undertaken on stone replicas beyond techniques for and issues related to conservation and preservation (Larson, 1990; Maxwell, 2005), a situation that this present work seeks to rectify. These aspects will be addressed by exploring the historical use of replica Distance Sculptures by antiquarians and museums to fill blank spaces and tell the story of Roman Scotland from the perspective of Rome. Contemporary sandstone replicas created for the Rediscovering the Antonine Wall Project offer the potential to tell untold stories and track their creation through articulation. Stone sculptures that take inspiration from original carvings but deviate significantly from them also fall within the realms of replication as ‘relational objects’. A newly completed relief sculpture that is inspired by, but not a direct replication of, the Distance Sculptures serves as an effective vehicle to subvert and flip colonial narratives and reframe stories told in the stones. The new sculpture breaks the mould of plaster-cast replication and is free from the burdens of Imperial impositions or museum restrictions.

There is a great deal of ground to cover in opening up a dialogue with these objects and the people involved in their creation, curation, engagement, and research. At the time of writing, the contemporary sculptures are not yet fully complete or installed into their intended locations in the landscape, so primary research on their reception is not yet available. This offering should therefore be taken as the first steps in a journey of exploration into the realms of Roman replicas. It sets the scene for future work that will address the next episode in their itineraries taking account of their reception and ongoing entanglements with new audiences in alternative spaces outside of the traditional museum context.

Introducing the Antonine Wall Distance Sculptures

The academic and cultural value of relief sculptures that once marked Rome’s north-western frontier is immeasurable since they provide a wealth of information on the Roman campaigns in Scotland not available from any other source. These monumental inscriptions, referred to as Distance Sculptures, were recovered from the vicinity of the Antonine Wall, a turf rampart that cleaved a route through central Scotland across the Clyde-Forth isthmus (Keppie, 1998). The sculptures combine inscribed text and iconography commemorating the Emperor Antoninus Pius who commissioned the Wall in ad 142. They also memorialize the actions and reputations of the Legions that constructed the frontier (2nd, 6th, and 20th Legions) in perpetuity (Woolf, 1996: 26).

The inscribed texts are articulated in familiar prescriptive and abbreviated Latin. The iconography depicts decorative features, Legionary emblems, and various scenes exclusively from the perspective of Roman protagonists. These include favoured deities, religious ceremonies, and conflict between Romans and indigenous warriors who are portrayed as naked subjugated captives or decapitated combatants in the heat of battle.

The Distance Sculptures were tremendously effective propogandist tools for promoting Roman domination over the region (Keppie, 1979: 5) and for recording with precision distances of the frontier constructed by each Legion, although there is emerging debate over some aspects of their original placement and the unit of measure represented (Campbell, 2020c).

De-colonizing colonial language

A fruitful starting point for engaging with these objects is decolonizing and reframing the colonial language bound up in them and the people depicted on them. It has been argued elsewhere that labelling indigenous Iron Age peoples as ‘natives’ or ‘barbarians’ has derogatory, often racist, connotations (Said, 1993; van Dommelen, 2001; Tolia-Kelly, 2011; Campbell, 2014; 2018). Such terminology is enmeshed as much in embedded contemporary colonial attitudes as it is in the propogandist language employed by Roman historiographers promoting the glory of Rome (Tacitus, Agricola). Similar care should be taken in the language applied to these monumental inscriptions, historically referred to as ‘slabs’ (Macdonald, 1911). This rather dismissive terminology has permeated scholarship for centuries and conjures a notion of bland, uninspiring, plain stone blocks bereft of cultural or artistic significance that minimizes their impact and meaning (Campbell, 2020b). It is here suggested that such nomenclature has no place in modern investigations of these powerful artworks if the perspectives of people on all sides of the Imperial divide are to be holistically considered (Gandhi, 1998). This is particularly important in giving a voice to the previously silent indigenous occupants of the region who would have exercised both overt and covert resistance to Roman cultural impositions (Campbell, 2011; 2012; van Dommelen, 1998; 2005).

The Antonine Wall Distance Sculptures have been described as the most impressive and visually impactful body of epigraphic evidence from any Roman frontier (Breeze, 2015: 69). They are charismatic objects that could be classed as iconoclastic, with power to polarize opinion and invite the viewer on an emotional and tactile journey (Wingfield, 2010: 55–57). The sculptures transcend material properties (Miller, 2005; Gosden, 2006; Ingold, 2007) to transmit and transform information in different cultural contexts. These properties are folded in from their inception and operational sequences through the chaîne opératoire (Leroi-Gourhan, 1993), and properties of raw materials modified through the development or transmission of technological skills and traditions (Phillips, 1972; Roux, 2016).

The cultural value of the sculptures can be considered within established frameworks for the study of carved stones, including scientific, historic, artistic/aesthetic, and social (Clark, 2010). Additional layers of value can be ascribed to their technological, material, conceptual, sensory, and emotional properties in the past, particularly their intended appearance at the point of creation and early use, including an additional layer of meaning expressed through vibrant polychromy (Campbell, 2020b). These aspects and more recent episodes in the sculptures’ trajectories are explored here through the prism of postcolonial models recognizing the role of museums in perpetuating colonial narratives of past events (Edwards, et al., 2006; Kirwan, 2011; Harrison, et al., 2013; Harrison, 2015) and taking account of entangled symmetrical relationships between people and things imbued with vitality and significance without privileging one over the other (Colàs, 2006: 201; Hodder, 2012; Conneller, 2011).

