Sunday Selection #A2ZChallenge research books

It's Sunday and almost the end of April! 

#A2ZChallenge Theme: Ancient Roman Scotland during the Flavian era

Since there's no April #A2ZChallenge post today, I promised to show a few of the books I've used for the research for my theme of #Agricolan Scotland. 

In addition to those I'm posting below, there have been many other pieces of research done via internet sources and not just Wikimedia - though I do use that in conjunction with background sources, if I can be sure of the origin of the information. 

I have a number of bookcases in my house which have some other less used information, but the ones shown are most commonly used just now for my Romans in Scotland research.

An upstairs bookcase has many other Celtic research books; general Scottish and British history references; and ones used during my Open University studies (my degree is history/ culture & literature studies) which went from 17th Century England through to the Victorian era.  And there are World War II books, as well as other periods which I taught to my pupils when I was a primary teacher- Vikings, Egyptians, Elizabethans, Jacobite.... Yes, History is and has always been a passion of mine!


One of these days I'll amalgamate all of my history research into one room!

The texts shown here are in no particular order of favour, or order of use. There are older references like Sheppard Frere which is still excellent for some things but his 1960s and 1970s theories have been supplanted by the more modern ones by archeologists like Woolliscroft and Hoffmann. I've found some theories in one which may conflict with another author's, but taken as a whole huge block of information there is a lot for me as an author of Historical Fiction (Saga) to dip into. 

I'm well aware that what one archaeologist presents as his or her impression of Roman Scotland is just that - an interpretation. Interpretations on sound solid evidence is the best anyone can do since there are no actual remains of full physical buildings to draw on. 

What is gleaned from the soil, and from artifactual evidence, is all that can be used to construct an impression of what it was like to live in #Roman Scotland- along with the scant written evidence of Cornelius Tacitus and those ancient writers who post date him. 

Without Tacitus, I would have a lot less to build my historical fiction saga on.

The reference book that I'm probably using most just now for my new writing is this very heavy text on the Roman fort of Trimontium/ Newstead. At the beginning of Book 5, my current WIP Beathan the Brigante (probable final title), 13 year old Beathan is presently enslaved in Trimontium fort.

Skipping backwards in my series, in the final pages of Book 3 there is a battle at Beinn na Ciche between the Roman Armies of General Agricola and the amassed Celtic warrior force led by a Caledon leader named Calgach (Tacitus' Calgacus). My battle is loosely based on the information of the battle as given by Cornelius Tacitus in his Agricola, the one historians refer to as Mons Graupius. 

As the author of my series, I was unable to name the battle Mons Graupius because the site of the battle has never been positively identified but many recent historians favour the site currently named Bennachie in Aberdeenshire. I have used local Gaelic names for many of my locations in my series so my battle site is Beinn na Ciche (Bennachie). 

Beathan is the baby born to the main protagonists in Book 1 of the series- The Beltane Choice- a son who has been prophesied to become a great leader of the Celts. As Book 5 progresses Beathan will mature to become that man! 

The last text shown here is an English Heritage copy of Hadrian's wall. the messy pages cluttering it are print-outs from my Futurelearn course on Hadrian's Wall. This was a really good course on what is known about Hadrian's Wall from it's beginnings c. A.D. 120 to it's end of Roman use c. very early A.D 400s- though some of the Wall forts continued to be used for longer than that. I absolutely recommend the Futurelearn course for anyone who wants to dip into the history of Hadrian's Wall, or Virtual Rome, without doing a demanding degree course.

Have you read any of the above reference books, or heard of them? 

Till tomorrow and my penultimate #A2ZChallenge post...

Slainthe!