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Digging For Britain - Season 101 Episode 2 - Our Rarest Find And Biggest Dig
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00:00This land we call home has a rich and varied history stretching back thousands of years.
00:12But hidden below the surface are some amazing treasures just waiting to be found.
00:20Oh my gosh, that's insane!
00:23That's really cool!
00:24So each year across the country, archaeologists dig underground and dive underwater.
00:34Searching for fresh discoveries.
00:37The most amazing thing in British archaeology.
00:40Uncovering traces of ancient lives.
00:43Somebody's played in joy, I'm sure.
00:45And finding fascinating objects.
00:48Such exquisite detail.
00:50This year I'll be meeting the archaeologists and looking at some of their most incredible finds.
00:57I mean that is stunning.
01:00While Dr. Tori Herridge is travelling the length of the country to some spectacular locations.
01:07Where I'll be dropping in on some of this year's most fascinating digs.
01:12Oh my gosh, can you see that?
01:16It's just brilliant.
01:18Oh my goodness.
01:19Every dig provides a new piece in the puzzle of Britain's forgotten past.
01:26This is the epic and unfolding story of our islands.
01:33Welcome to Digging for Britain.
01:42This week on Digging for Britain.
01:47In Norfolk, archaeologists find a mysterious block containing metal.
01:53I don't know.
01:54I mean, I like the design of it.
01:57And a CT scan.
01:59Look at that.
02:01Reveals a once in a lifetime find.
02:05The most amazing thing I've ever seen in British archaeology.
02:09In Kent, Tori investigates an Iron Age settlement on top of the White Cliffs.
02:16This gold coin is right on that era of Julius Caesar's crossing.
02:21And discovers a tribe that seemed quite Roman long before Britain became part of the Empire.
02:27The Romans haven't conquered, but their culture has.
02:31And we go behind the scenes.
02:33Morning all.
02:34Let's do the morning brief then.
02:35At one of the largest and most complex archaeological excavations in British history.
02:42I have never seen anything like this.
02:44I mean, I've got goosebumps.
02:45Phenomenal.
02:46Every so often something turns up which is just utterly extraordinary.
03:03Something the archaeologists will describe as a once in a lifetime find.
03:08And that is the case for this next discovery.
03:12Which is not only unique in Britain.
03:15It's unique in Europe.
03:17And I just feel so lucky to be getting such an early glimpse of it.
03:22And then to be sharing that with you.
03:24We're heading to a location which is 20 miles outside Thetford.
03:39Earlier this year, a team from Preconstruct Archaeology were carrying out a routine excavation in advance of construction of a new housing development.
03:482,000 years ago, this was the territory of the Icane tribe.
03:59They lived here during the Iron Age.
04:02As the dig got underway, there didn't seem to be anything of real significance.
04:13But dig leader Peter Crawley had a sneaking suspicion that there was something here.
04:20It felt like one of these special sites that you do get every so often.
04:24I don't know, there was a gut feeling, something special about this one in particular.
04:28I just had a good feeling about it.
04:29And it wasn't long before archaeologist Richard Thorpe found something out of the ordinary with his metal detector.
04:40So, you know, I'm sort of detecting along and I detect this very large signal while I was instantly excited.
04:47Because I knew we had something special.
04:49They dig down in the spot where Richard found his strong signal and film the exciting moment of discovery.
04:56This looks like the base of the bowl, that looks like a bowl.
05:00At first, the team believes they have perhaps a pile of metal bowls, buried together as a hoard.
05:06And the top bit?
05:08I don't know. I mean, I like the design of it.
05:11But one of the finds is covered with intriguing decoration.
05:15Oh, wow.
05:16Oh, my God.
05:18That's obviously going to be a separate thing.
05:20Oh, do you think it's one of those...
05:23Like...
05:25Oh, my God.
05:27Best possible.
05:29The team are excited about this possibility.
05:31If they're right, this could be an incredibly rare Iron Age object.
05:35A carnix.
05:38This is a type of decorated trumpet.
05:41Iron Age tribes from Italy to Scotland use them to intimidate enemies and rally warriors on the battlefield.
05:49Only one carnix has ever been found in Britain.
05:54And in fact, even then, it was only part of one.
05:57That's about the right size.
06:00One.
06:03It's only part.
06:04Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
06:06Here is heading to the...
06:08Nice.
06:10I mean, if you've found a carnix, then you've...
06:13I've won.
06:15Yeah, I just quit.
06:17Yeah.
06:19With such a potentially important find, the team makes the decision to block-lift the entire hoard.
06:25At the same time.
06:27You get a bit of that.
06:29We just lay it across there.
06:31They dig around the hoard and cover it in plastic wrap to keep it secure.
06:35Yeah, it doesn't have to be all the way down.
06:37It is certainly the best thing I've ever found as an archaeologist.
06:40And probably will be the best thing I will find as an archaeologist as well.
06:46You know, it's a dream come true, really.
06:49They send the block to be x-rayed to see what's hidden inside.
06:56But there are so many objects packed closely together, it's hard to make sense of the image.