As ‘Romano-British’ objects we might define them as a manifestation of hybrid practice, embodied with Roman propaganda emulating sculptural style and skill evidenced on other frontiers but uniquely articulated. They were created as colonial objects with multiplicities of meanings folded into them on conceptual, ideological, and sensory levels (Deleuze, 1999 [1986]: 80; Barringer, 2006). In that context, they may not be considered objects of contested heritage for repatriation to distant countries of origin in the manner of more iconic contested artefacts like the Parthenon marbles or trafficked from more recent colonized indigenous communities (Boursiquot, 2016). And yet, some localized tension is manifest in the desire of communities from Bo’ness in the east of Scotland at the Antonine Wall terminus to repatriate the Distance Sculpture from Bridgeness, discussed below, to its original place of discovery (https://kinneil.org/2012/09/07/bridgenessslab/). Since guardianship rests with the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh and its integrity and cultural significance is considered best preserved in the museum setting, a compromise was reached to create an exact sandstone replica for installation close to the findspot. This underlying tension and sense of ownership embodies the charisma woven into the stories that can be told from a multiplicity of dimensions through a consideration of the technological skills articulated in their creation (Gell, 1992) reflected through the chaîne opératoire (Leroi-Gourhan, 1993), their agency (Gell, 1998), and cultural biographies (Kopytoff, 1986).

Curatorial interventions and museum spaces play a pivotal role in our contemporary engagement with these colonial objects, particularly in the articulation of the stories they tell and whose perspective is being promoted or memories invoked in their narration (Jeychandran, 2014). Paradigm shifts from considering the role played by early curators (Byrne, 2011) in assembling, understanding, and displaying ethnographic collections now move beyond invoking ‘otherness’ to embracing intercultural connections and entangled relationships (Boursiquot, 2016), stripping away preconceptions of events distant in time and space. I would argue that a continued division of ‘ethnographic’ and ‘archaeological’ collections perpetuates a sense of ‘otherness’ in the museum since these objects represent a snapshot of time long since passed in reference to cultural groups that have altered dramatically in the intervening period. Indeed, much to the amusement of local women, Alfred Cort Haddon, an early curatorial collector striving to save ‘vanishing knowledge’ from British New Guinea and the Torres Strait, had to cajole islanders to dress in articles of clothing that were even in the late nineteenth century no longer in use (Byrne, 2011: 312).

Historical ethnographic collections might therefore be more appropriately categorized within the sphere of archaeology. Archaeological collections are worthy of similar scrutiny through the prism of postcolonial discourse as perpetuating a notion of colonial domination over subjugated ‘others’. This is particularly the case in the display of Roman sculptural reliefs that articulate a propogandist’s one-sided dimension of past events on the frontiers of Empire. That outmoded narrative is re-woven through museum exhibits and associated immersive technologies. But curated objects are not the only way of exploring past events and the absence of things to understand the perspectives of subjugated peoples is equally powerful if this void can be embraced as a means of ‘paradoxically affirming [their] presence’ (Vergeˇs, 2014). Such objects are ripe for reinterpretation or reshaping colonial legacies and language (Bodenstein & Pagani, 2014) and the creation of a new sculpture provides a starting point to reframe our dialogues and engagements with colonial objects.

Museum collections and the value of replicas

Antiquarian practices of excavating artefacts and embedding them into museum collections for curation and/or exhibition has evolved to embrace the interdependency between museums, archaeologists and their connected communities (Swain, 2007: 12). Collections-based research is an integral component of archaeology (Flexner, 2016a; Wingfield, 2017: 594) which is increasingly investigated holistically, rather than archival evidence (Baird & McFadyen, 2014; Flexner, 2016b), which risks relegating museum collections as subservient in the museum/archaeologist/researcher/object dynamic. Curated collections may be better creatively explored through assemblage and re-assemblage of objects to ask new questions of old things (Lucas, 2012: 265; Wingfield, 2017: 604; Harrison, 2013).

Curated assemblages hold latent research potential with the power to respond to questions yet to be asked. But they are also an invaluable body of material that cannot tolerate physical intervention without risking the integrity of objects under curatorial care. Non-destructive techniques and technologies, including portable XRF and Raman Spectrometry, are becoming pivotal tools for solving this dilemma through in situ analysis in museum contexts (Marucci, et al., 2018; Chaplin, et al., 2016; Everett & Gillespie, 2016; Bell, et al., 2010; Liritzis & Zacharias, 2010; von Eynatten, et al., 2003). Their worth extends well beyond the field of materials science by forcing ajar previously closed interpretive doors to understand objects’ material properties, method of manufacture, hidden recipes, episodes of use, or how they functioned in practice. For example, they facilitate the fingerprinting of pigments that once adorned Classical statuary and provide a platform for their authentic digital reconstruction so that we might consider their performance for audiences in the past and present (Campbell, 2020a; 2020b). Digital replication has nowadays become standard practice in immersive engagement with museum assemblages, but replicas have played a pivotal role in exhibitions and research for centuries.

