Hadrian's Wall is not just the most celebrated monument of Roman Britain; it is also the most written about. The flow of new publications continues apace, and the three items under review all make important contributions to the field.

Pride of place goes to Richard Hingley's ‘biography’ of the Wall. This takes the story of the Wall through the ages from its first construction to the present, looking at how it impacted on, or was interpreted by, different generations. It thus fits into other studies which the author has written on the reception of Romano-British antiquities. Three main divisions mark periods during which the Wall had different names, reflecting the prevailing interpretations of the time: the ‘Picts’ Wall’ (from the early Christian period to the end of the seventeenth century), the ‘Roman Wall’ (during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) and ‘Hadrian's Wall’ (from the late nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first). These parts are then further divided into a series of chapters, each of which uses a specific site or monument as a peg on which to hang the responses of a given subperiod. Thus the wooden cross and church at Heavenfield introduce the chapter on the early Christian phase, the Mithraeum at Housesteads inaugurates the chapter on John Collingwood Bruce and the beginnings of modern archaeology, and the gateway at South Shields prompts a chapter on the Romanisation of Tyneside in the last years of the twentieth century. On the way we are treated to mini-essays on a wide range of topics – not just assessments of different historians’ understanding of the Wall but also examinations of works of literature (including Puck of Pook's Hill and various little-known poems) inspired by it. In each case we learn how each expresses the outlook of its time. Particularly interesting are the analyses of works of visual art, notably William Bell Scott's Building of the Roman Wall, in which aspects of the painting are seen to be conditioned by Victorian attitudes to native soldiers serving the British Empire. This is a magisterial (albeit somewhat repetitious) volume, and the author is to be congratulated on his achievement.

The second book, Rob Collins's Hadrian's Wall and the End of Empire, looks at the frontier zone (by which he means the whole territory from southern Scotland down to Yorkshire) during the twilight period spanning the last years of Roman government and the beginning of the Dark Ages. In this project he is able to exploit recent archaeological data not only from forts such as Vindolanda, Birdoswald and South Shields (as well as more southerly sites such as York and Binchester) but also from native settlements. Using all kinds of evidence – military and civilian architecture, coin and pottery loss and pollen cores, not to mention literary documents such as the Notitia Dignitatum – he builds up a convincing picture of changing patterns of occupation and economic activity across the fourth and fifth centuries. The dominant theme that emerges is one of regionalisation, of a gradual transition from a unified military command to early medieval warrior fiefdoms based on descendants of the former soldiers. Hadrian's Wall came to lack political significance but many forts continued to be occupied, partly because of their location in relation to the road network, partly because they were seats of the elite. All this is, of course, educated guesswork, but the case is methodically and intelligently argued, with the support of carefully compiled tables and distribution maps. The picture will no doubt change as our knowledge becomes more refined (for instance, the discussions on the interaction between the Roman army on Hadrian's Wall and the native population of the frontier zone have been overtaken by new findings from the excavation of Iron Age settlements in the Northumberland coastal plain: see Hodgson, McKelvey and Muncaster Reference Hodgson, McKelvey and Muncaster2012); but Collins's book, as the first comprehensive treatment of the topic, will remain a landmark in the study of the late Roman and early medieval frontier zone in Britain.

Our third volume presents a collection of essays arising from the thirteenth Pilgrimage of Hadrian's Wall, held in August 2009, when Ernst Künzl, a leading authority on decorated metalwork in Roman times, delivered a lecture setting the recently discovered Ilam pan, also known as the Staffordshire Moorlands pan, in the context of other enamelled bronze ware. The particular relevance to Hadrian's Wall is, of course, that at least four such objects – the so-called Rudge cup, the Amiens patera, the Hildeburgh fragment and the Bath pan – are embossed with what may be stylised representations of the Wall, while two of them (the Rudge cup and the Amiens patera) plus a third (the Ilam pan) carry inscriptions naming a series of forts in the Wall's western sector. These vessels are the ‘souvenirs’ of the book's title. After a succinct catalogue by David Breeze comes a printed version of Künzl's wide-ranging lecture, then essays on the four most important souvenirs, and a discussion of the inscriptions by Paul Holder. Sally Worrell contributes an essay on enamelled vessels and related objects reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme from 1997 to 2010, and Fraser Hunter uses a pan from West Lothian as a launch pad for an analysis of the shapes and ornament of the whole genus of enamelled vessels. Finally, David Breeze draws the book together with a chapter entitled ‘Conclusions’, which inevitably poses more questions than it offers answers.

The essays and their splendid colour illustrations make this a must-have item for anyone interested in the Wall and the art objects of Roman Britain. Not surprisingly, there are disagreements between the authors, for example, on the dating of the vessels and on the interpretation of the inscription on the Ilam pan, but this is all to the good, since it gives a sense of the vigour of the debate surrounding the pieces. Less understandable perhaps are the variations of scope and length between the essays, two of which (those on the Amiens patera and the Hildeburgh fragment) are much shorter than the rest: one wonders whether the authors were given clear enough briefs. But at least two essays – Hunter's survey article and Ralph Jackson's on the Ilam pan – must take their place as definitive studies in the present state of our knowledge.

This reviewer has no wish to cross swords with the experts, but he sees no reason for deducing (as do Künzl and Breeze) that the inscription on the Ilam pan, engraved rather than cast, was necessarily added as an afterthought, turning an ‘all-purpose vessel’ into a souvenir: its broad plain border may deliberately have been left clear for lettering to be applied. Nor am I convinced by the arguments of Martin Henig (cited by Breeze on p 111) that the pans were religious objects: the general assumption that they were souvenirs is surely right. Here it is a pity that none of the authors mentions other examples of tourist trinkets in the Roman world, such as the well-known series of engraved glass vessels recording the monuments of Baiae and Puteoli: these seem to me to offer a good parallel to the mementos of the Wall.

Research into aspects of Hadrian's Wall remains as healthy as ever, and the three volumes here reviewed offer testimony to the variety of avenues by which it is being pursued.