07:01At this point, project officer Gary Trimble is beginning to wonder if the hoard could contain something even rarer than a carnix.
07:10The results weren't conclusive, but they give some tantalising sort of evidence that we may actually have, rather than a carnix, it may be a boar standard.
07:26Standards like this, topped with the figurine of a boar, were carried into battle by Celtic tribes.
07:32We've got a quandary.
07:39Is it a carnix, or could it be another object of INA state, a boar standard?
07:45If it does turn out to be a carnix, it'll be a really significant find, and these are extraordinarily rare.
07:52Now, if it turns out to be a boar standard, that's even rarer.
07:57To find out which of these two exceptionally rare objects they're dealing with, the team turns to more advanced imaging, taking the block to a local hospital for an out-of-hours CT scan.
08:11And they film the moment as the exciting results emerge.
08:18I love modern technology, because it's just started working.
08:23Look at that.
08:26That is absolutely exceptional.
08:31What is that thing, this thing here?
08:34Let's look.
08:35We're going to have to dig it out and find out, aren't we?
08:38Wow.
08:39That's really outstanding, isn't it?
08:42It's got cut-out decoration on it.
08:46That detail is extraordinary.
08:49It's beyond, it's absolutely beyond belief, this.
08:53Yeah.
08:54I mean, this isn't even once a lifetime occurrence, is it?
08:56This is rarer than that.
08:57Yes.
08:59It's rarer than that.
09:00This is several people's lifetimes.
09:04This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen in British archaeology.
09:19The CT scan reveals the mystery object is a Bohr standard.
09:25The very first one ever found in Britain.
09:28But there was more.
09:29Hidden deeper inside the Horde, there is also a Carnix.
09:40And it's the most complete Carnix ever found in the whole of Europe.
09:46Two of the rarest objects from the Iron Age found together.
09:55Conservator Jonathan Clarke is excavating the block under controlled conditions in the lab.
10:01So these are the objects that have been removed so far from the block.
10:11We've got multiple shield bosses, some of which were stacked on top of each other.
10:14But then, of course, we have the Bohr standard here, which you can see this wonderful looking Bohr's head.
10:24And I don't know whether you can make out a tusk at the end here with his lovely snout here.
10:29And wonderful curled designs surrounding the mouth here.
10:32And the eye would have had something in there, possibly an organic material or a dissimilar metal.
10:39So it really would have stood out again on this shiny copper alloy object.
10:45Jonathan has carefully extracted the Bohr standard from the Horde.
10:52But there's still a lot of work to do on the Carnix.
10:55What we've got here is the bell of the Carnix, which goes from its neck all the way around here with a crest on its back, which has got this open-work decoration in it.
11:08The Carnix itself is kind of in this roaring, open-mouthed state here, and with the top jaw and the bottom here.
11:16And here we've got the wonderful little eye just visible there, which is remarkable survival.
11:21And you can even see along here the sort of serrated edge of its open mouth.
11:26As soon as we see it, you can't help kind of being not only impressed with it, but kind of charmed by it at the same time.
11:36The Carnix is made from extremely thin sheets of metal, which have become very brittle after 2,000 years in the ground.
11:44You can see a large fissure and crack going along the bell of the Carnix there, which is a really good way of seeing it.
11:51quite how thin the metal work is.
11:56It can be quite a prescient task.
12:00You're aware of the risks at all times.
12:05This is the most complete Carnix ever found, with the pipe, mouthpiece and bell all uniquely intact.
12:15You can see the face is really emerging here.
12:21You can see a ridge, the sort of brow of its eye here.
12:25We're really getting a sense of the Carnix's face, really.
12:28You can, can't help but kind of stare at its eye when you're working on it, kind of looking face to face with it.
12:41To think of it as a musical instrument, just adds this layer to it, it really does.
12:47It wasn't just decorative, it had life and screamed and made noise.
12:55In the first century BCE, the writer Diodorus Siculus wrote that the Carnix produced a harsh sound which suits the tumult of war.
13:05We're in the early days of this excavation and have so much to discover and find out about it.
13:13The work's sort of only just begun, really.
13:16The micro-excavation will take another four weeks.
13:27So in the meantime, I've invited archaeologist Gary Trimble and Carnix expert Fraser Hunter to the Digging for Britain tent.
13:35And they've brought a modern reconstruction of one of these trumpets.
13:39Fraser, Gary. Hello there.
13:42I mean, this is one of these once-in-a-lifetime discoveries, surely.
13:47There's not many of these that have turned up.
13:49Absolutely not, no. We have our fair share of hoards in Norfolk, but this is so, so different.
13:54Yeah. And really, really, really special.
13:56And this is the most complete one in Europe?
13:58Yes.
14:00I mean, this is astonishing. What a find.
14:02And you've got the boar standard.
14:04I mean, what does it represent? What does the boar mean? Do we know?
14:08Boars, if you think of what boars do in the wild, you know, it's the strength and the ferocity, but also the cunning.
14:14So boars are very fierce animals to face in the hunt.