For antiquarians, replication permitted the germination of ideas and new research as well as teaching (Kurtz, 2000; Wade, 2012) or exhibiting at society meetings of culturally significant material that would otherwise have remained inaccessible. For museum audiences this practice created new entangled connections between people and things assembled from places they are unlikely to visit. Replicas are re-made objects based on museum-held originals (Stevenson, 2010), monuments, or architecture (Lending, 2017). They are considered worthy of curatorial care and accessioning into museum collections (Foster & Jones, 2021: 4) since they fold in echoes of a distant past and absorb new significance in their own right as authentic invaluable artefacts (Beard, 1993: 22; Foster & Jones, 2020: 5–31), especially if they are standing in proxy for an original object that no longer exists (Kamash, 2017: 612).

For example, the Hutcheson Hill Distance Sculpture (RIB 2198; Hunterian Museum no. GLAHM.F.8), Figure 1a, was found in 1865 and acquired by the US Consul at Newcastle, who shipped it to Chicago where it perished in the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 (Keppie, 1998: 80). Fortuitously, Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne had the foresight to create plaster-cast replicas, one of which was donated to the Glasgow Archaeological Society sometime before 1879, then donated to the Hunterian Museum. Others were acquired by the Grosvenor Museum in Chester and the Museum of Antiquities in Newcastle (Lawrence Keppie, pers. comm.; Frances McIntosh, pers. comm.), though there appears to be no record that the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne ever held a copy (Lindsay Allason-Jones, pers. comm.). Another is in the Clayton Collection at Chester's Roman Fort (Frances McIntosh, pers. comm.), Figure 1b and c, where it was once embedded into the entrance porch above a statue of Mars, now in storage at Helmsley.

Figure 1 Plaster casts of the Hutcheson Hill Distance Sculpture (RIB 2198): a) Hunterian Museum, Museum no. GLAHM.F.8; b) and c) Chesters Roman Fort, Museum no. CH201.

a: © Hunterian Museum; b and c: © English Heritage Trust/Trustees of the Clayton Collection

Some features on the Hunterian cast were painted in 1979 (Lawrence Keppie, pers. comm.) and it is currently embedded into the museum’s centrepiece exhibit, ‘The Antonine Wall: Rome’s Final Frontier’. The Hunterian holds the most comprehensive and internationally recognized assemblage of Roman epigraphy from Scotland, particularly from forts along the Antonine Wall, most of which were donated by antiquarians and landowners during the seventeenth–eighteenth centuries (Keppie, 2012). Unlike other curated replicas that some consider a threat to the authenticity of originals (Stockhammer & Forberg, 2017: 12), this object has become a critical component of the museum’s collection since its absence would leave a gap in knowledge, robbing the visiting public and scholarship of the emotional impact and holistic appreciation of this internationally renowned assemblage (cf. Foster & Jones, 2019b). Although, it could be argued its absence from the exhibit would be equally powerful by balancing the memory of lost objects beyond reach and anticipation of other examples that undoubtedly remain in the ground yet to be discovered (Leahy, 2012: 251).

Tracking trajectories

Other Antonine Wall Distance Sculpture replicas are held by Glasgow Museums (Figure 2). Since their existence is not well known, these small wooden carved copies of originals in the Hunterian Museum (RIB Nos 2184, 2199, 2204 and 2196) epitomize the challenges of fully understanding the significance of replicas which remain connected to, but physically separated from, originals (cf. Foster & Jones, 2021: 7).

Figure 2 Wooden replicas of Distance Sculptures in the collections of Glasgow Museums (originals held by the Hunterian Museum): a) RIB 2184 from Eastermains; b) RIB 2199 from Cochno Estate; c) RIB 2204 from Carleith, Duntocher; d) RIB 2196 from Castlehill.

Bridgeness (RIB 2139; National Museum of Scotland no. X.FV 27) is the largest, most detailed and, arguably, best preserved Antonine Wall Distance Sculpture. It contains a central panel of inscribed text flanked by two graphically depicted scenes set within architectural façades. On the left a brutal battle is enacted with a Roman cavalryman riding down and decapitating naked northern warriors and on the right Romans participate in a religious sacrificial ceremony (Figure 3a). Bridgeness has also been the subject of most prolific replication and provides an excellent opportunity to explore connections between originals and replicas through a systematic tracking of replica trajectories.

Figure 3 Bridgeness Distance Sculpture: a) original; b) plaster cast in the Hunterian Museum; c) plaster cast in Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery; d) sandstone replica installed at Harbour Road, Bo’ness.

a: © National Museums Scotland; b: © Mike Bishop; c: © Tyne and Wear Museums; d: © Crown Copyright: Historic Environment Scotland

A plaster cast of the Bridgeness sculpture (Figure 3b) is also an integral component of the Hunterian Museum’s Roman exhibit. It fills a similar gap to the Hutcheson Hill sculpture by permitting visitors to engage with a representation of all but one of the sculptures assembled in one place (the only other sculpture not with Hunterian is RIB 2194 recovered from East Millichen near Balmuildy fort, now in the Glasgow Museums collections, no. A.1942.18.01).

The cast was commissioned as part of a group of Roman sculptures from Britain, including the tombstone of Flavinus from Corbridge, a life-size statue of Mars from York, a seated figure from Birdoswald, the tombstone of Regina from South Shields, and a centurion’s effigy from Colchester, among others. These were commissioned by the Roman Society to contribute to the Archaeological Exhibition in Rome in 1911 (Haverfield & Jones, 1912: 121). A total of 165 casts were made of the various sculptures which were then sold to museums and institutions in the UK and abroad. The number of Bridgeness casts are not recorded, nor are their recipients.

