Digging for Britain (2010) s09e04 Episode Script

1
Everywhere you look, the rich
history of the United Kingdom
is there to be seen.
But hidden beneath our feet, there's
still a wealth of archaeological
treasure just waiting to be found.
That's why each year,
up and down the country,
our archaeologists dig down,
searching for fresh discoveries
Another one.
revealing the imprint
of ancient civilisations
So we are looking at a completely
unknown Roman tank. That's crazy.
Wow.
and unearthing priceless objects.
Might be a pendant
Oh, yeah. I can see that.
This is something special, isn't it?
Yeah, I've not seen anything
like it so far.
Every dig adds new pieces
to the ever-growing
archaeological jigsaw
Come and have a look.
that is the epic story
of our islands.
It's been an extraordinary year
full of challenges,
and yet I've been able to visit
so many exciting digs
up and down the country.
Oh, my goodness.
There have been spine-tingling
discoveries to witness.
That is the face of a Trojan.
Yes. My heart is racing.
And I'm even getting a chance
to use a trowel myself.
I'm joined by a trio of expert
investigators
I can actually see the texture of
the weave,
and it's - what - 1,600 years old?
It's amazing that a small DNA sample
like this
can tell that
really quite big story.
as they dig deeper for answers.
Same technique as the Romans used.
Exactly.
Finally, the archaeologists bring
their best finds into the studio
You can see that this object
has had a life of its own.
for up-close analysis.
It's astonishing detail.
Welcome to Digging For Britain.
This time we're in the Midlands
for the latest archaeological
discoveries.
In a Digging For Britain exclusive,
we uncover a truly spectacular
ancient sea monster.
This could be one of the biggest
finds ever in the UK.
An exquisite key handle reveals
the bloodthirst of the Romans.
The children are next on the list
after the lion
has dispatched this barbarian. So
quite a gruesome subject, actually.
Absolutely.
And an early medieval graveyard
shines light on the Dark Ages.
This is an indication of how
we've got British history wrong.
From Goodrich Castle
to Lincoln Cathedral,
the Midlands is strewn
with landmarks
that tell of its long history.
But many parts of this region's
story remain hidden
beneath the soil.
Our first dig is just three miles
from the centre of one
of the Midlands' oldest cities,
Leicester.
This hill near Leicester is part
of a beautiful country park,
much beloved of dog walkers,
and the bank I've just walked up
was once thought
to be part of an Iron Age hill fort.
It was thought to be -
not any more.
Here in Castle Hill Park,
for the very first time,
archaeologists are investigating
what looks like a settlement
surrounded by a huge bank and ditch.
They want to find out
how old this monument really is
and who might have lived here.
Hi, Matt. Hi, Alice.
Welcome to Castle Hill.
Where you've got stuck in already.
Indeed.
Matthew Morris from Leicester
University is leading the third year
of this excavation.
So you're the first archaeologist
to actually look on this hill.
Very first archaeologist
ever to look on this hill.
And you've been here
for a few years.
What have you been discovering
about it?
The site is rather enigmatic
because, for 60-odd years,
it was a sewage farm between
the 1890s and the 1960s,
and so no-one's ever looked
at this site before.
The whole hillside was
We've got this fantastic photograph
of it from the 1960s,
and you can see the earthwork
really clearly outlined.
Yes. And you can sort of understand
why people, pre-sewage farm,
thought it might have been
an Iron Age hill fort.
But they're quite substantial
earthworks.
Really substantial earthworks,
but then you can see all of these
channels cut across it,
which are all the sewage channels.
Reputedly, it was not a great place
to walk around or explore.
I can see why archaeologists weren't
that keen
to come and excavate it previously.
Absolutely.
But the sewage has long since gone,
and now you can safely dig here
and get to the bottom of what this
Castle Hill is really about.
Absolutely.
To find out what was built here,
Matthew is looking first at the bank
and ditch surrounding the site.
This image, created using a laser
scanning technique known as LI DAR,
reveals the shape of the enclosure
ditch hidden in the landscape -
and now a trench has been dug,
creating a cross section to search
for clues as to when it was built.
So this is the northern bank
and ditch of the main enclosure.
So that ditch, when you get down
into it, is really deep.
It's really deep and pretty
wide, as well.
So this is an excessively
large monument.
You can see why people thought
this was a hill fort.
So you're convinced now that
this isn't prehistoric?
Absolutely. Yeah, we are 100%
convinced that this isn't Iron Age.
So what evidence have you got
to prove that to me, Matt?
From the bank itself,
we've got Roman pottery.
Ah, OK. So this is a bit of
Roman greyware.
So, Romans come after Iron Age,
so Iron Age people can't be creating
a bank here with
Roman pottery in it.
No, but even better, from the soil
layer beneath the bank,
we've had these three very grotty
little bits of medieval pottery.
They're very grotty.
They're very grotty, yeah.
Very characteristic of what you'd
find in medieval plough soil.
So if there's medieval pottery
underneath this bank,
there's no way it could have got
there In the Iron Age.
In the I ron Age. It has to have been
dug in the medieval period
and built in the medieval period.
Brilliant.
So then there's another
mystery - who is here?
Why are they converting this hilltop
into what looks like a defensive
bank and ditch?
Why would you want to defend
this hilltop?
So we've got a late 13th-century
document that tells us
that in around about 1240,
the 6th Earl of Leicester,
Simon De Montfort, gives this area
to the Knights Hospitaller.
Ah. So now we've got a link
with the Crusades, then.
And the warrior monks. The Knights
Hospitaller were here. Absolutely.
The Knights Hospitaller were
established in Jerusalem
around 1100, after the city
was captured by Christians
during the First Crusade.