14:17So the symbolism of a boar is a lot about, they say, the strength of it, a very appropriate adversary in battle.
14:24This is the CT scan we had of the bloc. The boar's head standard there.
14:29And then the shield bosses, some of them stacked within each other, you know, sort of, together.
14:36Right. And then, this is the upper part of the tubing of the carnics.
14:41Just coming round here?
14:42Yes. Yeah.
14:43And under here, you've got the belly of the carnics.
14:47Hidden under there?
14:48Yeah.
14:49Yeah.
14:50I mean, you've got the whole thing.
14:52It looks like it.
14:53So this is another first.
14:55This is the only one where we can be confident the tube ties into the instrument.
14:57And here.
14:58You have the complete tube, bent in half.
15:00You've got it.
15:01And so we can see, this is an instrument standing, yeah, about this kind of height originally.
15:05Yeah, yeah.
15:06So one time we can really see, this is the height of a carnics.
15:08And it shows the mouthpiece is in line with the tube.
15:11You would play this leaning backwards like that.
15:14Yeah.
15:15It just confirms that.
15:16And do you think these are deliberately placed, or is it just about putting objects in a hole in the ground?
15:19I'll be sure it's a votive deposit.
15:22You know, this has been put in the ground for the deities, for the gods.
15:25And we think it's a deliberate placement of these shield bosses over the bell of the carnics.
15:31In other words, to quiet it down.
15:32It really feels like it's shielding the head.
15:34Yeah.
15:35It's really protecting the head.
15:36It's a very careful deposit.
15:37It's just fantastic, isn't it, to be able to use these technologies, which, you know,
15:42originally medical technologies were licking inside people's bodies,
15:45but you can lick inside blocks of earth and actually see what objects you've got there.
15:51And when do you think this dates to?
15:5350 BC, AD 50, it's in that bracket somewhere.
15:57Yeah.
15:58It's such a crucial time, isn't it?
15:59Because you've got Julius Caesar coming over, having a look at Britain.
16:04That's right.
16:05Yeah, it's a time of change and a time of turmoil and so much to go on,
16:08especially in the south and east of England with all this impact to the Roman world.
16:12Yeah.
16:13You know, warfare and military prowess is a key part of that.
16:15So, the drama of something like the carnics and the Boer Standard in any battle, in any army,
16:21showing off in one of those things, these would have been spectacular objects.
16:24Yeah, yeah.
16:25And this is very much part of that story, isn't it?
16:27Both the carnics and Boer Standard will soon be fully excavated and cleaned.
16:43It's incredible to imagine these fearsome beasts towering over an Iron Age army,
16:49up to two or three metres in the air, with the carnics blasting across the battlefield.
16:55This is by far the most complete and well-preserved carnics ever discovered.
17:02It adds to our knowledge of these incredible instruments
17:06and provides us with an iconic image of the Iron Age.
17:16As for what these trumpets sounded like, it's time to find out.
17:21As musician and PhD student Letty Stott is about to transport us back into the Iron Age.
17:42It's more tuneful than I thought it would be.
17:44What does it would be?
17:46Ha, ha, ha, ha...,
17:52Alrighty!
17:53Yeah!
17:54Can you just read it?
17:55Yeah, please, please.
18:08No?
18:09It was so inspiring.
18:10How do this happen?
18:12I'll hold something right cold
18:24You've achieved my love
18:30I am sold
18:38And my story will grow old
18:43But you'll be best from gone
18:50Our next dig is one of the biggest excavations that's ever been carried out in Britain.
19:04It allows archaeologists to look at a whole landscape as it changes through time over thousands of years.
19:11Now, there are hundreds of archaeologists working on this site, racing to record thousands of finds and features and keeping pace with a complex construction project.
19:23We're heading to Suffolk and the village of Syswell, 20 miles east of Ipswich.
19:32Here, construction is well underway on the new Syswell C nuclear power plant.
19:41It's one of Britain's biggest infrastructure projects.
19:45But before the construction really gets going, archaeologists are on site to explore and record the heritage here.
19:54More than 200 archaeologists from Oxford Cotswold Archaeology are busy uncovering traces of human activity stretching back thousands of years.
20:10Across 70 sites, they're excavating more than 2 million square metres, making this one of the largest and most complex archaeological projects ever undertaken in Britain.
20:33And working at this scale offers archaeologists an unprecedented insight into Suffolk's long history.
20:48For archaeologist Rosanna Price, it's a job that's close to home.
20:54I was born and raised in Suffolk. This is where I'm from. And it's quite beautiful to be back, actually.
21:01We're joining Rosanna for an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour.
21:08Right, guys, morning all. Let's do the morning brief, then.
21:13Every day starts the same way in the nerve centre.
21:16Make sure they are safe for the job.
21:18Just the end of this big briefing.
21:20We have to do one of these every day on every site.
21:23Please ensure you're always wearing the correct and intact PP whilst on site.
21:27The team depends on meticulous coordination and communication.
21:31Housekeeping, walkways need to be kept clear, especially in doorways.