So, the Hunterian replica is cast from an original that is not ‘lost’, but it is separated from the other constituent parts of the assemblage. Intriguingly, while the Hutcheson Hill replica is accessioned and included in the online collections catalogue with an assigned Museum Number (http://collections.gla.ac.uk/#/details/ecatalogue/106728), the Bridgeness cast is not (a number handwritten on it derives from the National Museum of Scotland connecting it to the original). Does this speak to the perceived importance historically assigned to these two objects? Is the Hutcheson Hill cast considered intrinsically more valuable since the original is irrecoverable, whereas the Bridgeness original still survives in Edinburgh? Has there been an unconscious, potentially subversive, desire to use this replica as a place-holder for an object perceived to be out of its ‘rightful’ place alongside its partners in the Hunterian Museum to complete the assemblage?

More likely, it has not been accessioned because ownership rests with the National Museum of Scotland and a vital episode in this object’s itinerary (Joyce, 2015) is missing from the records. This sculpture marks the eastern terminus of the Antonine Wall so the replica’s absence would render the Hunterian Museum’s story documenting construction and control of the frontier incomplete — devoid of a beginning or an end, depending on the visitor’s direction of travel through the exhibit.

The consequences of these diametrically opposed positions are that the Hutcheson Hill replica has been covertly woven into a perceived authentic narrative of the Antonine Wall, the people who were impacted by it in the second century, the surviving remains, the exhibit, and ultimately the visitor experience both physically and remotely. Conversely, a visitor to the exhibit cannot fail to be emotionally moved by the physical presence and materiality of the Bridgeness replica depicting a particularly brutal combat scene, but a remote visitor or researcher would be unaware of its existence and pivotal contribution to the sculptures’ collective stories as told through their ‘composite biographies’ (Foster & Jones, 2020: 19–21).

The assignation of a Museum Number (NEWMA: 1960.44.2.C) to another cast of the Bridgeness sculpture held by Tyne & Wear Museums (Figure 3c) on display in Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery lends credence to this proposal. Although the origin and current location of the mould is uncertain, that cast may have been created in 1960 along with casts of inscriptions held by the Museum of Antiquities in Newcastle for an exhibition at the National Museum of Wales (Lindsay Allason-Jones, pers. comm.), though it may have been part of the original group of casts made in 1911 for the exhibition in Rome (Evan Chapman, pers. comm.). It was thereafter retained by the Museum of Antiquities from 1962 before its donation in perpetuity in 2006 (Allason-Jones, 2009: 5). The complex diasporas of these Bridgeness replicas validate a pressing need for a framework to care for and track trajectories of replicas for posterity (Foster & Jones, 2021).

More recent replication of the Bridgeness sculpture (Figure 3d) has taken the form of a sandstone machine-drilled carving by Tradstocks stone suppliers in Stirling from a 3D replication (Figure 4). This laser scan was taken by the Centre for Digital Documentation and Visualisation (CDDV), a joint project by the Glasgow School of Art’s School of Simulation and Visualisation and Historic Scotland (now Historic Environment Scotland — HES). Driven by the local Community Council who were unsuccessful in their initial attempts to have the original restored to its original place of discovery, funding for the project came from Falkirk Council and Avondale Environmental Limited through Falkirk Environmental Trust. It was installed with great ceremony at Harbour Road, Bo’ness, close to the original findspot in September 2012 (https://kinneil.org/2012/09/07/bridgenessslab/). Information relating to the community project that actualized the new object is documented in video for posterity: https://vimeo.com/46867348.

Figure 4 3D laser scan of the Bridgeness Distance Sculpture.

© Falkirk Council

This practice is evident elsewhere, for example for the first-century Tombstone of Flavinus from Corbridge (RIB 1172), (Bruce, 1882). The original was recovered from Hexham Abbey, where it is currently on display, but a replica cast from fibreglass cast on chicken wire with wooden struts in 1960 for the National Museum of Wales exhibit is displayed at the entrance of Corbridge Museum (Museum no. CO23334), Figure 5a (though it too may derive from the group cast in 1911 for the exhibit in Rome). The cast was painted in vibrant colours in 2017 for the Hadrian’s Cavalry exhibit (https://hadrianswallcountry.co.uk/learning/ideas-and-inspiration/hadrians-cavalry) and briefly re-joined the original in Hexham Abbey in 2017 when Corbridge was closed for refurbishment. The two were displayed side-by-side for visitors to envisage how the original may have looked in full polychromy (Figure 5b). More recent replication is rendered in 2D by NU Digital Heritage (Figure 5c).

Figure 5 Tombstone of Flavinus from Corbridge: a) unpainted plaster cast at Corbridge; b) original (left) and plaster cast in polychrome (right) on temporary display at Wrexham Abbey; c) 2D scan.

a: © English Heritage Trust; b: © English Heritage Trust; c: © NU Digital Heritage, Newcastle University

Replication goes beyond the creation of a new physical thing, it can include the transformative impact of physically altering original objects, including the application of paint by George Keith, the 5th Earl Marischal, on a Distance Sculpture once installed into the fabric of Dunottar Castle in north-east Scotland (RIB 2173), Figure 6 (Camden, 1607: 711–12), which may have been an attempt at replicating original Roman pigments still visible at that time.

