Hadrian's Wall and the National Maritime Museum in London have secured £9m funding, which will be used to transform the sites and improve the facilities for visitors.

Hadrian's Wall and the National Maritime Museum in London have secured £9m funding, which will be used to transform the sites and improve the facilities for visitors.

Hadrian's Wall will use £4m to build an education centre and new galleries for displaying ancient artefacts in Northumberland.

The Vindolanda Trust, the archaeological body in charge of the project, will also release a collection of items which have never been displayed before.

Historian Dan Snow said: "Vindolanda is one of the most important Roman sites in the world.

"Discoveries being made there are scrutinised as avidly in Syria and Libya as they are in northern England. Yet the first thing the visitor notices there are the vast unexcavated spaces in and around the fort.

At the centre of the planned display at Vindolanda will be examples of ancient writing tablets described by experts as "Britain's Dead Sea Scrolls".

Around 2000 of the ink-on-wood tablets, which carry the voices of people from almost 2000 years ago, have been excavated at Vindolanda.

The National Maritime Museum will use its award of £5m to create a new entrance directly from Greenwich Park and expand its galleries, which explain Britain's global influence through its explorers, traders, migrants and naval power.