Sandi Toksvig's Hidden Wonders Season 1 Episode 2

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Transcript

00:00Back in 1980, I graduated here at Cambridge University with dreams of becoming a great archaeologist.

00:10With a degree in archaeology and anthropology in hand, my career path seemed set.

00:17Some of you may realise I got a little sidetracked, but I have never lost my passion for the secrets and treasures which lie buried beneath our feet.

00:27So now, some years later, I'm dusting off my trowel and embarking on an epic archaeological adventure across Britain.

00:39Do you know what the Latin for hangover is?

00:41What? Crapula.

00:43I'll be joined by my friend and expert in the field, Raksha Dave.

00:48I'm so, so happy for you.

00:50Together, we'll work alongside the teams of experts and volunteers

00:54at some of the nation's most fascinating dig sites.

00:57Raksha, look at this! It's like the moon!

01:00Welcome to the Iron Age.

01:01Oh, I've got a shiver. I've got a proper shiver.

01:04On a mission to reveal hidden wonders that could rewrite our history.

01:09Oh, look! Oh, my God!

01:11Hey! Look at this!

01:14This week, we're in Berkshire, excavating the site of an early medieval monastery shrouded in mystery.

01:21Oh, gosh, I think Cookham has many secrets to be revealed.

01:25This is the moment we go, dum-dum-dum!

01:28Where the legacy of a powerful queen is being unearthed.

01:32I've fallen in love.

01:33Oh, wow, yes. Queen Canithrith.

01:36She's quite the girl, isn't she? Oh, yes.

01:38She's got a great profile.

01:39Revealing how her people lived.

01:42We've got some really, really beautiful bone combs that came out earlier today.

01:46To see if it's still got lice on it.

01:50And the secrets they took to their graves.

01:53We're getting this image of these people coming to a monastery with quite visible difficulties.

01:59Yes.

02:00I've never seen anything like this in my 30 years of doing paleopathology.

02:04Right, madam, we're taking you to today, then. Where would you like to go?

02:21Today we're going to a place called Cookham.

02:23Oh, so, I know a little bit about Cookham.

02:26Wind in the Willows, is that right?

02:28Yes, Kenneth Graham, he lived here.

02:31And I think it's in the Doomsday Book.

02:33So, is that the kind of period that we're heading back to?

02:35Ah, we're going further back in time.

02:38We're actually going to the 8th century.

02:41So, this used to be called the Dark Ages, but we've learnt better, haven't we?

02:45We have.

02:47Following the fall of the Roman Empire, the 5th to 11th centuries became known as the Dark Ages,

02:53a perceived time of decline in civilisation.

02:56But the more we dig, the more we learn.

03:00And here in Cookham, on the bank of the River Thames,

03:03clues are being unearthed that continue to challenge what we thought we knew about the past.

03:11This particular site is very early in Christianity.

03:15It's monastic.

03:16So, monks?

03:18Monks and nuns.

03:19Ooh, double monastic.

03:20Yes.

03:21Power and wealth.

03:23And ruled by a powerful queen.

03:26I mean, you're just ticking all my boxes.

03:28As long as we can add in messing about in boats.

03:31Yes.

03:37I can't really emphasise enough how important this site could actually be.

03:41It could be of national significance.

03:44We don't know very much about early medieval history at all.

03:48And I think digging here might unlock that key.

03:51You are shining a light on the dark ages.

03:53I mean, that's rather pleasing, isn't it?

03:55It is.

04:01Right, left here.

04:02What do you mean, right, left here?

04:03I am not using you for navigation again.

04:09Oh, I'm excited already.

04:10Oh, look at all this action.

04:11How come I'm always driving?

04:12What's that about?

04:13Because I can't drive.

04:14Do you think the royals turned up like this?

04:15Yes.

04:16Some form of chariot, no doubt.

04:17Oh, that's how we should arrive, in a chariot.

04:18Oh, yeah.

04:19That would be great.

04:20I'm going to order one of those.

04:22There's always a moment, isn't there?

04:23There's a sort of a tremor.

04:24Welcome to the early medieval.

04:25Oh, my word.

04:26Now, please tell me that you bought your trowel today.

04:27Do you know what?

04:28You'd be so proud of me.

04:29I've got it right here.

04:30But having brought it, I'm just looking over there, I'm slightly worried that there's

04:33not enough shovels I should have brought it.

04:34I should have brought it.

04:35I should have brought it.

04:36So you know you said that you love powerful women.

04:37Yes!

04:51Well, there is one in particular.

04:53She ruled over this monastery.

04:54This is Queen Knitherith.

04:57Oh, wow.

04:59Awesome.

05:01Wow.

05:02over this monastery.

05:04This is Queen Cnithyrith.

05:06Oh, isn't that beautiful?

05:07Now, she ruled all of this land here.

05:11She is the wife of King Offa.

05:13He rules Mercia, basically.

05:17So we've arrived in Cookham, Berkshire.

05:20But in the 8th century, England was made up of seven kingdoms,

05:24each controlled by their own monarch.

05:27Mercia, ruled by Offa, was the mightiest of all,

05:31from East Anglia to the Welsh border,

05:34and from the River Humber to the River Thames.

05:37At King Offa's side, Queen Consort Cnithyrith,

05:40one of the most significant women of the early medieval period.

05:48She's so powerful.

05:50She's the only woman to be depicted on a coin

05:52in the whole of Western Europe at this time.

05:55Wow.