21:35Cleaning supplies are provided for everyone to use.
21:38We've got a lot of trainings.
21:40We've got a lot of trainings.
21:41We've got a lot of trainings.
21:42Come on all the time.
21:43They need a little bit of a mind.
21:44They need a lot.
21:45Marvellous.
21:46That's cracking.
21:47Cheers, guys.
21:48Everyone's ready to go and start another day.
21:50And just like that, more than 200 archaeologists file out and disperse across the huge site.
21:57So everyone's now just going to go out, get in their trucks, head over to their sites, get digging.
22:02In her role as Archaeological Engagement Manager, Rosanna checks in regularly with each of the digging teams.
22:12This means she's uniquely positioned to give us an exclusive glimpse of the huge range of discoveries being made here.
22:20We've got sort of 20 places to visit in a week and they are spread across a massive area in Suffolk County.
22:28I mean, this is the biggest infrastructure project for a generation.
22:35Rosanna's first stop is at a site uncovering evidence of some of the earliest permanent homes in Suffolk,
22:42when people were settling down, swapping hunter-gatherer lifestyles for farming during the Neolithic.
22:49Hi, Dan.
22:51Archaeologist Dan Pond is leading this area.
22:54This is looking different. You finished it?
22:56We have finished our post-hull structure now, yeah. It's all good to go.
23:00These holes would have held upright posts, supporting the walls of what was once a Neolithic building.
23:07This is our second structure. It's made up of about 20 or so post holes.
23:11Wow.
23:12You don't get many of these buildings surviving.
23:13That's fantastic.
23:14I know, yeah, incredibly rough.
23:16Early Neolithic buildings tend to be long and rectangular halls.
23:20A circular building of this size at this time is very unusual, so there aren't any reconstructions of what it might have looked like.
23:30But we do know the occupants were still relying on stone tools.
23:35This is absolutely stunning.
23:37It's wonderful.
23:38It's an early Neolithic polished stone axe head.
23:41But this edge is just exquisite, isn't it?
23:44It's perfect.
23:45Quite a high-status, presumably, object because it's so beautifully crafted.
23:50So this is something pretty fancy.
23:52Have you found anything more domestic?
23:54We found a lot more pottery.
23:55I've got a couple of sheds here.
23:57So this is early Neolithic pottery.
23:59This is 4,000 to 3,500 BC.
24:02Really, really elaborate design.
24:04So this piece here is 6,000, 5,500 years old.
24:11Yep, I survived all this time.
24:13That is phenomenal.
24:15This is the earliest pottery.
24:17Our earliest finds we've had on the project.
24:20I mean, people were living, creating these 6,000 years ago.
24:24Absolutely stunning.
24:28The Scizor project is vast,
24:30and the team are uncovering evidence from many different periods.
24:35Very satisfying to watch the site develop over time, isn't it?
24:38Oh, definitely.
24:39You get quite mostly attached to it.
24:40Like most sites that I've been on,
24:42they've just been one specific time period,
24:44like either Roman or medieval.
24:46But with this, it's a complete landscape,
24:48and that landscape is really the history of people in East Anglia.
24:54The archaeologists are spread out over such a wide area,
24:57they keep in touch using their phones.
25:02And while this team are busy investigating traces of the Neolithic,
25:06Rosanna receives an exciting update from her colleague, Will Stibley.
25:11Oh, that is fantastic.
25:13They've got a collared urn,
25:14and I imagine there's got to be, presumably, a cremation in there.
25:18Will looks very happy with himself.
25:20I think we'd better go and have a look in person.
25:23It can take more than 20 minutes to drive between the sites.
25:29Yeah, one of those times when having to go up five to ten miles an hour is really tantalising,
25:37because you've got this thing, you want to go and see it.
25:40What can you do, I guess?
25:41You've got to stick to the speed limit.
25:43In the Neolithic, some people were buried together in large communal graves,
25:50like this chambered tomb in Orkney.
25:55But as time wore on, we start to see graves of individual people in the Bronze Age.
26:02Yeah, this is fantastic.
26:05So, Will only started here yesterday, and he's immediately discovered this.
26:08He started on this site, and that's such a classic manoeuvre,
26:11to turn up and get something...
26:12Wow, look at this!
26:15Oh, you've done a beautiful job as well.
26:17I mean, it is just stunning, isn't it?
26:19And it so clearly is early Bronze Age from this massive collar here.
26:24I mean, it's so exciting just to be the first person to see something like this
26:27in, what, three and a half thousand years?
26:29Yeah.
26:30That's the reason I got into archaeology, to do things like this.
26:32It looks like there might be some impressed twine decoration around the rim
26:35that's already peeking through.
26:37So, yeah, it's going to be really exciting once we've dug a little bit more out
26:40to see if there's any more decoration,
26:42and if it's mirrored on the accessory vessel as well.
26:46This cremation is two miles away from the Neolithic building
26:49found at the first site, and it's much later in time.
26:54But so far, it's the earliest evidence of human activity
26:57that they're finding in this part of the landscape.
