Welcome to A Roman Murder Mystery.

The aim of this website is to introduce pupils to aspects of life on the Roman frontier of Hadrian's Wall through the study of an archaeological murder mystery.

This website can be used in two different ways :

  • Pupils can work their way through each topic, completing the online tasks and the final report.

  • The Roman Murder Mystery story can be used in class to introduce pupils to the unit of work. As pupils work their way through each topic they can collect the clues in the yellow boxes at the bottom of each web page and design a presentation on their solution to the crime ! The story is available from this page as a download.

Download Area

The Murder Mystery story is available as a Word, RTF or TXT document.
Click here to download the story in WORD format.
Click here to download the story in RTF format.
Click here to download the story in TXT format.

These files contain a brief history of Britain in the 4th century AD and life on the frontier.
Click here to download the history file in WORD format.
Click here to download the history file in RTF format.
Click here to download the history file in TXT format.

The Murder Mystery programme is an account of a pupil visit to Hadrian's Wall.
Click here to download the programme.
Note : depending on the speed of your connection this file will take between 5 and 10
minutes to download.

A summary 1933 Archaeological Report
Click here to download the report in WORD format.
Click here to download the report in RTF format.
Click here to download the report in TXT format.

These are the clues that pupils will discover if they follow the Murder Mystery story
Click here to download in WORD format
Click here to download in RTF format
Click here to download in TXT format
Click here to download the Excel Report form that pupils can use to record their evidence

Recommended Websites

Daily Life in Ancient Rome
http://members.aol.com/Donnclass/Romelife.html

Hadrian's Wall Heritage Site
http://www.ntb.org.uk/hadrian/

Welcome to the Museum of Antiquities
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/~nantiq/

The Romans in Scotland
http://www.gla.ac.uk/Museum/HuntMus/romans/

Recommended Books

Housesteads. James Crow. London. 1995. ISBN 0713460814

Hadrian's Wall. Stephen Johnson. 1989. London. ISBN 0713459581

The Buildings of Roman Britain. Guy de la Bedoyere. 1991. London. ISBN 0713463112

Roman Britain : A Sourcebook. S Ireland. ISBN 070991315X