05:57Replica coin?

05:58It is.

05:59The real one is actually in the British Museum.

06:01Can I keep this?

06:03Go on then, lucky charm.

06:05I might buy you a coffee later, now I've got money.

06:07I'm just saying. Not with that, though.

06:08Oh, OK.

06:11Oh!

06:12Oh, it's a bit like skiing down here.

06:13So we're going to go and see the site director.

06:16OK.

06:18Gabor Thomas.

06:19Do you know everybody?

06:20Is that how it works?

06:21Yeah, I do, actually.

06:22This remarkable monastic site, covering about an acre,

06:29is being excavated by the University of Reading.

06:32And the archaeology here is bringing Cookham's powerful past to life.

06:37Hello, Gabor.

06:39I'm Sandy.

06:40Hi.

06:41Going carefully through all the holes.

06:43Nice to meet you.

06:44Nice to meet you.

06:45And what are we looking at?

06:46We are standing in the middle of a substantial Anglo-Saxon timber hall

06:51that we think was used as one of the main communal buildings within the monastery.

06:55Wow!

06:57You've got a big field.

06:58How do you decide where to start digging?

07:00It's a really strategic site, this one.

07:02River Thames is just out there.

07:04It's very close by.

07:06I mean, that's very important, isn't it, the River Thames?

07:08I think the fact that this is a riverine site,

07:11that's right at the heart of the narrative of the archaeology that we've got.

07:14We've got the parish church of Holy Trinity,

07:17so this is a sacred site, if you like.

07:19And then in 2008, a local group did some very small-scale work,

07:23opened a few test pits and found some Anglo-Saxon pottery.

07:27They got an Anglo-Saxon radiocarbon date off some animal bone.

07:30So, those things together, that's the smoking gun for us.

07:34OK, I'm excited.

07:35On a scale of one to ten,

07:37for an archaeologist to find a site like this,

07:41it's pretty crazy, isn't it?

07:43You need to expand the scale up to a billion.

07:48OK, shall we raise a glass of mead to that later?

07:50I think we shall.

07:51I think we shall.

07:52Well, enough of this drinking talk.

07:54You better go and do some work.

07:56I've got my own trowel.

07:57That's amazing.

08:00The team think the original church of the monastic complex

08:03is probably underneath the current one.

08:06So, whilst we can't excavate that,

08:08we can explore the rest of the monastery site beside it.

08:13The dig has two trenches.

08:15Raksha will explore Trench 1,

08:17which is the communal and industrial area next to the Thames,

08:20and seems to be complete with exciting evidence of a mill.

08:27Meanwhile, I'm heading to Trench 2,

08:29which, for the sensitive amongst you,

08:31is the cemetery where a number of skeletons have been uncovered.

08:35You have been warned.

08:39Sophia, Amy, I'm Sandy.

08:40Hello. Welcome.

08:41Thank you. I've come to...

08:42Well, I don't know if I can help my darling, but I shall...

08:44You will do my best.

08:46I shall do my best.

08:47You will do my best.

08:48Hi.

08:49I'm joining the team as they carefully excavate

08:51the skeletal remains of a young adult,

08:54hoping to learn more about the people who were buried here.

08:57Just before we start, this is a very big moment for me.

09:02Raksha gave me this. I haven't used it yet.

09:05Is this my moment?

09:06I'm afraid we're not going to be using that today, I don't think.

09:10Oh, I love how you nodded.

09:11It's like it was going to be a yes, and then said no.

09:13It was... It was a...

09:15You're being encouraging. It was very encouraging.

09:17Yes. Yes or no.

09:18So we're going to be using things like these wooden tools.

09:20Oh, OK. I'm going to tell her that she bought me completely the wrong thing.

09:23OK.

09:24So we're going to get you on the torso of this individual.

09:28So can you see where these bones are just coming out?

09:30So this is the scapula... Yep.

09:32..and I just want you to try and expose down a little bit in that bone.

09:37OK. So just gently. Yes. Absolutely, yes. Just do it gently.

09:42I'm so worried about making a mistake.

09:44I was once on a dig and a skull was revealed,

09:48and the archaeologist shouted, bring me a wet cloth.

09:51And in that moment, and I watched it happen, the skull disappeared.

09:56It was just dust. Oh, wow.

09:57It was the most astonishing thing. It was like a magic trick.

10:00It was there, and then it was gone. And then it was gone.

10:03Thankfully, this individual is relatively well preserved.

10:06And with any of these burials that you found here,

10:08have you found any artefacts, burial artefacts?

10:10We only had a single grave good, and it was an iron finger ring.

10:15It was on the finger of the individual. Right.

10:18And the way the head is positioned as well?

10:20Absolutely, yes. So this entire cemetery is east-west aligned

10:25with the heads at the west end facing east.

10:28But that is very indicative of a Christian burial.

10:32And is that true as we go right across, all the way across the cemetery?

10:35All the way across, yeah.

10:36And most of them are also shrouded just because of their position.

10:40So this individual, for example, their humerus, which is this bone here,

10:43is very, very tight in.

10:44Their clavicle is very, very vertical.

10:46And so they had some sort of restriction.

10:48Some kind of wrap around them. Exactly. Yeah.

10:51So I can see just from being down here, I can see there's other bodies over here.

11:01And then behind me looks less neat. Is that OK?

11:05Yes. That's probably not a technical term.

11:07This is what we call charnel. It's just a lot of human remains,

11:11a jumble of human remains.