27:00It's quite interesting that here we have almost no evidence of early Neolithic activity.
27:05We have very little evidence right up until about two and a half thousand BC,
27:10when we start getting much more early Bronze Age activity.
27:13It seems to be a real gap in the landscape here.
27:16This is an area that they just don't seem to be using or visiting during the early Neolithic.
27:21It's not until the early Bronze Age that we see any significant activity here.
27:25So, there does seem to be significant variation over time
27:28in the parts of the landscape that people are exploiting.
27:32This is just an amazing addition to the story of Sizewell,
27:36the story of Suffolk people through time.
27:41Seeing all these little patches of excavation coming up in the landscape,
27:44this is amazing. This is actually my history coming to life in front of me.
27:48We'll rejoin Rosanna later in the programme,
27:52when even more of Suffolk's rich history is revealed.
27:56This is amazing.
27:58Sounds like it might be something pretty good.
28:00The East of Britain has always been the front line between our islands and the continent,
28:20sometimes bearing the brunt in times of conflict,
28:24at other times benefiting from peaceful connections and commerce.
28:29If I can't jump, just push and shove.
28:38Throughout the centuries, this proximity to Europe
28:41has had a unique impact on the communities that lived here.
28:48As our next dig shows,
28:50Torrey Herridge is heading to Folkestone, 10 miles west of Dover.
28:59The white cliffs that run along the southeast coast
29:08are one of Britain's most recognisable landscapes.
29:12They are the first thing anyone sees when travelling across the Channel from France.
29:21Even Roman generals.
29:23It was these white cliffs that Julius Caesar described when he tried,
29:35but failed to invade the British Isles in 55 BC.
29:38He described people at the top there,
29:41fiercely ready and waiting to throw rocks down the troops below.
29:44But little is known about those defiant people on the clifftops,
29:50who lived here along the south coast of Britain during the Iron Age.
29:56A team from Canterbury Archaeological Trust is in their third year of excavations at the site.
30:05They want to find evidence of this Iron Age community
30:10and investigate what their lives and culture were like before the Romans invaded.
30:15Geophysical surveys at the clifftops reveal at least three Iron Age roundhouses that once stood right here.
30:27Archaeologist Andrew Mackintosh is leading the dig.
30:30What a view.
30:32It's such an amazing view.
30:34Often on clear days you'll see the white cliffs over in France there as well.
30:39Julius Caesar, you know, sort of remarked on, you know,
30:42a populated Iron Age settlement here.
30:44And I think this is probably the settlement that he was talking about
30:48when he was looking at these cliffs and seeing how populated it was here.
30:52Since they started excavating the site,
30:55the team have unearthed hundreds of quernstones,
30:58heavy circular stones used to grind grain into flour.
31:03But here, these quernstones were used to line drains, gutters and post holes.
31:09Even I would recognise that as a quernstone.
31:13So, I mean, this is fairly typical of a late Iron Age rotary quernstone.
31:18It's a big, big slab of rock, isn't it?
31:20It is.
31:21You're turning that round, the weight of it grinding.
31:24Yeah, they're very heavy.
31:25So this is one part of two stones that would have turned against one another.
31:29We suspect this might be the top half of one of the quernstones.
31:32So this one has had quite a lot of work on it, hollowing out this top.
31:38You can see chisel marks where they've started to work it.
31:41It's been discarded at some point.
31:43Something's gone wrong at the last minute in manufacture.
31:46It may be that on the underside here that it's split at some point
31:52when they've tried to shape it.
31:53Uh-huh.
31:54And then it's no longer functional for its purpose.
31:56So this wasn't being used here as part of the daily milling activity of a settlement.
32:01You're saying it's being made here?
32:02Yeah, because there's so many we find here.
32:06The querns were shaped from local sandstone,
32:10which arose naturally out of the cliffs and onto the beach right below the site.
32:17They've got quernstones coming out of their ears, like broken ones.
32:20Yeah.
32:21Which is kind of really impressive.
32:22But, I mean, this raw material, if it's available,
32:25everything has got here somehow, it's come up off the beach.
32:28So you're going to utilise this raw material.
32:30So, exactly, waste-not-what-not, right?
32:31Yeah.
32:32So, yeah, you've got it, you might as well use it.
32:33Indeed.
32:34And that's more than any one settlement would need for themselves.
32:36Yeah.
32:37So the people here are making quernstones to be traded elsewhere.
32:40Yeah.
32:41They're being traded inland, possibly overseas.
32:46The Iron Age people living here had such an excess of quernstones,
32:50they must have been trading them.
32:55And small finds from the site are helping archaeologist Rich Best
32:59piece together a picture of cross-channel connections
33:02long before the Romans invaded Britain.
33:05So, pre-conquest, what have we got from that period?
33:10Are these stuff here, should you tell us something about that time?
33:13So, this gold coin is an import from northern France
33:18and sort of Flanders area and dates to 58 to 54 BC.
33:22Oh, right, wow.