Figure 6 Distance Sculpture of unknown provenance (RIB 2173), formerly embedded into Dunottar Castle (top) and features painted in the sixteenth century (bottom).

Moulds are equally valuable since they hold power to replicate numerous facsimiles (McNutt, 1990). Although moulds do not survive well, like casts, they are also connected objects with their own historic significance as transcultural manifestations of colonial action (Falser, 2017: 289). Since they had direct intimate contact with originals, moulds are codified with genetic information with additional layers of meaning folded into them as being imbued with powerful authenticity (Falser, 2017: 294). Some might even possess the key to understanding surface treatments since they may retain the only surviving traces of pigments and preparation layers originally applied to sculptures negatively impacted by environmental conditions and episodic interventions for cleaning and conservation.

Contemporary replicas may be more likely to come in the form of digital reproduction (Payne, 2019b) through imagery, laser scanning, or 3D printing than the plaster casts, concrete, fibreglass, synthetic resin, or metal casts of old (Foster & Jones, 2021), as well as stone and wood replicas explored here. The Royal Mail have even replicated a scene from the Bridgeness sculpture on a stamp released on 18 June 2020 (Figure 7, bottom). The selection of a peaceful scene of religious practice as opposed to the confrontational scene of battle more commonly associated with this sculpture is a most intriguing choice that may speak to recognition of the inflammatory, confrontational, and colonial connotations evoked by the latter. Digital replicas facilitate widening engagement with new global audiences (Jeffrey, 2015), offering an unparalleled opportunity for innovation in creative content and visualization that give life to pristine undecorated stone Classical statuary that audiences are accustomed to engaging with in museums. Again, the Bridgeness Distance Sculpture from the Antonine Wall’s eastern terminus serves as an excellent example of layered interpretive content as an immersive experience. Digital reconstruction makes the relief more impactful and realistic through full authentic colouration of the iconic scene depicting a Roman cavalryman riding down naked northern combatants (Figure 7, top).

Figure 7 Digital reconstruction of the Bridgeness Distance Sculpture in polychromy (top) and Royal Mail stamp (bottom).

bottom: © Stamp Design Royal Mail Group Ltd 2020

Replicating Roman reliefs: ‘authentic’ articulation

Replica production, especially as a collaborative process involving local communities, stimulates interest and active civic engagement with locally significant places, things, and museums (Foster & Jones, 2021: 5). The value of such objects comes from collaborating with engaged communities and skilled artisans through the creative processes stimulating new relationships and empowering connected communities with ownership of both the new and the old thing (Harrison, 2015: 27). Newly created objects then absorb and project rich and diverse meanings to a multiplicity of people and places. They have power to create and nurture a network of invested collaborative partners and to engage new audiences from socially, culturally, and academically diverse backgrounds (Stevenson, 2010: 113). The process of replication itself is invaluable for providing a forum to explore the technologies of enchantment (Gell, 1998) and chaîne opératoire (Leroi-Gourhan, 1993) through the experience of those actively creating the re-made thing (cf. Foster and Jones, 2020: 65–68).

These empowered relationships are articulated through a strand of the Rediscovering the Antonine Wall Project, a collaboration between Historic Environment Scotland and the five local authorities through which the frontier runs (West Dunbartonshire, Glasgow City, East Dunbartonshire, North Lanarkshire, and Falkirk). The project was specifically developed to reach out to local communities and enable them to celebrate and discover the Antonine Wall in ways that are meaningful to them. They are co-creators and co-curators of the projects being delivered. Some want to regenerate local spaces, some run community-based events, while others want to re-make Distance Sculptures that were once erected in their locality and set them back into that landscape to be explored afresh by new contemporary audiences (Patricia Weeks, pers. comm.).

The project is funded by the partners already mentioned as well as National Lottery Heritage Fund and LEADER. One of the capital outputs is the creation of four replica Distance Sculptures carved from sandstone. Each replica has been chosen from an original recovered from the vicinity of the Wall in one of the local authority areas and will be installed into selected locations close to the line of the Wall. These four are direct replicas of the originals and two are being worked on by highly skilled apprentice stonemasons from City of Glasgow College who embraced the opportunity to collaborate and deploy their contemporary skills into an ancient context using, largely, the same tools their Roman counterparts were employing 2000 years ago.

Each sculpture is unique in style, propogandist message, and symbolism, ranging from the merging of religious and combative iconography articulated on the Old Kilpatrick (RIB 2208, Hunterian Museum no. GLAHM.F.15), Summerston Farm (RIB 2193, Hunterian Museum no. GLAHM.F.5), and Arniebog (Hunterian Museum no. GLAHM.F.16) examples, to the comparatively minimalistic clarity of the Eastermains (RIB 2185, Hunterian Museum no. GLAHM.F.2) inscription framed in a plain moulding and flanked by peltae with horns terminating in griffin heads (Figure 8).

Figure 8 Antonine Wall Distance Sculptures replicated for the Rediscovering the Antonine Wall Project: a) RIB 2208 from Old Kilpatrick; b) from Arniebog; c) RIB 2193 from Summerston Farm; d) RIB 2185 from Eastermains.

