Kinneil Roman fortlet

Image: © Lairich Rig Taken: 3 Sep 2011

The line of the Antonine Wall can be seen as a raised area receding directly from the photographer's position. Kinneil fortlet itself is attached to the southern (right) side of the Wall; see Image and Image for views of that area. The stony area cutting through the line of the wall is the remains of a road that led through the fortlet, passing under a gate tower here (this was the northern gate of the fortlet). The posts mark the places where timbers associated with the gate tower were found. See Image for an earlier photograph of the road from another angle, in which the drains on either side of the road are more clearly evident. In the middle distance, there is a shallow depression to the north (the left) of the line of the Wall. This, though slight, is a genuine remnant of the ditch of the Antonine Wall. The present-day Dean Road (which passes through Image) and part of Grahamsdyke Road (passing through Image) in Bo'ness continue the line of the Wall; the latter road retains an old name for the Wall: Graham's Dyke (from the earlier Gryme's or Grim's Dyke). According to David J. Breeze, in "The Antonine Wall" (2006), "John of Fordun, writing in the fourteenth century, stated that it was called 'Grymisdyke' because it had been destroyed by Gryme, grandfather of King Eugenius, himself a mythical figure", while the sixteenth-century scholar George Buchanan offered the explanation that Graeme was a leader of the Picts and Scots who had broken down the wall to allow his people to invade the Roman province. Breeze notes that this name for the wall may in fact be from a Celtic word [the Welsh "grym" (might, power, force, strength; hence, the "strong dyke"). "Grym" is evidently akin to the Gaelic word "greim" – see Alexander Macbain's "Etymological Dictionary of Scottish Gaelic"].

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0