33:23So, it's right on the, sort of the, that era of Julius Caesar's crossing.
33:28Yes.
33:29There's a lot of stuff going on.
33:30Like a lot of fighting going on between the Gauls over there
33:32and the Romans, right?
33:33Yeah, yeah.
33:34So, do you think news of that would have been coming with these coins?
33:36Absolutely, yeah.
33:37Yeah.
33:38I think it's quite easy to think of Britain in that period as quite isolated
33:41when really, particularly in Kent and here, it's a hop across the channel,
33:45which I think is something that people do quite regularly.
33:47And then with that, the stories of what's happening.
33:50So, you've got what is clearly sort of ceramics, pottery stuff, yeah?
33:52Yeah, absolutely.
33:53So, here we've got parts of amphora.
33:58The minute you say that word, I assume it's come from far away.
34:01Absolutely.
34:02So, yeah, is it Roman?
34:03It is.
34:04So, these are used for importing wine, olive oil and sort of fish sauce.
34:09And we think these were imported around 150 BC.
34:12Oh, so before, so it's pre-Roman conquest Britain.
34:15Yeah.
34:16We think of sort of olive oil and wine and fish sauce as a characteristically Roman thing,
34:20but there is evidently a demand for it pre-conquest,
34:24whether they're using that as a way to express, you know,
34:27how close they are to Rome and, you know, their connections.
34:30Rome is encroaching, basically.
34:32Yeah, yeah.
34:33And what else have we got in here?
34:34This is quite different over here, this darker stuff.
34:36Yeah.
34:37So, this is locally made, but it's imitating Roman styles.
34:42So, they go for rather than bowls and jars, it's sort of flattered dishes
34:46and things like that.
34:47So, this is someone over here basically trying to make some fancy Roman plates.
34:51Yeah.
34:52And what's so significant about this, particularly for this site,
34:55is that here they are starting to sort of imitate the Roman wares
35:01quite a while before anywhere else in Kent.
35:03So, here that is occurring sort of 25, 30 AD,
35:08whereas elsewhere in Kent you only see it post-conquest,
35:12so maybe up to sort of 60 AD.
35:14That's interesting.
35:15So, here they're kind of ahead of the game.
35:17Right, that's interesting because, like, the Romans haven't conquered.
35:20No, but they're adapting.
35:21Their culture has, in some ways.
35:23And adopting.
35:24Yes.
35:25A lot of what the Romans would bring.
35:27Ahead of the army comes the ideas.
35:29Yeah, absolutely.
35:30What's being discovered here at this site is quietly rewriting what we know about Iron Age Britain.
35:49Yes, there's plenty of evidence of connection across the channel to ancient Gaul,
35:54but there's also something else.
35:56There's a tantalising connection to Rome.
35:59The people of Kent were enjoying fine wines, fine pottery,
36:03but also maybe taking on the ideas of Rome.
36:07This part of Britain was romanising before a Roman soldier even set foot upon British soil.
36:14And the beach is lifting me, ashes raging me, wind is holding me, time is folding me,
36:27under the trees, down through the lean, onto the path that you came to that day.
36:35Archaeology often involves recovering tiny fragments, then painstakingly piecing them together
36:52until something wonderful emerges.
36:55Archaeologist Meg Russell has been looking into a particularly delicious puzzle.
37:05I've come to Museum of London Archaeology's storage warehouse,
37:08where today new discoveries are being made by examining old finds.
37:15Back in 2021, a team from Museum of London Archaeology unearthed thousands of tiny fragments of ancient wall plaster.
37:24They all came from a commercial building that once stood on the banks of the River Thames during the Roman period.
37:35Now, materials specialist Han Lee is painstakingly piecing this puzzle back together
37:42to improve our understanding of the colours and patterns used in Romano-British interior design.
37:50Hi Han.
37:51Hi, how are you?
37:52Wow.
37:53This looks absolutely fantastic.
37:55What is it that we're actually looking at here?
37:57Well, we're looking at a nearly 2,000 year old Roman painting painted during the early Roman period in London.
38:04It's absolutely beautiful.
38:09Han has more than 10,000 pieces of wall plaster to arrange.
38:13They make up 20 separate decorated walls, each with a different intricate design.
38:20My eyes do not want to leave this beautiful detail.
38:23Can you talk me through some of the things that we're looking at here?
38:25Absolutely.
38:26So, you've got a beautiful candelabra here with these two knots, do you see?
38:30Yes.
38:31Of course, the string is dangling down to little dots of pearl.
38:35Those are pearls?
38:36They are, yes.
38:37Oh, wow.
38:38And over here, where we thought were grapes initially, it's actually part of a mistletoe, which is quite a popular thing in Roman culture itself.
38:47Yeah, that's beautiful.
38:49I'm looking at this, but I'm side-eyeing this beautiful, is it a daisy?
38:53It is a daisy, and this daisy is actually our star piece.
38:57So, everyone remembers the daisy during the period of excavation because this was one of the most sort of vibrant pieces found.
39:04And I'm just looking at these little dots here, are they imitation stone?