11:14They didn't mark the places that they had buried previous skeletons.

11:18What happened is another person needed to be buried.

11:21And so they were dug into the same place effectively.

11:25Right. So nobody could remember 300 years ago we put Frank there.

11:28So yes, exactly. Exactly.

11:33So what about all these boxes over here? What's the stuff under the black boxes?

11:38All of the black boxes do have human remains underneath them.

11:41So including this one, for example, and it's all charnel.

11:46And then we also have this year, surprisingly, we've had a lot of juveniles come up.

11:50So we've had at least five juveniles in a sort of line that have appeared.

11:56What are you, babies? Younger than about five, yes. So...

12:00OK. I just need a minute. Wow. OK.

12:21Now, it's very busy down this end. It's very intriguing.

12:25So this is a deep, artificially constructed channel

12:30that has wood lining in it that's preserved at the bottom for us.

12:34So this was used to divert water from the main river channel of the Thames.

12:40And it's used to power a water mill.

12:43Oh, gosh. It's like a canal, isn't it?

12:46Yeah.

12:47This must be a very early water mill, then.

12:50Yeah. I mean, this is going to be contemporary with our monastery,

12:54the high point of which is eighth century. So this is, yeah, very early.

12:58So they're actually being able to produce their own flower on site, then,

13:02and feed this whole community that it's supporting.

13:06That, plus they're probably producing a surplus.

13:09So there's a lot of infrastructure that we're finding here that's supporting the community

13:14and also helping it to generate wealth of its own.

13:17A monastery with a mill like this from the eighth century isn't just rare,

13:22it's the first of its kind to be uncovered here in Britain.

13:25And a remarkable example of early medieval engineering right here in Cookham.

13:33Over in Trench 2, new discoveries are emerging,

13:36and I'm keen to share our progress with Raksha.

13:39Aha! How are you getting on?

13:42Obviously, you have quite a lot of burials here, don't you?

13:45We do, yes.

13:46We have 55 individuals that are articulated so far.

13:50Articulated means that they are in the grave,

13:54in the position that they were originally buried in.

13:59And there are at least 30 more individuals from that,

14:02based on the number of skulls.

14:08Is there any way of knowing that these people all died,

14:11I mean, this is a juvenile, they died a peaceful death,

14:13or they died of an illness, can we know those things?

14:16Not necessarily when they're in the ground.

14:17It's something that we do in post-excavation analysis.

14:21So you've just mentioned juveniles.

14:23That would suggest that we're not talking about nuns and monks in this cemetery, are we?

14:27No, we're not.

14:28This cemetery, we believe, is a lay cemetery.

14:31So it had normal individuals in it that were not potentially within a monastery.

14:36And because we've got a lot of instances of diseases and trauma coming up on the bones,

14:42it indicates that this was a potential hospital or even hospice.

14:46Yes. That's so exciting.

14:48So, basically, it's a 1,200-year-old NHS, that's what we're talking about.

14:51That's right. I mean, it's pretty amazing, isn't it?

14:54Wow.

14:57This is an extraordinary revelation.

14:59To have potentially uncovered an early medieval medical centre

15:03under Queen Connithris' watch is beyond exciting.

15:06But who was coming here for treatment and why were many of them dying prematurely?

15:12My mind is racing.

15:17There's a special thing that you feel when you see those ones who didn't make it.

15:21I hope there was comfort.

15:24I know every time you see it, though, it's very sad.

15:26It's like a dagger to your heart.

15:29But I'd like to think that they were cared for and their dying hours.

15:35I love the idea that people were drawn to it.

15:39It should be a place full of hope.

15:40Maybe it was.

15:41Maybe way more people came and didn't die than came and ended up in the cemetery.

15:47But do you think that we know everything?

15:49Or, I mean, it's an archaeological metaphor.

15:51Aren't we just scratching at the surface at the minute?

15:53Oh, gosh, I think Cookham has many secrets to be revealed.

15:59This is the moment we go, dum-dum-dum!

16:02Let's do it together. Ready?

16:03Dum-dum-dum!

16:07Two mad old bags on a bench.

16:19In Cookham, a picturesque Thames side village, history is being uncovered.

16:35Oh, this is nice.

16:36It's definitely my weapon of choice, for sure.

16:40We've been transported back over 1,200 years to early medieval Britain.

16:50And one of the most significant archaeological sites in recent times.

16:54I am obsessed with history.

16:59But I sometimes think the more I read, the less I know.

17:03And that's because it's really hard to find material.

17:05But this place is almost vibrating with it.

17:08There's industry here.

17:10And most likely the Norman church behind me is the very site of Cookham Abbey,

17:16where Queen Canithrith ruled, and may well even be buried.

17:21Wouldn't it have been fantastic to meet her?

17:24She was powerful. She was busy.

17:26They said sometimes she was too busy to read her correspondence.

17:30We've all been there with an email.

17:32I think I love her.

17:41I can control my ardour no longer,

17:43so I've tracked down Gabor to find out more about the Queen Consort of Mercia,

17:48who once ruled over this monastic site.

17:52Gabor, I need your help.

17:54Terrible thing has happened.

17:55I've fallen in love.

17:57Look.

17:58Oh, wow, yes.

17:59Queen Canithrith.

18:00Who would not love her?

18:02I mean, she's got a great profile.

18:03I need to know everything about her.

18:04What can you tell me?