The Crusades to the Holy Land
were a series of religious wars
between Christians
and the Islamic caliphate.
The mission of these knights was to
protect and support a hospital
in Jerusalem, which cared
for Christian pilgrims.
As conflict with the Islamic Empire
intensified, the knights became
more militaristic, defending
Christian interest in the Holy Land.
But what possible connection
has this got
to a hilltop in Leicester?
As the dig progresses, the team
uncover more clues that could link
this site with these famous knights.
We came across a number of bones
just lying on the surface.
We've got a mixture of different
animals - cattle, sheep,
some perhaps dog.
We've had this come out of it,
which is a tiny
little medieval silver penny.
It's been deliberately cut in half
to make it a half penny,
and that would probably put it in
around about the late 12th century
or up to the mid 13th century
in date.
The archaeology is revealing
a site that is far grander
than a peasant farm.
So this is the key trench
in understanding
what is actually going on up here.
So the pile of stones we're walking
on now, this sort of flat pebbled
surface, is actually the yard
surface surrounding a building.
It's huge. It's eight metres wide,
it's at least 15 metres in length,
if not longer than that, as well.
Possibly has other buildings
stretching off to it
from the west in that direction.
Yeah.
So it's part of a complex.
And is this a building that people
would have lived in?
It does have the sense that it is
a fortified manor house, perhaps,
or certainly a defended enclosure.
It might be the manor house
itself, the main house.
But why are they here?
Why are they here on a hilltop
in Leicestershire?
This is a manor site - effectively
a large farm generating income
for them that will support their
military and charitable activities
back in the Holy Land.
So the Knights Hospitaller
are farming here.
That doesn't explain why
they've had to create these defences
around the hilltop, though.
The location might be the clue.
So the top of this hill
here is Leicester Forest,
and then going north from us
is Charnwood Forest
and then beyond that is
Sherwood Forest.
And so we're in that fringe
of very heavily wooded midlands
that is sort of well-known
for its bandits and outlaws.
So the Knights Hospitaller
are farming here
surrounded by bandit country,
and they essentially have to create
almost a castle on top of this hill.
Yeah - which, of course, the name
is a bit of a clue in that respect,
Castle Hill.
This is the age
of wild woods and outlaws,
which inspired local legends
like Robin Hood,
and this profitable manor house
didn't hide its wealth.
And it's a well-off farm, isn't it?
It is. When you look at the building
material,
again, it's using the local granite.
We've talked about the slate roof
and the top of the roof
would have been capped with glazed
ridge tiles that would have had
all of these lovely little
decorative crests on them.
That's really lovely. So you've got
this lovely slate roof
topped with Glazed ridge tiles
with these little decorative
finials along the top of them.
Yeah, I mean, that's really quite
ornate. It's very ornate.
It's bright green glazed
on top of a blue roof.
So, you know, we're not just looking
at a series of barns
or hovels up here.
This is something quite
Something quite posh, actually.
That's lovely. That's really nice.
The evidence suggests the buildings
would have looked like this -
an imposing manor
commanding the hilltop
over this wild medieval landscape.
Some of the artefacts found reveal
fascinating details about life here
at the height of the knights'
occupation.
Matt has put together a selection
so that I can get a closer look.
What about this lump of something?
What's that?
So this is iron hearth slag.
This is one we've sawn in in half,
so you can see the cross section.
So this is all the waste that's
sort of settled to the base
of the hearth, the smith's fire.
Yeah. Is this something you would
expect to find
on a manor in a farm?
It's a working estate centre,
so you're going to need every sort
of function of that.
And when you can't pop over
to the shops, you're going to need
a blacksmith on site to do
all those needed repairs
you've got on any metalwork -
you've got wheels, horse shoes.
Maybe even make tools
like this knife blade.
Yeah, it's lovely.
So finding evidence of smithing
on site doesn't destroy your idea
that this is a manor and a farm.
Oh, no, absolutely. It's one of
those many activities
that you would expect to find on a
working medieval estate centre.
Yeah, and what about this pottery?
You've got more of this green
glaze here.
So these are the things that
would be on the table during dining.
Yeah. Is it high status?
It is - it elevates it above
just a simple peasant's farm.
This is the sort of stuff you'd
expect on a much more elevated site,
like a Knights Hospitaller site.
Yeah. So they would give
hospitality -
anyone staying travelling through
could stop and spend the night here.
Yeah. So they do really live up to
that element of their name,
even though they are
a military order.
The archaeology here paints a
picture of the knights successfully
managing and defending their farm,
which would generate income
to support their campaigns
in the Holy Land.
Matt believes he's also found clues
as to what eventually happened
to the manor farm here
at Castle Hill.
And then what about the roof of it?
So the roof, we can see all of these
big piles of blue slates.
The remains of the roof, they're all
smashed roof slates that have been
left piled up on the site because
they were broken
and have been discarded.
So are we looking at a building
that was demolished, then?
Yes, definitely demolished.
There doesn't seem to be any
evidence of a long period
of neglect, with the building
crumbling away.
Now that Matt and his team are sure
that they have found
this incredible, historic building,
he can refer to local records
to find out why it was demolished.
We know they're here from 1240
to 1483, at which point they do
a land swap with Edward IV
for a site in Lincolnshire.
And after that, effectively
it goes back to farmland again.
It's a really short-lived site.
Absolutely. It's really only active
for a couple of hundred years,
and the pottery
really supports that.
There's no 11th-,
12th-century pottery.
There's no 15th-, 16th-,
17th-century pottery
coming out - it's just
13th, 14th century,
which is the period
that they hold it.
