Behind the beacons
Part of our Magna project and a visual treat for visitors to the Roman Army Museum are our two beacons, one is a sculpture fire beacon outside and one an interactive funder acknowledgement beacon inside. This blog takes you behind the scenes to tell you a little more about the inspiration behind them and how they are being used.
The sculpture fire beacon
Which beacon came first…the answer is our sculptural fire beacon which was designed and made for us by our friends at The FirePit Company. We had worked with the FirePit Company back in 2014 when we commissioned the Vindolanda fireball, another sculptural piece which is now perhaps the most photographed feature in the museum gardens. The Magna project, which saw the start of groundbreaking research at the Roman Fort next to the Roman Army Museum, was a milestone moment for The Vindolanda Trust. The fire beacon, cylindrical in shape and standing 2.2m tall takes inspiration from a Roman milestone. The beacon has been hand cut to create a series of eagles flying along with the letters SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus) which means “The Senate and People of Rome”. SPQR was a phrase that appeared on many things in Roman times, including monuments and public works. The eagle was a symbol of power, strength and courage, it is also our logo for the Roman Army Museum. The position of the beacon was chosen to overlook the fort of Magna and be set against an ever changing backdrop throughout the seasons and sunset times. It has become a space that allows for reflection and contemplation when the only interruptions to the beautiful view are sheep grazing.
On 22nd June 2024 the fire beacon was lit by Vindolanda Trust Patron Robson Green to officially open the new archaeology and activity centre at the Roman Army Museum.
The indoor interactive beacon
In any funded project, such as our Magna project, it is important that the funders are appropriately acknowledged. At the start of our Magna Project our assigned case officer and monitor at The National Lottery Heritage Fund challenged us to “be creative” with our acknowledgment of the Lottery grant. The challenge was not simply accepted but rather embraced by our creative team at The Vindolanda Trust. If you are reading this blog without the added benefit of ever visiting the Roman Army Museum then you should know that the museum is very engaging, exciting and interactive. A simple acknowledgement board, even something designed to be perhaps Roman looking was just not going to be exciting enough for our team. Thats when the idea came to bring a version of the outdoor beacon inside, an indoor recreation that was interactive, enabling visitors to “light” the beacon themselves. A local startup company Agydo Works were brought on board to help make the vision a reality. Agydo Works make interactive intelligent tables and what we asked them to do was turn their intelligent table idea into something truly unique that could be mounted on the wall.
Each time the flame is pressed a unique action of dancing lights illuminate the beacon and each lighting represents a message of thanks to our funders which travels one Roman mile. Behind the beacon there are 25m of cabling connecting 1100 led lights and other electrical components. All the components were designed specifically for this project, there was not option to get a quick off the shelf fix to the technology behind the beacon. Due to the technology used the developers had to work with tight coding constraints to achieve the desired lighting effects. Each driver board only has 2kb of RAM and 128 bites of eprom. Put into context that’s 8million times less that the phone in your pocket! A small screen towards the base of the beacon lets the visitors know how many miles the message has travelled and thanks them for engaging with the funders. As the miles increase the beacon highlights some places of interest that the message of thanks has reached. At the time of writing this blog the messages of thanks have travelled over 6,000 Roman miles, reaching and passing the Great Wall of China!
The Vindolanda Trust is hugely grateful to Langley and Michael at Agydo Works for their commitment to this project. It has been wonderful to see so many of our visitors interacting with the beacon, reading about the support from our funders and see the joy on faces when the beacon lights and they see how far the message of thanks has travelled. We have 27,080 Roman miles to get around the world and 259,764 to get to the moon!
