To understand the purpose of the structure, you need to pay attention to small technical details. This is a segment of Hadrian's Wall in Britain, and it is designed precisely as a one-sided stop:

Someone purposefully lifted the soil from one side to the top of the wall. For defensive purposes?! For an infantryman this is not an obstacle. As protection against cavalry? In about twenty minutes, under the cover of darkness, the adversaries will make a passage anywhere and transfer the horses.
Such structures are made to counteract the pressure of a certain force. Such a structure could have stopped the glacier creeping from the expected side.
This photo also clearly shows that Hadrian’s Wall was created precisely as a one-sided stop:

I'll add another interesting fact. There are two defensive ramparts in Britain - Hadrian's and Antonian's. From an official point of view, they were built almost simultaneously, in 122-128 and 142-154, respectively. The surprising thing is that Hadrian's Wall is perfectly preserved, but Antonian's Wall is almost completely destroyed, only its pitiful remains are visible.

Note that the ruined Antonian Wall is much further north, running almost parallel to Hadrian's Wall.
The glacier advanced from the North and erased the Antonian Wall. Hadrian's Wall delayed it, which is why it was well preserved! It is alleged that the Antonian Wall was destroyed by the Picts. In these and other photos it is clearly visible that the stone wall was destroyed very evenly along its entire length. This could not have happened if people were the cause of the destruction. The Picts would simply have made separate passages in the wall.
A similar situation with defensive ramparts can be found on Russian territory. They are located parallel to each other:




It is stated that Hadrian's Wall had 16 major forts, and the ruins of them are available. It is also indicated that between the forts, smaller towers were erected every 1300 meters, and at intervals of about 500 meters - towers with ladders, which served as shelter from bad weather and for signaling. There are simply no traces of either of them, either after 1300 meters or after 500 meters. It would make sense for these towers and derricks to be somehow incorporated into the stone wall structure if it were all a single project. And in this case, at least something should indicate their former existence. It can be assumed that they were not made from durable materials, out of economy, and therefore no traces of them remained. But they clearly did not spare stone for the construction of the wall itself!


It may be objected that many financial documents have been preserved about the construction of Hadrian's Wall. We must not forget that Britain was a distant outskirts of the empire. The emperor is far away, and corruption existed even before the Romans.

Hi there - Hadrian's Wall is a subject dear to my heart as my father's family came from near there and so when I was a child we often visited sites along the wall when on holiday. 

Although Hadrian's Wall was undeniably defensive, it seems intended to have functioned more as a means to restrict cross-border raids than to repel a concerted attack (I think the Caledonians managed to breach the wall on only a few occasions but their incusions were soon mopped up the Roman troops stationed in the supporting bases). This is in much the same way that a modern militarized frontier, guarded by watchtowers and chain-link fences topped by razor-wire, can restrict small scale incursions and smuggling but when faced by a concerted military attack can only hope to slow it down while awaiting back-up forces to arrive. I think the wall also served more generally as a border control structure for policing and surveillance and to control (and possibly tax) the passage of people and goods acrosss the frontier (although evidence for much cross border trade is slight). The wall was also of course a very impressive geographical marker in its own right, making a clear statement along the lines of: 'This belongs to Rome: from now on south Roman law applies, so behave or face the consequences'. It also served to define the political limits of the empire for the Romans themselves: 'thus far but no further'.

eremeiyury wrote:

Someone purposefully lifted the soil from one side to the top of the wall. For defensive purposes?!

The wall was followed along nearly its entire length on the southern side by a vallum -  a 3m deep ditch between two parallel ridges, the total earthwork being about 35m wide - situated up to several hundred metres away from the main stone wall and which may well have functioned as delineating a sort of 'restricted access zone' to keep unauthorised civillians away from the wall proper. The soil from this ditch was used to create the two parallel ridges. No soil was ever heaped onto the wall proper: why would anyone ever do that? Your photo of the wall capped by rough turf is just the result of nineteen centuries of weathering and plundering of the stone, such that the wall - now considerably lower in height than as constructed - is topped by broken and weathered masonry in which soil has built up and plants have taken hold. Perhaps English Hertiage or whoever is responsible for the wall's preservation allow this growth in order to give some protection and stability to the underlying masonry but it is not an original feature of the wall and certainly in other areas I know there are continual efforts to try and keeps the wall weed-free.  

eremeiyury wrote:

The surprising thing is that Hadrian's Wall is perfectly preserved, but Antonian's Wall is almost completely destroyed, only its pitiful remains are visible.

Not really when you consider that the Antonine Wall was only ever an earthwork built of turf and heaped soil topped by a wooden palisade, there was no stonework at all (other than a rubble base). The Antonine Wall was likely only ever considered a temporary structure with the original intention being to upgrade it with a proper stone wall, although in the event the whole thing was eventually abandoned and now after nearly two thousand years of weathering and slumping its definition is greatly reduced. And you mention glaciers advancing from the north to damage both the Antonine and Hadrian Walls, however the last glaciers retreated from the whole area at the end of the Devensian Glacial Period about 12,000 years ago and so somewhat before Rome itself even existed.

eremeiyury wrote:

A curious detail at the Hadrian's Wall forts. The stone floor in the rooms was raised on stilts, this is clearly visible in the photo: ... Why could they do this?

Your photo shows the remains of the military bath house at the Vindolana fort (I think). The short columns are the remains of the hypocaust system by which hot air from external furnaces was channelled through the space under the floors (and often through the walls too) to provide central heating. The system was widely used in both private villas and government buildings throughout the Empire and is often seen in the remains of Roman buildings be they in Britain, Germania, Gaul or Rome itself. The Romans in Britain might never have faced "Siberian frosts" but they still liked their creature comforts.

Thanks, I fixed the error about the hypocaust. Defensive ramparts are not only found in Britain. Besides their very questionable value for defense, there is another problem. I mean the Siberian defensive line. If we use official sources about the number of possible builders, then simple calculations show that they could not do this. If you are interested in a more detailed answer, I will provide this information. There are also a number of logical contradictions regarding this line. Therefore, doubts arise about the dating of other defensive lines.
Only a strong centralized state could create defensive lines, the diagrams of which I have given. At the time when the construction of these defensive ramparts is officially dated, there were no such states in the designated territory. There were many small principalities that were constantly at war with each other.