I love this mystery that
you've got to the bottom of,
you know, thinking, is it an Iron
Age hill fort to begin with?
It looks like it might be, with
this impressive bank and ditch
running around it,
and then actually finding
a much more interesting story,
I think, underlying that.
It's not an excavation
where we've left with a massive
question mark at the end. We've
actually got a good idea now
of what's going on on the site.
And a really rare glimpse
of the Knights Hospitaller.
Really rare. There's not many of
these sites that have ever been
excavated in England, Knights
Hospitaller - or Knights Templar,
for that matter. So this excavation
is actually hopefully
going to redress that.
Oh, that's amazing.
I mean, what a mystery
to have solved.
Oh, absolutely.
It's been great fun doing this.
This site is just extraordinary,
and I am fairly sure that if it
hadn't been for the sewage farm here
that this archaeology would just not
have survived.
It would have disappeared
long ago under development,
under a housing estate.
But here we are, peeling back
this layer of soil,
and we can see this incredibly
detailed picture
of the Knights Hospitaller
up here on Castle Hill.
It takes us away
from the stereotype, I think,
of those fighting monks.
Yes, they were raising funds to go
on crusades to the Holy Land,
but they're also here.
They're part of the medieval
English landscape.
We dig for the gods
that leave no bones
For the ship that sailed
in the sunken sea
The vessel locked in the sky
and stones
The famine road
and the merchants keep ♪
The Midlands boasts some truly
awe-inspiring landscapes -
from the dramatic Peak District
to the north
and the magnificent Malvern Hills
to the west.
Spectacular geology that formed
up to 700 million years ago.
Humans are relative newcomers
to the region,
but that doesn't mean there's
no evidence of life before us.
To lay the dead out in the sun
To lay us dead out in the sun. ♪
Now, digging for Britain
is all about archaeology.
But in this series, we are making an
exception for some palaeontology,
for an exceptionally
beautiful fossil.
Our next dig takes us to a nature
reserve 20 miles west
of Leicester - Rutland Water.
This is the biggest
artificial lake in the country.
The reservoir holds
over 124 billion litres,
providing water to the whole
of the East Midlands.
But in the winter of 2020, staff
here discovered tantalising clues
of something spectacular
lurking in its depths.
They called in palaeontologist
Dean Lomax
from the University of Manchester.
This is the nature reserve. There's
lots of animals that live here,
but during the winter months,
they lower the water levels
and, in doing so, they've exposed
lots of the Jurassic clays
which I'm stood on here,
which you can see behind me.
And by doing that, two of
the members of staff were walking
across the site and they spotted
something poking out of the clay,
walked over to it and they found
these vertebrae exposed
and bits of what looked like
pieces of jaw.
Oh, nice. This looks like a bit
of snout.
Yeah. Well, it connects up here,
though.
Oh, it's such a cool discovery.
It really is.
The staff at Rutland Water
had stumbled on
some extraordinary fossilised bones.
We've marked out,
using these wooden sticks,
where there's more bone underneath,
and for the animal, from the size,
we can work out from the size of
the vertebrae,
and the size of these jaw portions
that are exposed,
we think the skull might be
1.5 metres, two metres,
possibly even more.
But this is really,
really impressive.
Dean and his team are almost certain
that this is the fossilised skeleton
of an ichthyosaur - an ancient
marine reptile that first appeared
around 250 million years ago,
long before dinosaurs such
as Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Like whales, ichthyosaurs were
air-breathing and warm-blooded,
giving birth to live young.
They could grow huge, almost as big
as a blue whale,
but they certainly never swam
in Rutland Water,
which was built in the 1970s.
Usually you think of ichthyosaurs
and other marine reptiles
being discovered along the
Jurassic Coast in Dorset
or the Yorkshire coast, as well,
and where many of those animals are
exposed through the constant erosion
of the cliffs and the foreshore,
whereas here at an inland location,
it's very unusual.
We're inland, yet these animals
lived in a marine setting.
They were ocean-dwelling animals.
200 million years ago,
the Midlands were part of the seabed
under a huge, shallow ocean.
The continent was lifting,
and the sea itself
would eventually dry up.
Dead marine animals, which had lain
on the seabed and become entombed
in silt, would slowly transform
into fossils.
Quite a big animal.
And that's one of the really
interesting things.
Potentially, this could be one of
the biggest ichthyosaur finds
ever in the UK -
as a skeleton, as well.
Unlike fossils encased in hard rock,
this soft mud stone will allow
for quick excavation
What do you want to take it to,
the blue post?
The furthest bit of the skull.
and an early chance for the team
to measure it.
OK, you take it.
OK. We're getting close.
Place your bets.
9.5.9.5.
Yeah, I mean, here it's a case
we just continue across.
The largest complete ichthyosaur
ever found in Britain was discovered
in 1857 on the Yorkshire coast,
and measured approximately eight
metres in length.
But this specimen
could be far larger.
32.4 feet.
So metres-wise, 9.8.
Almost ten metres.
So the one in York -
I 'd have to triple check it -
I think this one's bigger.
At nearly ten metres,
this ichthyosaur could be
a UK record - breaker, and therefore
of national significance.
But it's mid -winter
and, as this small window of fine
weather is set to close,
time is running out
to rescue it from the mud.
Ideally, the plan today
would have been to remove
all the material that's exposed.
However, we can't run glues
in here, and we can't remove
all of this material carefully
enough that we know
it's going to be safe.
It's definitely not the ideal
conditions to collect this
right now, so we have to come back
later in the year,
and that's all part
of the fun and games.