© Hunterian Museum

They are an intimately interconnected body of material that should be considered as an assemblage entangled with the itineraries of originals (Joyce, 2015). Their placement close to original findspots in the vicinity of the Antonine Wall where local communities can actively engage with their ‘aura’ can enhance their originality (Latour & Lowe, 2011: 287), expand their cultural ‘biographies’ (Kopytoff, 1986), impact experience with (Foster & Jones, 2020: 160–65), and create personal entanglements that would otherwise not have manifested.

In situ facsimiles are thought to increase the cultural value and prestige of original things (Cameron, 2007: 57) by bringing them to new global audiences in a way that digital replication cannot. Historically important places in the landscape have become exhibition spaces (Jeychandran, 2014) where objects can be curated and new narratives about old things explored. Critically, they deliver accessibility to their connected communities who can interact with them at any time of the day or night, unhindered by museum opening times, no touching policies, restricted spaces, or access to digital technologies that drive remote immersive content. Memory making (Sweetman, et al., 2020) and sensory engagement (Barringer, 2006) are expanded manifold beyond the visual through unrestricted tactile, olfactory, auditory experiences unachievable in the museum context since the seventeenth century when Cabinets of Curiosities encouraged full sensory engagement with objects (Classen, 2012).

Authenticity can be augmented through the interplay of changing natural light creating a dynamism and ambience that is impossible to emulate in the interior LED-lit exhibition space during opening hours. In time, natural ageing will impact the sculptures’ surface patina and people’s engagement with and sense of ownership of them, reflecting their materiality and perceived authenticity or ‘pastness’ through meaningful narratives (Holtorf, 2013: 432–35) as monuments imbued with alternative, potentially subversive, meanings in postcolonial contexts. Developing an ongoing dialogue with the people engaging with the replicas through qualitative ethnographic assessment (Foster & Jones, 2020) combined with capturing empirical data on visitor experience of different interpretive approaches in and out of the museum (Stevenson, 2010; Kamash, 2017; Jones, et al., 2017; Sweetman, et al., 2020) compared to in situ placements will be invaluable in tracking their impact going forward.

A main objective of the Rediscovering the Antonine Wall Project is to extend audiences and create engagements. Working in partnership with City of Glasgow College provided a vehicle to inform young people, a group that is traditionally hard to reach in heritage studies, about the Wall and provide unique training opportunities (Emma McMullen, pers. comm.). Using another digital replication resource, laser scans of the Distance Sculptures captured by HES (https://sketchfab.com/search?q=hisoric+environment+scotland+distance+slab&sort_by=-pertinence&type=models), two of the four Antonine Wall replicas for this project are being created as the first strand of a three-step process employing laser scanning, 3D printing, and replication through articulation. Digital design students at City of Glasgow College used the 3D scans in a competition to produce watertight 3D models, with the winning entry replicating the Summerston Farm sculpture overlain with colour (Figure 9). The 3D models were then printed to provide authentic depth and detail that could be articulated by apprentice stonemasons replicating RIB 2208 from Old Kilpatrick and the broken example from Arniebog devoid of RIB number since no inscription survives (Figure 10).

Figure 9 Watertight 3d model of RIB 2193 from Summerston Farm with digital polychromy.

© Rediscovering the Antonine Wall Project

Figure 10 City of Glasgow College Stonemasonry students roughing out and carving RIB 2208 from Old Kilpatrick (top); Arniebog (middle); stonemasonry students and lecturers with Louisa Campbell (LKAS Fellow in Archaeology, University of Glasgow) and Emma McMullen (Project Manager, Rediscovering the Antonine Wall project) (bottom).

Throughout this process care has been taken to respect the replicas as ‘extended objects’ (Foster & Jones, 2021: 7) that have been charted from their conception, inception, articulation, and creation through to, in due course, installation and life-use. For a variety of reasons, including community and skills development, early decisions were taken to emulate craft skills in Antiquity using hand-carving techniques. This contributed to understanding networks of relations between people, places, and things, enhancing the replicas’ authentic materiality. It may also alleviate audience perception of replicas feeling ‘too new’ or crisp (Kamash, 2017: 611) in their articulation that may result from machine-drilling.

The sandstone was sourced from Witton Fell Quarry in North Yorkshire, a fine- to medium-grain blonde stone widely used for its responsiveness, durability, and excellent carving quality allowing for a sharp arris. It is very similar in character to the sandstone used for the original Distance Sculptures which was most likely locally sourced, possibly from a quarry in Bishopbriggs used until as late as the nineteenth century. Advanced Craft apprentice stonemasons carved the replicas using a Mel (round hammer type tool), Mel Point Chisels, Tungsten Tipped Flat Chisels (¼ in. to 2 in.), and a Scutch (teeth tool). These are relatively unchanged from Roman counterparts, though the Mel would have been made from hard wood and Chisels and Scutch from fire-sharpened metal.

The student apprentices report having benefited enormously from the project which enabled them to

explore and develop the rich techniques involved in carving within a safe environment, where advice and expertise were close at hand. They have a rich understanding of taking sizes which has involved extensive use of 3D modelling. This use of modern technology has enabled them to ensure the replicas are an accurate representation of the real artefact. (Martin Rogan, pers. comm.)

Students rarely, if ever, have the opportunity to participate in this kind of heritage project, and it has greatly improved their confidence and skillset. Critically, the College is considering whether this experience demonstrates a case for designing a new course to develop skills required for stone conservation not currently offered in the curriculum. This would be a tremendous direct outcome from the rich collaborative environment nurtured through the replica project.

