Margary numbers are the numbering scheme developed by the historian Ivan Margary to catalogue known and suspected Roman roads in Britain in his 1955 work The Roman Roads of Britain. [1] They remain the standard system used by archaeologists and historians to identify individual Roman roads within Britain. [1] It is not known how the Romans identified the roads they built within Britain, and well-known names such as Watling Street and the Fosse Way largely date from the Anglo-Saxon period, are sometimes ambiguous or duplicated, and cover only a small proportion of the known network. [2]
Margary's numbering system follows similar conventions to modern road numbering systems. [1] He divided roads into three categories: Main Routes are given single-digit numbers, Principal Branches two-digit numbers and Minor Branches three digit numbers. [3] Individual sections of longer routes are identified by adding letters to the route number, for example Dere Street (Margary 8) is divided into sections 8a, 8b, 8c, 8d and 8e. [1] Double letters are sometimes used to indicate parallel or alternative routes. [2] Lesser roads in particular areas are given similar numbers – for example many roads in Wales have numbers in the 60s. [2]
Margary's cataloguing system has been criticised as being essentially arbitrary in several respects. [4] Margary's hierarchy of routes is not necessarily that of the original designers or users of the network. [5] Evidence for whether the Romans considered different lengths of road to form parts of a single route can be ambiguous, so the fact that they are given a single Margary number can be misleading. [1] Margary's network also largely consists of roads built by the Romans, not necessarily roads used by the Romans, who may have continued to use native British trackways. [6]
Margary's system is nonetheless widely used for its practicality, [4] and the awarding of a Margary number to a route came to be considered a hallmark of authenticity among researchers in the field. [7]
Margary numbers are the numbering scheme developed by the historian Ivan Margary to catalogue known and suspected Roman roads in Britain in his 1955 work The Roman Roads of Britain. [1] They remain the standard system used by archaeologists and historians to identify individual Roman roads within Britain. [1] It is not known how the Romans identified the roads they built within Britain, and well-known names such as Watling Street and the Fosse Way largely date from the Anglo-Saxon period, are sometimes ambiguous or duplicated, and cover only a small proportion of the known network. [2]
Margary's numbering system follows similar conventions to modern road numbering systems. [1] He divided roads into three categories: Main Routes are given single-digit numbers, Principal Branches two-digit numbers and Minor Branches three digit numbers. [3] Individual sections of longer routes are identified by adding letters to the route number, for example Dere Street (Margary 8) is divided into sections 8a, 8b, 8c, 8d and 8e. [1] Double letters are sometimes used to indicate parallel or alternative routes. [2] Lesser roads in particular areas are given similar numbers – for example many roads in Wales have numbers in the 60s. [2]
Margary's cataloguing system has been criticised as being essentially arbitrary in several respects. [4] Margary's hierarchy of routes is not necessarily that of the original designers or users of the network. [5] Evidence for whether the Romans considered different lengths of road to form parts of a single route can be ambiguous, so the fact that they are given a single Margary number can be misleading. [1] Margary's network also largely consists of roads built by the Romans, not necessarily roads used by the Romans, who may have continued to use native British trackways. [6]
Margary's system is nonetheless widely used for its practicality, [4] and the awarding of a Margary number to a route came to be considered a hallmark of authenticity among researchers in the field. [7]