As it will soon be fully submerged,
the team decide to protect
the fossil and return in the summer
to complete their mission
to excavate
Britain's largest ichthyosaur,
and preserve it for the nation.
We'll join Dean and his team
later in the programme
to see if they can successfully
raise this monster from the deep.
The Midlands has always
had a strong identity -
from the birthplace of manufacturing
at the start of the industrial
revolution, to the ancient
Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia
1,000 years earlier.
But it's here that history
starts to get murky.
There is no period in English
history that's more hotly contested
than that period of time
when the Roman Army has left -
the fifth, sixth centuries,
the so-called Dark Ages -
when later historians tell us
that boatloads of Germanic tribes
were arriving
in the east of England.
Now, archaeologists have called
that history into question,
but it will be a long time
before we know more
about who these people really were.
But archaeology can shed light
on the richness and complexity
of their culture -
as we see in this next dig.
We travelled to the city
with the second -oldest university
in the country - Cambridge.
From its founding in 1209,
the history of Cambridge University,
the city and its people
are well documented,
but go back another seven centuries
and much less is known about
the people who lived here.
Because we have so little written
evidence from the time,
Britain after Roman rule
is largely a historical void.
But in the summer of 2020,
workers on a building site
for King's College started finding
skeletons that might help
change that view.
They called in the archaeologists.
Is that a good one, Archie?
They filmed themselves on our dig
diary cameras.
That was a good one.
That's singing for joy.
Oh, my goodness me.
I don't think there'll be
any room for a body.
Supervising the team from Albion
Archaeology is Ernie Rizzoli.
And we have a Anglo Saxon
cemetery, which is something
we don't usually work on.
It's one of those things
we tend to get excited
about because they're so rare.
So the fact that we've had
the opportunity to work
on this cemetery is fantastic.
In all, the team
have uncovered 70 burials,
all dating from this
post-Roman period.
Because we have a decent amount
of burials, we can really establish
whether these people are actually
immigrants who've come over,
or if they are people who've
just taken on the culture.
So much of what we know of
especially early Saxon
and the transition from Roman
into Saxon, whether these people
were migrants or whether they were
just Britons who had adapted
from Roman and then
assimilated into Saxon.
And the lack of sites
to interpret that means that
something like this
is really important.
It looks like it could be
a spearhead.
We've had a couple of burials
on site that have had these spears
packed in next to them.
Whether these were items that were
associated with the people
being buried or whether they were
offerings from relatives,
we're not quite sure, but there's
a strong tradition of placing
the bodies into the graves
with belongings.
Many of these burials included
grave goods - a common practice
for early Anglo-Saxons.
These artefacts provide
tantalising clues
about the lives of their owners.
There are a couple of
brooches on here.
And there's another one here.
And not only are there
three brooches -
there's more and more beads
coming out.
She might have been wearing a belt.
We've got a small knife and a belt
loop, or that could be a ring.
Quite a rich and involved
burial, which is nice.
So far, these artefacts are typical
of Anglo-Saxon communities
in the early medieval period.
So Irena's just lifted
a really nice find,
but we're not sure what it is.
Irena's beautiful glass object
is a very unusual discovery.
Honestly, at the first sight,
we thought it was pretty
modern - maybe Victorian.
But then after cleaning it a bit
and considering it was close
to a Roman coin Wow.
And, potentially, I think
this could have been
a high-status burial, possibly.
The team believes that this is
a Roman barrel flask
perhaps used to store perfume,
which could have been made
hundreds of years before it was
eventually placed in this grave.
It's a cultural link
between Roman Britain
and these early Anglo-Saxons.
Lovely.
Towards the end of the excavation,
the team begin to unearth
another stunning object.
Copper alloy object
with what looks like gold inlay,
and we've got two brooches
on either shoulder
and a little amber bead here.
And then this in the middle,
which might be a pendant.
Something like that.
So that's really, really cool.
The position of the brooch
on the chest suggests this person
was buried wearing a cloak.
OK, Mike, are we ready to lift?
Let's have a closer look
at this brooch.
Amazing detail.
The brooch is stunning, but
it's what's on the back of it
that could tell us even more about
the people that lived here.
Traces of the cloak itself.
Fabric buried 1,500 years ago.
And there it is.
This evidence of Anglo-Saxon
textiles offers experts
an incredibly rare chance
to learn more about the people
that wore them and made them.
Historian Onyeka Nubia has come
to see that analysis in action.
Sometimes the investigation
of a small item can give birth
to a new understanding and help us
to reshape our thinking of Britain
and of British history.
Helping me decipher any clues
in the remnants of the fabric
is early medieval textile
specialist Sue Harrington.
So these are
the most important objects
discovered at the Croft Gardens
burial ground.
Yes, indeed.
This is a copper alloy
cruciform brooch.
Wow, it's just incredible
because it's so well-preserved.
Yes, it is, isn't it?
But if we turn this over
Oh, so is that the textile that
the brooch was attached to?
Uh, yes and no.
If you look carefully there,
you can see
not the actual fibres, but you can
see it in a mineralised form,
which is how it preserves
in contact with metal.
The brooch was actually
attached to this textile.
You can see it, almost.
It's wound around the pin.
Well, I can actually see
the texture of the weave Yeah.
even from here, and it's -
what - 1,600 years old?
Probably about 475 AD.
Wow!
Sue's deep knowledge of these
textiles means we can better
understand the cultures
that made and wore them
in fifth- and sixth-century
Cambridge.
What we've got here is something
called a ZZ22 twill.
OK, what's that?
ZZ means that the spin direction
is in the shape of a Z.
It's the sort of cloth that your
jeans are made of, denim.
That's a twill. Right.