39:08They are, it's imitation marble, pink imitation marble.
39:11It gives you that illusion of a much more expensive piece of building material.
39:17By painting this plaster wall to look like more expensive and higher status stone, the artist has given us clues as to what stone buildings really looked like, as well as the aspirations of the Romano-British occupant.
39:30Now this is some beautiful imitation stonework.
39:34This is actually imitating Egyptian red palfrey.
39:37It looks almost identical to the actual stone, doesn't it?
39:40It really does.
39:41Yeah, just see how tiny bits and pieces of the crystals in the stone are done so intricately and so carefully.
39:49It must have taken forever.
39:51By examining each fragment in minute detail, Han is also discovering tiny inscriptions which reveal even more about the artists themselves.
40:02We're now in your office. What have we got in front of us?
40:05Well, you see the letters here. Look at the font. It's beautifully done, isn't it? Even the T itself has a thin to thick to thin kind of stroke to it.
40:18And it says, F-E-C-I-T has made this. And if you imagine, when I was talking about the way that it was scored in, that could only be done when the plaster was still soft.
40:31Now, who do you think would do that but the painter?
40:34You're not telling me this is a painter's mark?
40:37This is a painter's signature mark, or the group signature mark.
40:40But how brilliant is that?
40:42There's not many of these. In fact, very few examples can prove that the painter has scored it in when the plaster was soft.
40:50That's amazing.
41:00What Han and his team have done here is more than conservation. It's transformation.
41:05Finishing this puzzle has given us a unique window into the taste, ambition and styles of Romano-British London.
41:18The landscape of Britain's East has changed many times through the centuries.
41:29From the draining of marshes in the fens, to the arrival of Christianity.
41:38But every time a new generation starts changing the landscape, there's the potential that precious traces of the past may be lost.
41:48It's the job of archaeologists to record and preserve the past.
41:58And on our next site, that's happening on an unprecedented scale.
42:07We're returning to Sizewell, where Rosanna Price is giving us an exclusive glimpse behind the scenes of one of the biggest digs to take place in Britain.
42:19Offering a fascinating insight into Suffolk's long history.
42:29This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, isn't it?
42:32To have this vast project revealing archaeology in Suffolk.
42:37In Suffolk, we've got everything, the full span.
42:42One of the biggest challenges facing the team is working around all the heavy machinery on the site.
42:49We're surrounded by bollards and trucks and plants and, I mean, there's a bloke here coming towards us in a massive HGV.
43:01There's dumpers and diggers.
43:02It is incredible what people can do when they work together on a vast construction like this.
43:10So we're constantly working alongside active and moving plant, one of the main reasons for the PPE.
43:26But you can never forget that you've got a schedule, you are trying to meet a programme and there's also a great sense of teamwork and collaboration.
43:37Here the team has made an incredible discovery thanks to waterlogged conditions and amazing preservation of timber.
43:49This artefact dates to the Iron Age.
43:52Hi, Jas. Hello.
43:56Wow, that is sensational.
43:59I had heard that you had a ladder.
44:01Yeah, but you really do.
44:03Definitely a real ladder.
44:05Yeah, big plank here, big plank there.
44:08And they've bored through this sort of circular rung from one side to the other.
44:14Yeah, I mean, at the moment, the idea is that it would have been a big water hole well kind of thing
44:18and they've put a ladder in there to get down to it if the water level is really low.
44:22I mean, at the moment, you can see that it's already starting to fill up.
44:25Yeah, it's starting to fill up.
44:26This is such a tangible link to the past, isn't it?
44:28I mean, I have never seen anything like this.
44:30This is fantastic.
44:31What a wonderful find.
44:34Local production and manufacture would have been important in the Iron Age.
44:38Everyone would have been involved with craft in some way.
44:42But there was some mass production too.
44:44And that became supercharged in the Roman period.
44:53Naomi.
44:54Hi, Radana.
44:55This is looking a lot clearer than it did when I saw you a couple of weeks ago.
44:58Yes, I know.
44:59We've revealed the full floor.
45:02So this lovely levelled floor, which is lined all the way out both of these flues.
45:07So, really excited.
45:09It's a Roman kiln, and some of the pottery from the last firing has survived inside.
45:16So, in a very small amount of space right at the bottom of the chamber, it was just chock full of pot.
45:21Fragments of pot.
45:22None of them seem to be in situ or full vessels.
45:25But as you can see, in our flue, we still have some pot fragments sticking out.
45:29There are some massive bits, actually, in context in here.
45:32Yeah, there's so much of it, which has been amazing and so lovely.
45:37This is one of our nicest bits as well.
45:39That's gorgeous.
45:40Lovely decoration.
45:42Stunning, isn't it?
45:43So, we've found that all throughout the whole future.
45:46So, we know that they've definitely been making that here.
45:48Very high quality, probably very expensive.
45:51This is really impressive.
45:52Yes.
45:53That's the kind of thing you would have on a table.
45:54Yeah.
45:55In a fancy, fancy home.
45:56High faces.