Meaning is created and folded into the objects and participants through all stages of the process and each episode creates inter-connected events that embody significance and meaning permeating through the sculptures and the people entangled with them (Figure 11). Additional relationships are folded in to the ‘composite biographies’ (Foster & Curtis, 2016) of replicas that can be explored to understand meanings, values, and significance of originals and replicas over time and in difficult cultural contexts. Sometimes these are communities of interest, events, things, and places, i.e., people, places, and things. Indeed, we can move beyond the anthropomorphic restrictions of biographies by considering object materialisms (Bennett, 2010; Witmore, 2014) and diasporas as things that are never finished (Barad, 2007).

Figure 11 Relationships folded into Antonine Wall Distance Sculptures and Replicas.

Similarly, object itineraries create non-linear ‘routes by which things circulate in and out of places where they come to rest or are active, the routes through which things circulate, and the means by which they are moved’ (Joyce, 2015: 29) without beginning or end and entangled in dynamic, multidimensional intersections with other itineraries. In this way object itineraries make no distinctions between past, present, and future, creating a platform to fully explore object entanglements and networks as pivotal to the narratives of things in a perpetual state of motion (Joyce & Gillespie, 2015; Bauer, 2019: 343) and subject to interpretive bias as well as political heritage considerations (Bauer, 2019: 346). This includes people, places, and things, such as those scanning and recreating new versions of things, communities engaging with them in situ, visitors motivated to visit museums displaying originals and replicas, new learning and teaching resources and digital content, as well as collaborative opportunities across disciplinary divides and the objects themselves along with their digital representations. The list of interpretive avenues open to exploration is, potentially, without end.

Flipping colonial narratives: inspiration through emulation

While replicas can be defined as ‘extended objects’ (Foster & Jones, 2021: 7) possessing their own itineraries worthy of investigation, objects that draw direct influence from and are based upon replicating originals but develop newly conceived content merit further consideration. These can be categorized as a connected category of ‘relational objects’ insofar as they are entangled and immersed in shared meanings and memories with an original artefact but deviate in fundamental respects. Such objects are free from the burden of perpetuating a commodified history of originals that are not permitted to change (Bourriaud, 2002) either in the mindsets of museum visitors or established academics who may wish to restrict the rewriting of scholastic legacies or museum curators where multiple narratives woven through exhibitions and digital content are reliant on unchanging histories.

Originals provide a stylistic framework for ‘relational objects’ but newly created things leave participants with artistic licence to create new meanings and associations from different dimensions and alternative perspectives (Stevenson, 2010). In considering the concrete replica of St John’s Cross on Iona, visitors expressed a desire for honesty and authenticity in replicas emulating original objects (Foster & Jones, 2020). That constructed type of authenticity stretches beyond materials, colour, and detail into the newly created object resonating with symbolic and aesthetic significance that elicits an emotional response and enshrines legitimacy (Jones & Foster, 2019b).

A newly completed relief sculpture emulating, but not directly replicating, the Antonine Wall Distance Sculptures sits within this proposed category of ‘relational objects’. Artists were invited to create designs for a new sculpture as part of the Rediscovering the Antonine Wall Project to be installed at Cow Wynd, Falkirk. Scottish Borders based sculptors Josephine Crossland and Luke Batchelor were commissioned to produce the new artwork by April 2020. Their design (Figure 12, top) emulates the three-panel style common to the Summerston Farm (RIB 2193) and Bridgeness (RIB 2139) examples with central inscription flanked by iconographic imagery. These images explore wider perspectives in the story of the Roman occupation of Scotland as requested by members of the local communities consulting on the project who expressed a desire to incorporate scenes of local people fighting back against hostile Roman attacks.

Figure 12 Original drawing (top), roughing out (bottom left), and articulation (bottom right) of the new Antonine Wall sculpture by stone artists Josephine Crossland and Luke Batchelor.

top: © Josephine Crossland and Luke Batchelor

The new monument was crafted from Cop Crag sandstone quarried from Byrness in Northumberland, a source very close to the modern Scottish border with characteristics close to the sandstone used for the original sculptures. This stone is used extensively in Scotland and is an excellent raw material for carving due to its fine grain with unique colouring and markings, providing a crisp edge that weathers well and articulates the lettering and iconography beautifully (Josephine Crossland and Luke Batchelor, pers. comm.).

The sculpture (Figure 13) follows a familiar stylistic pattern to the Antonine Wall examples, with some critical differences, including:

a)	The text is inscribed in English, not the familiar prescriptive abbreviated Latin that characterizes the original Distance Sculptures, making the message accessible to contemporary audiences. The inscription commemorates the Rediscovering the Antonine Wall project and the 21st Century Legion of volunteers who played a pivotal role in its delivery. The only Roman numerals inscribed are ‘MMXX’, denoting the year of production, as opposed to the measured distance of constructed sections on the originals;
b)	The iconography takes inspiration from the sculptural style, technique, and content of the originals, but adopts a subversive stance by reversing the oppressive colonial imagery now viewed through the lens of local people who came into conflict with the military might of Rome; and
c)	The scene depicted on the right panel considers more peaceful contact and the interface between Romans and non-Roman occupants of the region.