18:05Well, there's an object here that I think, potentially, she could have worn.

18:10No, your big tease.

18:12Oh, yes, yeah, yeah.

18:13Wow.

18:14This little beauty here is a silver pin.

18:18The reason why I think she potentially could have worn it,

18:21first of all, is the date of it.

18:23You can see it's got this pin shaft here, but then there's a beastie,

18:26a backward-turning beastie, forming the head of the pin.

18:29The style of that animal is bang on for late 8th century.

18:33Which is where we want to be.

18:34Where we want to be, but the style itself is very Mercian.

18:38So, in that sense, it fits in really well with Canithrith.

18:41And this was found here?

18:42This was found here, very close to our timber building that we're excavating this year.

18:47Wow.

18:48Just imagine her going, where have I put that thing?

18:50Just dropped it now.

18:51Yeah.

18:52Yeah.

18:53It may have been used to fasten a headdress.

18:56And it suggests status, because it's silver and gilt.

18:58It's, yeah, it's aristocratic status.

19:01So, yeah, take all those things together.

19:03And I think this is potentially an object worn by Canithrith herself.

19:08So, what do we know about her?

19:08What I understand is her husband, the king, dies,

19:12but yet she manages to retain some power.

19:14So, that's quite something, isn't it, for a woman of that period?

19:16Absolutely.

19:17So, Offa dies, this great king, there's a huge power vacuum.

19:22And her priority is really to secure the succession for her bloodline.

19:26Taking control of monasteries and this really important strategic and political frontier on

19:32the Thames is crucial to the political strategies of that period.

19:36So, a monastery, possibly a double monastery, I don't want to diss their faith in any way,

19:40but the Christianity element is useful for them, is it not, for keeping power?

19:43Absolutely.

19:44So, Christianity and the aristocracy, they share a very, very close relationship.

19:50It's this twinning of secular authority and faith, and Christian faith in particular,

19:55that really emerges powerfully in this period.

19:58So, it provides a powerful new ideology that supports the political ambitions of the ruling elite at the time.

20:06God has put me in charge, which is very useful.

20:08Yes.

20:09Now, we've got these objects.

20:10Do we also have written records which show the significance of the queen?

20:15We do.

20:15We have records from a church council that was held at the very end of the 8th century,

20:21that talks about, specifically mentions Cunithroth in relation to Cookham,

20:26and her taking control of it and other monasteries in the area as well.

20:32She's quite the girl, isn't she?

20:33Oh, yes.

20:34Yeah, yeah, yeah.

20:35That's right.

20:35So, I love all this silver stuff.

20:37I think it's beautiful.

20:38I've just been over at the dig, very slightly helping if I can.

20:43So, I get that it's a place of illness and things, but what I'm getting at as well,

20:46is I'm getting a kind of a monochrome thing, and it's a bit dull,

20:49and it doesn't help the day that it's raining.

20:51But presumably, they did have colour in their lives,

20:53and it isn't all black and white like we imagine.

20:56There's one particular class of artifact that really, I think,

21:00gets that colour across really beautifully, and it's vessel glass.

21:04Oh, okay.

21:05This is very much not monochrome.

21:08Oh, look at that.

21:09I mean, that's very complicated, isn't it?

21:12Yeah, that's a particular technique where they overlay enamel, coloured enamel, onto the glass.

21:17And is it local to here, or has it been made somewhere else?

21:20It's probably been made in a monastery, not necessarily this one,

21:25but one of the ones likely that fringes the River Thames.

21:31Okay, that just looks like modern plastic now, what is that?

21:34Well, granted, but this is the rarest glass from this period.

21:40Oh.

21:40This stuff is really special.

21:43So, if I just lay that in your hand.

21:46That is actually opaque red glass.

21:50But that's so thin, that must have been incredibly difficult to make.

21:52Yeah, this is, you know, the very par excellence of the glassman's craft.

21:57That is honestly a needle in a haystack to find that, right?

21:59You really have to look carefully to find that stuff.

22:02Okay, I'm going to go look.

22:05It's stopped raining now.

22:06I'm going to start digging again.

22:09Can't believe we're in love with the same woman.

22:11That's outrageous.

22:12Oh, look at these lovely snail shells.

22:22In the mill stream, Raksha has joined trench supervisors Josh and Lucy to dig deeper.

22:28It's exactly the place where domestic waste may have ended up all those years ago.

22:32I always find it, like, really exciting when you get down to these kind of lower deposit layers.

22:39You're actually getting down onto really good preservation, aren't you?

22:43Yeah.

22:43It's nice and flat and it's full of really organic material.

22:46We call it a primary deposit, so it's all stuff that was thrown in while the leet was in use.

22:51The leet is the channel where the mill's wheel would have sat, powered by water from the Thames.

22:58So what have we got so far?

22:59We're starting to get some timber showing up and we're getting really well-preserved bone artefacts,

23:05which in less organic deposits wouldn't survive to anywhere near as good condition.

23:12I mean, look at that.

23:14That is proper chunky Saxon pottery.

23:17Yeah.

23:18I haven't seen Saxon pot like that for ages.

23:20To find Saxon pot in that preservation is really, really rare.

23:24They use an organic temper, which just does not survive in non-waterload conditions.

23:28We've got the rim of that vessel, so it's going to be really easy to identify what it was.

23:32I think that the pot's probably about that big, isn't it?

23:35So what would that be used for? Cooking?

23:37Most likely some sort of cooking vessel, yeah.

