Robin Edgar Birley (19 January 1935 – 29 August 2018) was a British archaeologist. He was the Director of Excavations at the Roman site of
Vindolanda
Vindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort ('' castrum'') just south of Hadrian's Wall in northern England, which it pre-dated. Archaeological excavations of the site show it was under Roman occupation from roughly 85 AD to 370 AD. Located near th ...
and head of the Vindolanda research committee. He was the son of
Anthony Birley
Anthony Richard Birley (8 October 1937 – 19 December 2020) was a British ancient historian, archaeologist and academic. He was one of the leaders of excavations at of the Roman fortress at Vindolanda and also published several books on Roman ...
Andrew Birley
Andrew Robin Birley (born 28 October 1974) is a British archaeologist and the Director of Excavations on the site of Vindolanda. He is the son of Robin Birley and Patricia Birley and grandson of Eric Birley, who founded the department of Archa ...
, and daughter-in-law Barbara Birley are also published authors on Roman Vindolanda.
Education and career
Both Birley brothers lived at the site with their father
Eric Birley
Eric Barff Birley Clifton College
Clifton College is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in the city of Bristol in South West England, founded in 1862 and offering both boarding school, boarding and day school for pupils aged 13–18. In its early years, unlike mo ...
, before spending some years with the
Royal Marines
The Royal Marines provide the United Kingdom's amphibious warfare, amphibious special operations capable commando force, one of the :Fighting Arms of the Royal Navy, five fighting arms of the Royal Navy, a Company (military unit), company str ...
before returning to work at
Vindolanda
Vindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort ('' castrum'') just south of Hadrian's Wall in northern England, which it pre-dated. Archaeological excavations of the site show it was under Roman occupation from roughly 85 AD to 370 AD. Located near th ...
and becoming the Director of the Vindolanda Trust. Birley excavated extensively at the site of Vindolanda and was intimately involved in the discovery of the
Vindolanda tablets
The Vindolanda tablets are some of the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain (antedated by the Bloomberg tablets from Roman London). They are a rich source of information about life on the northern frontier of Roman Britain. Writ ...
in 1973 and their subsequent interpretation and publication. These are a series of wooden tablets containing handwritten script, which continue to be discovered at the site. For a time this was the oldest known handwritten script in Britain, although the
Bloomberg tablets
The Bloomberg tablets are a collection of 405 preserved wooden tablets that were found at the site of the Bloomberg building in the financial district of London. Excavations of the site took place between 2010 and 2013, after which the current ...
discovered in the 21st century are older. The Vindolanda tablets have been translated from the
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
and have been published in print and online (as texts and images).
He published extensively on the Vindolanda site and appeared in several TV documentaries, including the 2003
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
*''Hadrian's Wall: Guide to the Central Sector'' (1972)
*''Civilians on the Roman Frontier'' (1973)
* ''Housesteads (Vircovicium) Roman Fort and Civilian Settlement'' (1973)
*''Discoveries at Vindolanda'' (1973)
*''Vindolanda: A Roman Frontier Post on Hadrian's Wall'' (1979)
*''Garrison Life on the Roman Frontier'', Greenhead: Roman Army Museum (1991)
*''The Building of Hadrian's Wall'' (1991)
*'Four New Writing-Tablets from Vindolanda' in ''Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik'' pp. 431–446 by R and A Birley (1994)
* ''The Foot at the Rock: On Hadrian's Wall'' (1994)
*''The early wooden forts: the excavations of 1973-76 and 1985-89, with some additional details...'' (1994)
*''Roman Records from Vindolanda on Rome's Northern Frontier'', Greenhead: Roman Army Museum (1999)
*''Chesterholm: From a Clergyman's Cottage to Vindolanda Museum'' (2000)
*''Civilians on Rome's Northern Frontier: Families, Friends and Foes'' (2000)
*''Vindolanda - Extraordinary Records of Daily Life on the Northern Frontier'', Greenhead: Roman Army Museum (2005)
*''Vindolanda: A Roman Frontier Fort on Hadrian's Wall'' (2012)