And if you look very closely at
that, you'll see the same sort
of ziggy-zaggy pattern.
So the weave of the wool -
can we tell anything more
about where it was woven?
In the sixth, seventh century,
cloth production was still ongoing
in the Byzantine world,
in the Eastern Empire.
And possibly there was trade.
Trade, we know, comes up through the
Rhineland, around the North Sea.
This is the sort of cloth
that would have been traded
around the North Sea, but my sense
from this particular piece
is that it's probably
locally produced. Right.
Sue thinks this quite sophisticated
weave was traded among the cultures
across Northern Europe,
including Scandinavia.
I have this one here,
which I'll show you.
Astonishing that you can glean this
fact from something as simple as
fragments of residual fabric.
Oh, it's fantastic!
But another brooch tells
us a different story.
This is from the grave of a woman
who's slightly younger - 20 to 30
at age of death.
This is what's known as
a tabby, or a plain weave.
It's essentially a thread going
over one, under one, over one,
under one, in both directions.
But you can see from this -
and this is quite a fine
piece of fabric,
much finer than the twill
we were looking at.
So we've seen now that there's
at least two different
types of weave.
Does this mean that there are
two types of weaving cultures -
two different types of people
doing weaving?
Well, it depends whether
you're weaving for yourself
or you're weaving
for your community.
But the amount of labour required
would mean perhaps the input
of dedicated labour,
such as slaves, to do this.
I mean, there is an inference
that Roman-type craft traditions
continued in certain areas
of the country.
So you've just said something
really intriguing.
You said that there is a
continuation of Roman tradition
into the fifth century,
when this artefact is dated.
And that's really, really important
because a lot of people say
that when 410 happens,
everything Roman stops
Yeah and then a whole new
set of culture happens. Yeah.
And this artefact is clearly
showing that that's not the case.
Whether Roman traditions
continued is a possibility,
whether new traditions came
in is also a possibility,
and how they all mixed together
is the answer.
The mixture of fabrics found in
these graves reflects the blending
of cultural influences
on the people buried there.
This is, in many ways, an indication
of how we've got British history
wrong, because we Yeah!
we speak about British history
with a series of sentences
and full stops. Yes. But it is not
like that. It's never like that.
It's a series of commas, half
sentences and question marks. Yes.
When I was looking at those
grave goods with Sue, I began
to understand the importance of
history working with archaeology.
Here we were looking at
small items -
textiles, little bits of material -
and yet it provided a window,
a window that helped me understand
the rich tapestry of this period
that people call the Dark Ages.
I discovered that it's not
particularly dark at all.
The Romans created our earliest
written sources about the Midlands,
but they did far more
than just leave records.
Hundreds of their ruins
dot the landscape -
like Wroxeter, once one of
the largest towns in Britain -
and even our modern cities
still hide Roman secrets.
Large excavations in our towns
and cities give us the opportunity
to see how these places
that we're so familiar with
have evolved through time.
But sometimes it's the smallest
of finds, objects which just fit
in the palm of the hand, that give
us the most astonishing glimpse
of cultures long forgotten,
as we see in our next story.
We return to Leicester
and a dig that actually happened
more than four years ago
in the heart of the city centre.
Back in 2017, clearance was under
way for a large new development,
and a team from University of
Leicester Archaeological Services
had a unique opportunity
to fully excavate this area.
The archaeologists filmed all of
their work on small hand - held
cameras, not realising what treasure
they were about to discover.
Leicester was an Iron Age settlement
which became a major Roman town
in the first century.
But what the team uncovered
was truly astonishing.
They unearthed two ancient
Roman streets and two incredibly
well-preserved houses, full of
mosaics, dating back to 250 AD.
One mosaic was more than
ten metres long -
and, what's more, the room it was in
had underfloor heating.
This grand townhouse in the centre
of Roman Leicester clearly
belonged to one of the city's
most important citizens.
But as the dig progressed, it's one
of the smallest discoveries found
buried in the floor that
stunned archaeologists.
And maybe here, the arm
round this one, a hand there
It's like almost cartoon,
sort of, like, big hands!
In the four years since its
discovery, painstaking conservation
has restored this intricate piece
of metalwork to its former glory.
Gavin Speed and Nick Cooper
are at the Digging For Britain tent
to share what they've learned
about this object and the amazing
site where it was found.
So that's what Leicester
would have looked like -
what, in the third, fourth century?
That's right, yes.
This is a brand - new reconstruction
we've done, based on all our
excavation results, and gives us
a good view of Roman Leicester in
the third century. You can see
the forum and the main market
buildings over here, and possibly
the new theatre under construction
in the early third century.
And the site itself occupies
this very large townhouse,
and it had multiple rooms.
Some of the rooms were heated.
So whoever it was that lived in
that house must have been fairly
wealthy to live in such an opulent
townhouse, right in the centre.
Yeah. We found a variety of objects
within the townhouse itself and also
in rubbish dumps nearby.
And this was the key find,
the star find, wasn't it?
It certainly was. Can I pick it up?
Yeah, so Talk me through it.
So this is a Roman key handle,
and Oh, it's quite heavy.
It is. Yeah.
Is it a bronze object?
Yes, it's cast bronze, would have
originally had an iron key coming
out of it, but that's been lost.
And then you're left with
the decorative handle itself -
which, if you put it in the palm
of your hand, it feels
feels really nice.
This is a really high-status
A bespoke product. We've never
seen anything like it before.
Really? Not another one like it.
Certainly not in Britain.
It is so sculptural. It's just full
of figures that are all wrapped
around each other. It's quite
difficult when you first look at it,
isn't it, to work out
what's going on? Yes.