23:40It's so useful for us because we're right next to where we're thinking the occupation zone of the monastery is

23:45and to find these cooking vessels in the leak just really gives us evidence for that theory.

23:50It's amazing, isn't it, to think that all remnants of life here are found in the bottom of this channel.

23:56Yeah, yeah.

23:58We can find everything about them just by going through their rubbish, basically.

24:01I just love the fact that we're learning so much about the people that lived here.

24:07Yeah.

24:07They're on this site.

24:09They're eating their food and cooking it over there.

24:12There's a mill.

24:13Yeah.

24:14These are really rare, aren't they?

24:15And this is the only one that they've found in a monastic setting at this date.

24:21Which is just incredible.

24:23To show that the connection between church and community and the church have their own mills is just amazing.

24:29It's a first.

24:31I love it.

24:37Hello, people.

24:38Oh, hello.

24:39Here's words I've never said before.

24:41I'd like a leet update, please.

24:43I'm so excited.

24:46We're actually getting snapshots of everyday life on the monastic side.

24:50Wow.

24:51It does look like fun down there, though.

24:53Are you enjoying yourselves down there?

24:54Yes, that's a general nodding.

24:56Whoop-la.

24:57Oh, goodness.

24:58That was heartfelt.

25:03Right.

25:03So, we have stepped up a gear.

25:05Come on.

25:06We have stepped up a gear because we're getting so many beautiful organic finds out of the bottom of that elite.

25:13Now, we've gone from dry sieving to wet sieving.

25:17So, we're just trying to blast through.

25:18It doesn't sound nice.

25:19Can I just say?

25:20Why?

25:21I don't know.

25:22It's too moist for me, but okay.

25:23Well, we're blasting through all of that soil.

25:26Right.

25:26Because we're getting some beautiful, beautiful artefacts.

25:31Josh.

25:35Right.

25:35What have we got?

25:36So, we've got some really, really beautiful bone combs that came out.

25:40These came out early today.

25:42It's quite fragmented, but we do think it's an entire length of a comb.

25:45Oh, look how that fits together.

25:46Yeah, so it's come out in pieces, but we can already start puzzling it together.

25:50Just seeing if it's still got lice on it.

25:52They can always imagine someone combing their hair and it breaking and just tossing it in the leaf.

25:58And your mother going, I've got to fix that.

26:01That's fantastic.

26:02Oh, wait, wait.

26:03No, don't tell me.

26:04Don't tell me.

26:05Of course, I'm going to be archaeological now.

26:06Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

26:07Go, go, go.

26:08It's glass, red glass.

26:09It is, yeah.

26:11Look how tiny that is.

26:12It is tiny.

26:13Is this the kind of thing, Josh, that makes you jump up and down with excitement?

26:16Yeah, when we find it, it is, yeah.

26:18That must make the earth tremor.

26:19It does.

26:20I mean, we showed the professor this one and he almost levitated.

26:22It was so exciting for him.

26:24Yeah.

26:25Do you remember when you said about the Dark Ages?

26:28I did mention that.

26:30Right.

26:30Well, this is showing you that in the UK we are producing fine glass like the Romans did.

26:40Isn't it amazing the light a tiny shard of glass can shed on life from over a thousand years ago?

26:50After excavating with Sophia earlier, she has invited me to learn about the next stage of

26:55preparing the bones recovered from the cemetery for the lab.

26:59Tell me what we're doing.

27:00So we are going to be bone washing.

27:02Once you lift a skeleton, you have to clean it so that you can analyse it properly.

27:06So we have a toothbrush, a very soft toothbrush and a makeup brush for you.

27:10It's just water?

27:11It is just water.

27:12Yes, plain water.

27:13And the idea is that you never dip the bone in the water.

27:16You just very carefully dip the brush in the water and then kind of brush the bone.

27:20And give it a sort of stroke?

27:21So, yes.

27:22Okay.

27:22Is it right to pick it up?

27:23Absolutely.

27:24Right.

27:24This is terrifying.

27:25Do you know what it is, darling?

27:29Yes.

27:29So this is a radius and it looks like a left radius to me.

27:34And you may notice that it's not completely straight.

27:37Right.

27:37Which means?

27:38It means that at some point, so that was mud, don't worry.

27:41At some point.

27:42That's a terrible moment of panic.

27:44Oh, okay.

27:45Yeah.

27:46At some point in this individual's life, they broke their radius and it has healed.

27:51And it healed.

27:54We have the break in here.

27:55And as you can see, the bottom of the shaft and the top of the shaft look like they've done this.

28:00And it's called 0% apposition.

28:02So it means that the integrity of the shaft has been lost.

28:05However, it has kind of healed.

28:08Yes, it has.

28:09It's fused extremely well.

28:10So it happened a long time before death.

28:12But this individual would have been left with some sort of deformity.

28:15And pain.

28:16And pain, potentially.

28:17Yeah.

28:18But isn't it astonishing that you can look at a piece of bone and suddenly you can feel

28:23that human emotion or you can feel the agony of it?

28:26Yeah.

28:26What are the other things that you might be able to tell from skeletal remains?

28:31So we've got an example here.

28:33This is the cranium of a juvenile individual and they were excavated last year.

28:39As they were washed, this sort of area here.

28:43Like a sort of pock mark.

28:44Exactly, yes.

28:45So pitting, we call it porosity.

28:48And it is on both sides of the cranium.