The central panel with inscribed text is framed in the ansate shape common to the originals with a small triskelion symbol commonly found on Celtic art above, and a single feather below represents the fallen eagle of Rome (aquila) depicted on the Summerston Farm example and others.

Figure 13 Newly created sculpture based on Antonine Wall Distance Sculptures.

Mirroring the composition of the original Distance Sculptures, the left panel depicts an active battle scene, but, conversely, drawing on the perspectives of the local Iron Age population. It depicts a sword-wielding northern warrior as the main protagonist standing on a chariot pulled by horses decorated with traditional embellishment. Referencing Tacitus’ (Agricola) mention of tactics deployed at the first-century battle of Mons Graupius, the northerner is charging over a fallen Roman with his sword fallen at his side.

Roused by the melodic and haunting drone of the Deskford Carnyx, the northerner symbolically overpowers the Roman soldier in a subversive juxtaposition to the iconic scene of a Roman cavalryman riding down naked northern warriors depicted on the Bridgeness and Summerston Farm Distance Sculptures and other examples on frontier gravestones. These include the first-century gravestones of T. Flavius Bassus at Köln (Bishop, 1988) and Flavinus from Corbridge (RIB 1172), discussed above. The Carnyx was crafted from reused Roman metals and symbolizes the skills of local metalworkers as well as evidence for trading resources with Roman which creates a natural link with the iconography on the right panel (Josephine Crossland and Luke Batchelor, pers. comm.).

The right panel is a more settled scene foregrounded with a depiction of a local couple engaged in trade and interaction with two kneeling Romans presenting a pot of silver coins that was recovered from Falkirk (Macdonald, 1934) known as the ‘Falkirk Hoard’. The hoard contained a small fragment of tartan which is also referenced through the garments worn by the local man and the warrior on the left. In the background stands the formidable and uniquely Scottish architecture of a broch and shafts of grain reference the agrarian economy practised at the time.

The main challenge for the artists was fitting all the elements into the space coherently, especially the central panel of text, an issue that Roman artists may well also have had to contend with. The original inscriptions were poorly spaced and cramped at line ends, a situation that the artists overcame by introducing ligatures to connect and merge some letters and create more character by employing a typical Roman technique. Hand tools were also used for this sculpture which, although inevitably slower, permitted hand and eye coordination to ‘discover the forms in a much more organic and natural way which produced an effect more aligned to the originals’ (Josephine Crossland and Luke Batchelor, pers. comm.). Attempts not to overwork the piece left some crude tool mars which ‘proved quite challenging as modern-day aesthetics tend to require a more precise and refined finish’ (ibid.).

This is a contemporary and provocative piece of art in its own right. It combines iconography and inscribed text subverting colonial stances that permeate existing interpretations of frontier sculptures (Tolia-Kelly, 2011). The depicted scenes conflict with the originals as a means of eliciting an emotional response in the viewer (Wingfield, 2010), inviting them to consider different dynamics and new dimensions from the contradictory perspectives of local Iron Age peoples who had a different experience of events than the Roman military personnel that typically frames the narratives of existing scholarship.

In the act of becoming (Leroi-Gourhan, 1993) this new object creates a sense of enchantment and performance through the transformation of a plain stone slab into a new thing possessing new properties and tangible meanings (Gell, 1992: 46–53). It invites intimate tactile, emotional, and sensory engagement through the sculpted narrative and the materiality of the stone. For example, there is a subtle natural red colour woven through the stone block that lends itself perfectly to the subject matter since it emulates red pigments applied to the original Roman Distance Sculptures (Campbell, 2020a; 2020b). This creates a dynamic and visually impactful effect of blood seeping through the surface and permeating the sandstone to imbue it with a sense of realism, particularly to the iconic, but subversive, battle scene being enacted on the left panel. Local communities will be encouraged to critically engage with their new sculpture and create their own connections with it through stories yet to be told — some of which may deviate significantly from the narratives imposed through traditional museum display.

Geolocation information

Scotland.

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks are due to curatorial colleagues who have offered insights, advice, and information on the objects discussed, including Lawrence Keppie, Fraser Hunter, Lindsay Allason-Jones, Frances McIntosh, Katinka Dalglish, and the Hunterian Museum Collections team. I would also like to thank Sally Foster, Patricia Weeks, and Emma McMullen for reading an earlier draft of the paper and offering invaluable comments. Special thanks are due to lecturers and students at City of Glasgow College as well as sculptors, Josephine Crossland and Luke Batchelor, and the Rediscovering the Antonine Wall Project team for taking me along with them on a journey of creative exploration. Any remaining errors or points of controversy rest entirely with the author.

Disclosure statement

The author declares that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Historic Environment Scotland under Grant Number HEAP2470491033 and the University of Glasgow’s Lord Kelvin/Adam Smith (LKAS) Leadership Fellowship.

Notes on contributors

Louisa Campbell

Dr Campbell is the Lord Kelvin/Adam Smith Leadership Fellow in Archaeology at the University of Glasgow. She leads the Paints and Pigments in the Past (PPIP) project undertaking non-destructive analysis of pigments on Roman statuary, particularly sandstone sculpture from the Antonine Wall and other frontiers.

Correspondence to: Dr Louisa Campbell. Email: [email protected]. Webpage: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/staff/louisacampbell/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/PPIP_Paints