But I think I've spotted four boys
at the bottom here, almost like
little cherubs Uh-huh and
standing on their heads is this man
who seems to be fighting
with a lion.
Yes, there's definitely a protective
element amongst the group of boys.
So the boys are all naked, but the
man at the top is wearing trousers.
He's got a big, thick belt on,
as well, and he's being mauled
by this lion,
which is coming around here.
He's grappling with it.
And this character has got
long, flowing hair.
He's got a beard.
Who is he, then?
Well, I think he's a representation
of a barbarian.
Anybody who is not within
the Roman Empire.
So somebody from beyond
the bounds of the empire. Yes.
Somebody who is uncivilised. Yeah.
Do you think this is representing
a wild scene?
Is this a barbarian fighting
with a wild lion?
Or are we looking at a depiction of
something which might have happened
in an amphitheatre?
Well, that's our take on it -
that it's a depiction of
damnatio ad bestias,
which is the lawful killing
of convicts, and particularly
prisoners of war,
in the amphitheatre by setting
wild animals on them.
In this case, I think we're seeing
a barbarian attacked by a lion,
and the children of the tribe
are next on the list
after the lion has dispatched
this barbarian.
So quite a gruesome subject,
actually. Absolutely.
And it's obviously had a life
beyond being a key handle,
because the key is long gone. Yeah.
And then it seems to have
ended up in the ground,
just as a sculpture in
its own right, really. Yeah.
The depiction, the idea of
having the lion, particularly,
is a symbol of security
and is used as a way of warding
off evil spirits, and so a key
would be a fitting thing.
But what appears to me is that
it's buried, much later on,
under a floor of
a later phase of the building,
long beyond its heyday,
but perhaps it still held some
power there and was symbolically
placed in the floor.
You don't think it was just lost?
There's not any other rubbish
in that floor layer.
It's there, and it was stood
upright Oh, really?
in the substrate, so it's not
a rubbish deposit in that sense.
So it's something that's
been purposely been placed
under a new floor.
If the key handle is evidence of
the famous Roman thirst for blood,
another spectacular discovery
shows a far more refined side.
Almost looks like a hand
sitting there on the table.
Can I pick that up? Yes.
What is it?
Well, it's a very ornate toilet set.
You know, what you think of as a
manicure set, if you like. Ah, yes.
Usually, they're very workaday.
You know, you'd have a pair of
tweezers, a nail cleaner,
an ear scoop in there, but this
is another sort of bespoke item.
It's got lovely enamelling.
That is gorgeous.
I can even see the colours of that.
There's a stripe of green,
then blue, then green again
Yeah of enamel.
And this looks like a little file.
Yes, it's even got a little
serrated edge there. Yeah.
There are only two other
complete ones.
There's one from London and one
from Castleford in Yorkshire.
They're the only two complete ones.
So these aren't workaday items.
These are prestige bits
of jewellery.
You quite often get individual
tweezers Yeah ear scoops,
that kind of thing, but it's unusual
to have them all assembled.
So, yes, it does make you think
about who owned this.
You know, if we look at any of
the other jewellery that we've got,
you know, we really are in
the top drawer of material.
We are looking at the upper echelons
of society in Roman Leicester.
Absolutely. Yeah.
And then I think what's absolutely
fascinating is that in the centre
of that town, somebody owns this key
handle with an image of a barbarian
being attacked by a lion,
and the ancestors of these people
presumably were barbarians at some
point, and then they've become
fully Romanised.
It just looked like such
an incredible dig, and a real
opportunity to dig right
in the centre of Leicester and get
down to those Roman levels.
That must have been extraordinary.
It certainly was, yes, it was an
amazing opportunity to excavate in
such a large area, as well, to
really get a good understanding
of the Roman past of the city.
Next, we're back at Rutland Water.
In the summer of 2021, Dean Lomax
and his team returned to the ancient
fossil of what might be a
record - breaking ichthyosaur.
It's a rescue mission that will
require all the experience of Dean's
team to succeed.
To get involved in a dig like this,
it's such a privilege to be here,
and potentially it could be a
career-defining moment to see
what we uncover here.
Nine months after the original dig
had to be abandoned, the summer sun
has dried out
the 200-million-year-old
Jurassic sediment, but the clock
is still ticking on excavating
this monster find.
It's at a point where there's no way
that it can stay in the ground
for another winter.
Already a lot of the material
is very, very crumbly, and some
of this, if we left it any longer,
it'll just be like,
poof, it'll be gone!
We don't want that.
With the evidence now much clearer,
the team can
expose the complete fossil -
and it is truly enormous.
Now, forensic details of
what happened after this ancient
animal died are becoming clearer.
This very scientific, accurate
model, or thereabouts
This one in particular is very,
very interesting
for multiple reasons.
What we think, when this animal
died, bloated and floated,
it would have been picked
up by scavengers,
and eventually, over time,
the carcass would have drifted
and nosedived to the bottom
of the seabed.
Well, what we think is the skull
would have landed, obviously, first,
which is why we think the vertebral
column is quite disarticulated.
And then you've had other animals
scavenging on it, as well.
Examining the fossil carefully in
situ, Dean reconstructs a brutal
scene from 200 million years ago
in the ocean that once covered
the British Isles.
This is the left hind fin
that is beautifully preserved.
There's a bit of a mystery here
because this is the leading edge.
You see these little notches here.
That should be pointing
in this direction.
So I'm trying to work out
exactly what's going on.
Potentially, it might be that some
scavenger or a predator
has been in here and tugging
away at the fin. But then also,
if you look at the vertebral column,
it's fully articulated here,
and then there's a sudden
angular change.