28:51It is called porotic hyperostosis.

28:53And it is potentially indicative of something like scurvy.

28:57Oh, wow.

28:59But that's remarkable, isn't it?

29:00Because then immediately you know something about the diet.

29:03Definitely.

29:04That's like being a doctor long after the fact, isn't it?

29:07Exactly, yes.

29:07Yes.

29:09Okay, so what I'm understanding is that the journey from discovering a person who is deceased

29:14to understanding why that might have happened is quite a long, painstaking one.

29:17It certainly is.

29:17It's not one for guessing, really.

29:19No, no, not at all.

29:20We wait until they're in the lab.

29:21They're clean.

29:22We can really see what's going on on the bone so that we can try and find out about their life history.

29:28It's just a great detective story, isn't it?

29:30It is, yes.

29:31We are days into our archaeological adventure in Cookham, on the bank of the Thames.

29:44And we really are living the dream.

29:47Right, you can only buy one house.

29:49I quite like this one.

29:51This one is nice.

29:52I don't think I'd have gone for that colour.

29:53Have you gone for that colour?

29:55No.

29:56You can paint it, though.

29:57What is that place?

30:01Look at that.

30:02I want to live there.

30:04That's very nice, isn't it?

30:06Fancy.

30:07Love doing property porn.

30:19Back on dry land, the dig team has uncovered the footprint of an entirely different kind of property.

30:27Welcome to the communal hall.

30:31Do you want a bar tape measure?

30:33Oh.

30:33You don't like that one.

30:34I've got this one.

30:35You read my mind.

30:38Yeah, what are we doing?

30:38Right.

30:39You've got these two timber posts on either side.

30:43I haven't understood this.

30:44This is the side wall.

30:45This is the side wall.

30:46So what we're going to do is I'm going to show you...

30:48Why is it so thick?

30:49Well, insulation.

30:51Oh, OK.

30:51All right.

30:52Right, so this is the place where you're going to be eating, drinking, carousing, carousing,

30:59you name it, we're going to do everything in here.

31:01So it's like one of those great big rooms that the Vikings had, isn't it?

31:04Exactly.

31:04Where you're partying.

31:05OK.

31:06Exactly.

31:07I'll hold one end.

31:08Right.

31:08You walk around.

31:09Oh, give me the other one as well, because I need you the other side too.

31:12Oh, how are we doing that then?

31:13No, let go.

31:14I don't want to fall in these holes.

31:20So I'd probably say that's the end.

31:22And how far is that?

31:24And that's about 14 and a half metres.

31:28OK.

31:29I'm the other end of the hole.

31:31I'm just coming.

31:34Taking your time, aren't you?

31:36Yeah, but I've got to carry all this mead.

31:40Got it.

31:41So you've got that one there.

31:44And I'm going to trundle along in this direction.

31:50Then.

31:51Wow.

31:53Oh, I'm starting to see it now.

31:54See, you can see it in a way that I couldn't.

31:56That's the other wall there.

31:59So this single-storey thatched hall would have been about 14 and a half metres by seven

32:04metres, roughly the area of a full-size squash court.

32:08It's more evidence of the communal life once lived here.

32:13Archaeologically, these are very rare.

32:14OK.

32:15I've excavated one in my lifetime.

32:18And is that because they're timber and they just fail?

32:20Yes.

32:22Ploughing gets rid of them.

32:24Things get built on top of them.

32:26And this one is very exciting because in the middle, we have the heart of the hall.

32:32Right here, this red patch, this is the hearth.

32:36Oh, so is there a chimney or what is there?

32:38There's no chimney.

32:39So it would have been very dark, very smelly, very smoky.

32:45OK, so this is, you're not selling it to me, really, as a fun place.

32:49And suddenly you get a sense of how many people there must have been here if you needed a hall

32:53this big for everybody to sit down and get together in.

32:55Well, exactly.

32:56You could probably get, what, about 20 people in here?

32:58But this is to kind of serve the people who are tending for the sick,

33:03the reason why people are coming here.

33:06If this was an early hospice housing the sick, they must have been ministered with prayer

33:11and potions. But what would those potions look like?

33:19I've been joined by Dr Christina Lee, Associate Professor in Viking Studies at Nottingham University,

33:25who has specialist knowledge of medieval medicines.

33:29I want you to mention that you and I, we're a couple of nuns.

33:32We're going to save everybody, aren't we, with our medicines?

33:35Yes, and our prayers.

33:38OK, nice combination of the two things.

33:40Ooh, here we go, these are nettles.

33:42Wait a minute, I've got the gloves on.

33:45Are there modern applications for some of these old recipes?

33:48Yes, we have tried one of them.

33:50Are you going to show me?

33:52Look what's in the bag.

33:54Today it just gets better and better.

33:58The remedy we're recreating comes from this 10th century publication of Ball's Leech Book,

34:04but this concoction would have predated the medical text.

34:08You promised me a recipe that's going to work wonders.

34:10OK, it also potentially works wonders.

34:12So I've got a 10th century recipe.

34:15I've got some vinegar, wine.

34:19I mean, it's looking good so far.

34:21I have onion, I have garlic, I have leek.

34:24I also have an ox bladder.

34:30From an ox?

34:31From an ox.

34:31That's a sizeable item.

34:33We need the ox bile.

34:34I mean, this kind of stuff you've got at home.

34:37Bile, not so much, no.

34:39We don't have any idea really what the mix is.

