This year marks the 1,900th anniversary of the visit of the emperor Hadrian to Britain where, according to his biographer writing more than 200 years after the event, ‘he put many things to right and was the first to build a wall 80 miles long to separate the Romans and the barbarians’. In 2022, the anniversary is being marked by events across Britain – but was there a ceremony in AD 122 to mark the building of Hadrian’s Wall? David Breeze, Christof Flügel, Erik Graafstal, and Andreas Thiel explore the possibilities.