So, potentially,
what's going on here,
you've had another animal tugging
away and it's pulled the entire
carcass to the side
and ripped off part of the
part of the hind fin.
So, pretty gnarly,
and more ichthyosaur CSI
required, I think.
The largest ichthyosaurs,
like this one,
were apex predators of the oceans.
So whatever tore this monster's
body apart would need
very powerful jaws.
Right next to the fin, the
perpetrator left a calling card,
and Dean's hunch is proved right.
We've found a tooth. Yeah.
So we've decided to start clearing
some of this in the hope
that we would find another tooth.
And then there you go.
We spotted one.
You can see a bit of the enamel
at the top there.
Very, very cool.
So we found this tooth.
What this means is that we had
another ichthyosaur, another
large apex predator scavenging
on this portion of the tail,
and it's lost
a tooth in the process.
It tells us more about the behaviour
of these animals. Other ones
actually feeding on this piece shows
that not only is it scavenging -
because it's another
ichthyosaur tooth,
it shows that these
are also cannibalistic.
With every new bone exposed,
the team learn more about
these fantastic beasts.
But the largest part of
the ichthyosaur is keeping
its secrets well hidden.
This is the beautiful, massive
skull, but we're looking
at the underside of the skull,
so we're not going to see the eyes
here, whereas in fact what
we're seeing is parts of
what we call the palatal
bones in here,
parts of the brain case, as well.
So, from underneath, potentially
you'd find a piece in what actually
was inside the eyeball,
called the sclerotic ring.
They would be buried underneath
here, but we're unsure at the moment
whether the skull is sort
of pancaked flat,
as if it's like Jurassic
roadkill, or is it a fact
that it's still three-dimensional?
It's really hard to tell
until we actually dig a trench
around this and dig deep
down by at least a foot
or more and get underneath.
Only when it's back
in the laboratory
can the skull be analysed properly.
The team dig a deep pit
all around it
so they can remove it as one.
We're going to have six or seven
beams going width-wise
underneath this. Then we're going to
screw them all together, lift up
those beams, which will
lift the entire block
nice and neatly, hopefully.
The wooden frame supports the skull,
which is now encased in
plaster of Paris and weighs in
at around a ton.
Even though there's help
with the lift,
it's a nail-biting procedure.
OK.
Yeah. Yeah.
Fantastic job, Nigel. Good to
see it out of the ground,
in one piece, for now,
and on the back of the trailer.
Brilliant.
Confirmed at 10.5 metres long
from nose to tail,
this fantastic find is officially
the largest complete ichthyosaur
fossil ever found in Britain.
Moving 200 million years on
from the age of sea monsters
modern humans arrived in
Britain some 40,000 years ago.
They were Stone Age
hunter-gatherers.
6,000 years ago, farmers arrived.
Then came the Bronze Age,
and the final prehistoric culture
of Britain was the Iron Age.
Our next dig takes us to
the heart of the Midlands,
25 miles south of Coventry,
near a farm called Blackgrounds.
The site was identified as an area
of interest by archaeologists
working on HS2,
but when they actually surveyed
the area, its scale exceeded
their wildest expectations.
Now, there was a Roman villa
known about, which was over where
that large tree is, just beyond
the horses, but it was thought
to be isolated in the landscape,
until the geophysical survey
was carried out, at which point
the archaeologists realised
they were going to have to excavate
a huge area - some 14 hectares.
That's about 35 football pitches.
The sheer size of the site is
extraordinary, but it could also
answer some equally big questions
about a period of great change
in British history.
Britain was inhabited by groups
of Iron Age people when the Romans
arrived in 43 AD.
The clash between the newly arrived
and existing cultures
was sometimes violent,
and we often find Roman forts
built directly on top
of older Iron Age sites.
But here at Blackgrounds
there's something different.
Nick Finch is project
archaeologist for HS2.
Nick, what did you find, then,
when you started looking
at the geophysical surveys
before you started digging?
We've got the Roman villa complex,
which is this dark material
in the south - which, as you
can see, is quite significant.
And then we've undertaken a further
archaeological survey to the north,
which identified to be an Iron Age
sort of village complex.
You can see here with all
the Iron Age roundhouses
and anomalies - you can see
them all, all pocketed along.
Lots of circles. Lots of circles.
It appears that this Iron Age
village is abandoned
soon after the Roman invasion,
and, just a quarter of a mile
down the hill,
a new settlement
grows up in its place.
Instead of roundhouses,
there are impressive foundations
and walls of stone buildings,
evidence of water wells,
industry and a large road.
But no military presence.
It seems most likely that
the people living here
are still the locals, now
embracing a Roman way of life.
And some of the objects the dig team
have found could help explain why,
as MOLA archaeologist
Matt Smith explains.
This tray holds Iron Age pottery
that we've recovered from
roundhouses towards the northern end
of the site, and this stuff
is mostly chunky, locally made
pottery full of shelly inclusions,
and it's quite thick
and ugly and utilitarian.
It does the job, though.
It does, yes.
It's not something that you've got
on your shelf for looking at.
It's something that you're cooking
in, storing things in.
But what we see later on
is the incorporation
of the Roman pottery - it gets
introduced - like the samian.
This much more refined pottery
was found in the later
Roman period settlement.
So this is made in, well,
what is now France, isn't it?
It is, yes. And that just shows
that we have a very high state
of settlement here, as well.
And this is just the base
of what presumably
was quite a nice bowl. Yes.
And it really is wealthy
individuals who can afford to have
a whole sort of dinner service
of samian pottery.
Yeah. More utilitarian stuff
from the Roman period.
