SOUV
Welterbe » Nomination and Inscription » SOUV
At the time of inscription on the World Heritage List, the World Heritage Committee adopts a Statement of Outstanding Universal Value (SOUV) which will be the key reference for the future effective protection and management of the property.
For the Antonine Wall, the following SOUV was adopted in 2008:
The Antonine Wall fully illustrates the effort of building the Limes on the frontiers of the Roman Empire, at the time of its apogee and greatest extension in the British Isles and worldwide (middle of the 2nd century AD). It embodies a high degree of expertise in the technical mastery of earthen defensive constructions, in the construction of a strategic system of forts and camps, and in the general military organisation of the Limes. The Antonine Wall also demonstrates the diffusion of the military and civil engineering of the Roman civilisation to the whole of Europe and the Mediterranean world.
Criterion (ii): The Antonine Wall is one of the significant elements of the Roman Limes present in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. It exhibits important interchanges of human and cultural values at the apogee of the Roman Empire.
Criterion (iii): The Antonine Wall bears testimony to the maximum extension of the power of the Roman Empire, by the consolidation of its frontiers in the north of the British Isles, in the middle of the 2nd century AD. The property illustrates the Roman Empire's ambition to dominate the world in order to establish its law and way of life there in a long-term perspective.
Criterion (iv): The Antonine Wall is an outstanding example of the technological development of Roman military architecture and frontier defence.