34:41Well, we're told, you know, sort of that we need equal parts.

34:44That's all we're getting.

34:46So we used a pestle and mortar, you need to pound this.

34:49A lot of these ingredients come from the kitchen.

34:52The overlap between cooking and healing isn't so far-fetched.

34:57Oh, I mean, ginger is good for nausea, we know that, we know that.

35:00Absolutely.

35:01That is looking really good.

35:02I think we need to do the next step.

35:04Yeah, which is?

35:04And that would be the ox gall, you know, the bile.

35:08Here we go.

35:08Let me open it up with my trusted pen knife.

35:10Here we go.

35:11You're well prepared, you know.

35:12I'm very practical.

35:14I think I would have enjoyed having to make things myself.

35:16Yeah.

35:16It would have been fine.

35:17Right, I bet this is horrid.

35:19I mean, it's gross.

35:20Oh, okay.

35:23Give it a little squeeze.

35:23Give it a little squeeze in here.

35:27I don't think that's one gallbladder.

35:29Surely that's the whole family has donated.

35:34Put some wine in.

35:36Put some wine in.

35:39Phenomenally cheap.

35:39Okay.

35:43That's not really a bouquet.

35:45You're mixing them?

35:46Mixing it up.

35:46Okay.

35:47The next step would be leave it for nine nights.

35:51We do need the time for the ingredients to activate each other.

35:56The text even gives suggested use.

35:58In Old English, of course.

36:01And it says, work air salvo with winner.

36:04When is a sky in the eye.

36:06Okay, yeah.

36:07These are Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterium.

36:10And the drug-resistant form of Staphylococcus aureus causes MRSA.

36:13This could get rid of, sorry to be overexcited, but this could get rid of MRSA.

36:18This could.

36:19Obviously you're going to ask if this is a medieval remedy.

36:23Don't try this at home.

36:25I am absolutely stunned that this is a scientifically proven treatment for MRSA.

36:32This is so exciting to me because practical archaeology is a thing, isn't it?

36:36Yeah.

36:36It's all very well being theoretical and this is how they lived and this is what it was like.

36:39There is a moment when you're literally getting your hands dirty to figure out how people lived

36:43and worked better.

36:44Absolutely.

36:45Even with these remedies and assuming infants survive childhood,

36:50average life expectancy in this period would have been around 50 years old.

36:55If Cookham was an early medieval medical centre,

36:57I'm keen to find out the causes of some of the more premature deaths.

37:0618 miles from the dig site, I've come to the science lab at Reading University,

37:11where I'm hoping to get the answers.

37:15Wouldn't it be incredible if you could go back in time and find out what's wrong with them?

37:20Obviously we can't do that, but the wonderful thing about archaeologists,

37:23they have a way of making patients speak from beyond the grave.

37:29Professor Mary Lewis specialises in paleopathology and the study of skeletal remains,

37:34which can help identify historic disease and injury.

37:38Mary, I'm Sandy.

37:42Hello.

37:42Nice to meet you.

37:43Nice to meet you.

37:43I've kitted myself as best I could.

37:45I hope it's all right.

37:46Now, oh look, this is from the actual dig, isn't it?

37:50Yeah, so this was one of the first skeletons that I went on site to see

37:54and there's something really unusual going on with the ribs in that

37:57they should normally fall down this way, but they started in a fan position.

38:00And why do you think that might be?

38:01Has something fallen on top or...?

38:03So initially I thought maybe he'd been moved in the grave,

38:05but I went back and looked at hundreds of pictures of skeletons in graves

38:09and nobody had ribs that were going up in the wrong direction.

38:13So then I started wondering whether there was something sitting in his chest

38:16that meant that the ribs were kind of splayed out around it,

38:19been pushed out of alignment.

38:22He's 25 to 35 years old.

38:24As we watched him, we started noticing there were areas of grey bone here.

38:29Right.

38:30It's new bone formation that tells us that that area was inflamed.

38:34So the bone cells have reacted to some kind of inflammation,

38:36so it had been red and hot and swollen.

38:39And when we looked at the ribs, they also have this grey bone on top of them.

38:43So it's new bone formation.

38:45And it's only the ribs on this side of the body.

38:48Had we not seen the excavation photo, though,

38:51I would have thought it's something like he's got a chest infection,

38:54bronchitis, pneumonia, tuberculosis.

38:56But because we saw the position of the ribs,

38:59clearly something else was going on in this individual.

39:03Thinking about that kind of a mass, what could it have been?

39:05It could have been a kind of a haematoma full of blood,

39:09something like that, an aneurysm.

39:11Or given the age and sex of the individual, it could have been a cancer.

39:16A hard tissue cancer.

39:19Oh, my goodness.

39:30In the science lab at Reading University,

39:33paleopathologist Professor Mary Lewis has dropped a bombshell.

39:36I started wondering whether there was something sitting in his chest

39:41that meant that the ribs had been pushed out of alignment.

39:43It turns out that this particular person from the dig site at Cookham

39:49could have died from lung cancer.

39:52There's quite a hard tissue cancer that's sitting on the lining of the lung.

39:56And the fact that his lungs are affected, I think,

39:58is evidenced also by the fact that we have this grey bone all over the skeleton.

40:04To me, it suggests that he's not getting enough oxygen going around his body

40:07because the lungs are malfunctioning.

40:09And it's so astonishing that you can actually see evidence of those things now,

40:14even though it's 1,200 years later that the poor chap has passed away.