We have this large sherd of
what was probably an amphora,
so that'd be a storage vessel,
most likely,
that would have held wine or olives
or olive oil, something like that.
They're enjoying the luxuries
of the Roman Empire here.
They absolutely are, yes.
I think these changes in lifestyle
are really interesting -
that people are aspiring
to having these Roman things.
Absolutely. It's reflected
in the settlement itself.
It's almost certainly the case
that the Iron Age people
will have aspired to upgrade
their roundhouses
into solid stone
Roman structures. Yeah.
And, yeah, I don't think we're
necessarily seeing Romans moving in.
I think we're just seeing
the Iron Age peoples
adopting the Roman culture that
is very appealing to them, really.
Yeah. Suddenly a roundhouse
feels a bit old -fashioned.
It does. Absolutely!
Over the next few weeks, the team
continue to uncover more evidence
of the transition from the Iron Age
into Roman Britain.
MOLA finds specialist
Owen Humphreys
has brought some of the artefacts
into the Digging For Britain
tent for me to look at.
Take me through some of these finds
and what they tell us
about what was happening
at the site.
What's this one, first of all?
This is what we call
a Colchester-type brooch.
Its distinctive feature
is this little hook at the top
that holds the spring in place.
And then this perforation
on the catch plate
that tells us when it dates to.
Made exclusively in Britain and
widely used in southeastern England
from the 1st century BC
into the early Roman period,
tying to that broader local
Iron Age culture.
One of the fascinating things
about this one
is that you'll notice that it's
green because it's copper alloy.
Yeah. But around the spring,
there's lots of red iron staining.
Yeah, it looks rusty.
Exactly. Yeah.
So that shows us that the pin at one
point, which was originally copper
alloy, has been replaced
with one made of iron.
That's a repair that shows
that this object was kept and used
over a long period of time, so maybe
used even into the Roman period
as a sort of heirloom piece.
That's just brilliant.
Real kind of detective work,
and you can see that this object
has had a life of its own
and you can see that
it's been repaired. Absolutely.
The story of the site, really,
is that it's not looking like
we're seeing a very simple
transition
between Roman and Iron Age.
There's a lot of evidence
for continuity
and a really complex meshing
of cultures,
rather than a simple conquest
and replacement narrative.
It's interesting, isn't it,
to think about the experience
of those Iron Age people
as they become part
of the Roman Empire.
And obviously in some places
there was great resistance to that.
Other places, particularly
in the south-east,
it was almost welcoming
the Romans in.
So it's interesting once we get
to the middle of the country
to work out what was going on there.
Absolutely.
And it very much appears
that, at this site,
people were happily taking up
new Roman ways of life,
or aspects of the Roman
way of life, at least.
This rather lovely hairpin has
a first- or second -century date.
Hairpins are basically unknown
in Britain during the Iron Age.
It's not part of how women
styled their hair. Yeah.
But you can find this style of
hairpin depicted on statues
of imperial women and portraits
on mummies in Egypt.
So this is very much a Roman
fashion arriving in Britain.
Absolutely. And it would have been
very conspicuous.
This type of pin relates to a style
of hair where you'd have it all
built up in a big
sort of ball on your head
with pins sticking through it.
Very retro, '80s-looking. Yeah!
Like a beehive, almost. Exactly.
And it really would have changed
the way people looked.
What about these coins, then, Owen?
What do they tell us?
So these coins are fascinating
because they go all the way
through into the fourth century.
So we're seeing these settlements
last throughout the Roman period.
These coins show the occupation
at this site was continuing
and perhaps even thriving
at a time when the Empire itself
was almost limping along. Mm.
History is telling us that story
of political turmoil,
and perhaps you then get
that expectation
that that is going to play out
right across the landscape
of the Roman Empire
and archaeology then gives us
a different view
of ordinary people's lives.
Absolutely.
It's that local experience that is
connected to the wider, imperial,
global story, but doesn't follow
every one of its beats exactly.
Mm. So what's this first one, then?
So that first one is a silver
denarius of Septimius Severus.
Emperor,
originally from North Africa,
who actually died in Britain.
The fascinating thing
about that one is you can
It's got a little boat on it!
Absolutely, yeah.
And if you look, surrounding it,
you can see that there
are creatures and chariots.
So what this represents is the
Circus Maximus in Rome flooded
to stage mock naval battles.
Ah, yes. Yeah.
So even though we're in this
quite large rural setting -
still a rural settlement
on the province
and the fringes of the Empire -
people are aware of these
big Roman cultural events
and things happening
back in the capital.
Let's have a look at the other side.
Is that Septimius himself
that we're looking at there?
Do you think? The man himself
with his characteristic beard.
I was going to say, he's bearded.
Is that unusual for a Roman?
It's something that comes in
with Hadrian,
especially in the second,
third centuries,
and people start adopting
that bearded style.
Ah, so the Romans are picking
up barbaric customs,
as well as the Iron Age people
picking up Roman customs.
Absolutely. I like it.
Next time, on Digging For Britain
It's so nice! ..a previously
undiscovered Roman town
provides the ultimate treasure hunt.
I found a couple of brooches.
I found a ring, bracelet.
It is amazing, isn't it?
In Wales, a mysterious shrine
next to infant graves
that's puzzling the experts.
It almost looks as if they're trying
to get these children as close
to whatever the central feature is.
And archaeology solves the mystery
of a World War I I tragedy
in Northern Ireland.
This was found in one of the pits
that was created
by the aircraft as it fell.
Come and search,
for we would search
And looking for a scarred land
And dig for us as we have done
To lay the dead out in the sun
To lay us dead out in the sun. ♪