40:17Yeah.

40:17I thought this individual was very exciting

40:20until we started to analyse the other skeletons.

40:22So this is another male, slightly older than the previous male.

40:29We notice the sacrum, so this is in the base of your back.

40:33And there's this big area here.

40:35The edges are really smooth.

40:37And it suggests that there's actually something has been sitting in here.

40:41And if you turn it over, you can see there's another hole here.

40:44It suggests that whatever was sitting in there has come out of the back of the sacrum.

40:48Are we talking about another tumour?

40:50Yes. I think it's a very aggressive tumour because there's hardly any bone reaction,

40:54so the body hasn't had any time to react to this tumour.

40:57And the aggressive tumour that likes this area of the skeleton

40:59would have actually been much larger, a soft tissue tumour.

41:03So this person would have had a massive swelling on his buttocks.

41:06Oh, my goodness.

41:07If it's a tumour, I think it is.

41:09Yeah.

41:09And it would have come on very quickly and it would have been very painful.

41:13I've never seen anything like this in my 30 years of doing paleopathology.

41:17To suddenly be faced with two individuals who have tumours that are very, you know, rare,

41:22made me start thinking something was going on at Cookham,

41:25that this isn't a normal population.

41:27Is it possible that we're talking about a hospice

41:28that's beginning to specialise in growths of this kind?

41:32So I think people are coming to Cookham because somebody there

41:35is actually dealing with swellings.

41:38And then we find a third individual.

41:40A woman, fairly young.

41:45Remember this grey stuff, grey bone that I was talking about?

41:48Yeah, so it seems like there's something sitting in there

41:51and the bone is reacting around the margins of it.

41:53That's a tumour sitting inside the skull.

41:56When you look at this side, there's this depression on the skull.

41:59If it's a tumour, I think it is, again, this kind of meningioma,

42:02they would also have had a lump on their head.

42:05If you've got a swelling or something pushing on the bone,

42:07the bone will react by taking bone away to try and relieve the pressure.

42:11And so I think that's what this depression is.

42:13But you're getting this image of these people coming to a monastery

42:16with quite visible difficulties.

42:18Yes.

42:19I mean, big growths.

42:20So the question has to be, are they coming from the local area?

42:24Is there something in the water?

42:25Or has Cookham's fame spread far and wide

42:29and they're coming from all sorts of places?

42:31I don't think they can be possibly coming from a small area like Cookham.

42:34To sustain that amount of tumours,

42:37there must be something very unusual going on in that local area.

42:40And there's no evidence that that's the case.

42:42So I do think what's happening is people are coming from far and wide,

42:45maybe being brought along in the Thames,

42:47because the monastery is right along the Thames.

42:48Of course.

42:49You know, that's the nicest way to travel with someone

42:51who's in a great deal of pain on the water rather than on the road.

42:55So I think maybe the location of the monastery

42:56has got something to do with it as well.

42:58But it's so interesting that the word is spread, isn't it?

43:00Because you're not talking about a wildly literate society,

43:03you're talking about has to be word of mouth for this to have happened.

43:07So it does feel like a hospice, doesn't it?

43:08It does feel like some kind of care facility for these particular cancers.

43:12Yeah.

43:15There's something completely humbling about this kind of intimacy with death,

43:19especially when facing a disease that we're still trying to cure today.

43:23Maybe it brings home our own mortality, or maybe it's because the human stories we're uncovering

43:33are still entirely relatable, but it connects us to the past in a very visceral way.

43:38And whilst I was initially blinded by the royal status of the site,

43:50it's the stories of the everyday folk that will have a lasting impact on me.

43:54I'm really sorry that I've made you come and dig up these skeletons.

44:00Do you know what is such a privilege? When you are an amateur and you look at it,

44:04you just think, skeleton, right? And you're busy, you kind of get the bones out.

44:08But this poor young person is an individual, and I think that's what comes home to you.

44:12This is a person who's had a life, who maybe is in pain. That's the thing I've fully understood,

44:17is a lot of the people who came here were in terrible, terrible pain.

44:20I think the interesting thing is that you've actually learned about the normal people who've

44:26come here. I mean, what did you find out?

44:28Well, there is just the most astonishing number of tumours here. So we are talking about a place

44:32that is famous at the time. People are coming from far and wide in order to seek probably the very

44:39last minute help that they can. It's amazing, isn't it, to think that this little place by the river

44:45river is a place for spirituality, for power, but also is here to tend to the sick and the needy.

44:53I love that. It's like the foundations of how people would access medicine in the medieval period.

45:00Wow. But the other thing I want to thank you, because I honestly, the community of archaeologists,

45:10the volunteers, the students, the professionals, it's about the nicest group of people you could

45:15possibly hang out with. It's life-affirming whilst you're dealing with death. It's amazing.

45:23It's uncertain exactly when Queen Connithrith passed. The records are at best vague,

45:29but I'd like to think her presence here was a force for good. And as for the Dark Ages,

45:34well, I for one can say, I feel truly enlightened.

45:38Do you know, Cookham has had the most surprising effect on me. And I'm really serious, I think I

45:48might actually change my whole direction of life. Are you going to become an archaeologist?

45:55No, a nun. Yeah. Or maybe a queen. Or maybe a queen nun. I haven't decided.

45:59Isn't that just mother superior? I like the word superior. That's good.

46:08Just tell my kids. I'm not your mother, I'm your mother superior.

46:12I love you.

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