45:57Yeah.
45:58I mean, that, I think, was quite uncommon.
45:59If we do find other pieces of that around the country, it might have been made in this kiln here.
46:05So, that's really lovely to see.
46:07What a delightful thing to uncover.
46:08Mm-hmm.
46:11On a vast site like this, it's important to keep track of where everyone is.
46:18You've got to go through the security portal.
46:21You've got to prove who you are, get your ID out.
46:25It's a definite feeling that you're stepping into the SizeWell world.
46:31So, everybody has to sign in when they get to site.
46:33Everybody.
46:34This is the visitor log, so we know who's here.
46:38This is the one that shows that everybody knows where to muster if there's an emergency.
46:42And then these two show that you've been briefed for any potential hazards,
46:45either in the compound or on site.
46:50Right.
46:51We're all signed in.
46:52We can go and see the archaeology.
46:53This excavation is so large that the environment varies hugely from place to place.
47:10From deep mud to gravel and even sand.
47:13And here the archaeologists are excavating a graveyard.
47:20Which dates to the centuries after the Roman period in Britain.
47:24Known as the early medieval period.
47:27It's like being at the beach, isn't it?
47:28The sandy soil here is acidic, dissolving away bone mineral.
47:41These haunting shadows are called sand skeletons.
47:45Archaeologist Frankie Wildman is leading this excavation.
47:51Ah, so this one's really clear.
47:54Yes.
47:55You can see the legs here and the pelvis.
47:58Yes, that's it.
47:59So, you've got the pelvis here.
48:01So, you've got the left side and the right side.
48:04You've got the right leg running down here.
48:05And you've got the left leg running down here.
48:08Ah, that's beautiful.
48:10And, of course, these beautiful beads.
48:12Look at those in the sunlight as well.
48:14Yeah, they're absolutely gorgeous.
48:16So, these are Baltic amber beads.
48:19Which provides us an indication that there was a connection with the North Atlantic.
48:24So, Scandinavia.
48:26This was an interchangeable point.
48:28So, you're looking at a west-east grave.
48:31Which is the precursor to Christianity coming in.
48:35But you're also keeping the old ways as well.
48:39So, having the personal effects with the skeleton as well.
48:44So, this is why we've got these beautiful beads having been found.
48:48Such a poignant connection to this person.
48:50All that's surviving in the grave of them is their incredible style.
48:54Yes, absolutely.
48:56The team are unearthing dozens of sand skeletons.
49:02But there's one that dwarfs them all.
49:05A horse burial.
49:08Ah, wow.
49:09That is so much more defined than when I last saw it, isn't it?
49:12It's awesome, isn't it? Yeah, well done, Jack.
49:13It's really cool.
49:14We've got the front legs here.
49:15Yep.
49:16And the hind legs coming round here.
49:19And you've just got the shadow of the spine.
49:22Yep.
49:23You've got enough of that surviving leg to work out the height of this, surely?
49:27Yes. So, provisionally, there's a height of around about 1.4 metres.
49:31Okay.
49:32Which, in horse terms, is about 13 hands.
49:34Oh, a little pony!
49:35I mean, these horse burials certainly, more so than other animals, are seen as companions for the afterlife, so to speak.
49:42So, more than likely, you would have had a grand procession that would have happened to the person next door, and then they would have had the horse laid to rest with that person.
49:52And it isn't long before the team discover that the horse wasn't buried on its own, there are human remains here, too.
50:02This is a very high-status Anglo-Saxon burial.
50:07Oh, this is amazing.
50:08So, we're in the big ring ditch feature, the big grave area, and they've got something sort of this size.
50:15And we don't know what material it is yet, but as they're uncovering it, it starts off white, and within sort of 30 seconds of being oxidised, it's turning grey down into black.
50:28I mean, immediately on the phone to the specialist to see what it is.
50:34Could be silver, guys.
50:36Could be silver, could be silver.
50:37Which would be right next to...
50:41Bank is just speaking to our specialist back in the office to find out what this might be, how we might treat it immediately.
50:50Sounds like it might be something pretty good.
50:53What it might mean about the grave, but the most important thing for us right now is to know how to look after it as best we can immediately,
51:00because it's clearly changing as soon as it's hitting the air.
51:02Freaking cool.
51:05Go on, what did they say?
51:07And that sounds like silver.
51:08Oh, wow.
51:09So, we've potentially got a small silver artefact.
51:14Finding something like this is... I mean, I've got goosebumps.
51:17Phenomenal, wow.
51:19The grave goods are dissolving before their eyes, but the presence of silver emphasises the status of this burial.
51:27To find what could be a princely burial in such a high status Anglo-Saxon cemetery is nationally significant, internationally significant.
51:37And the team here going down in two and a half centimetre spits to try and catch every bit of information that they possibly can.
51:43The team has now made hundreds of discoveries, spanning some 40,000 years of Suffolk's history, from the Stone Age to the modern day.
51:55Rosanna's come to the tent to show me some of the latest finds.
52:10Rosanna, you've got some bits from Sisewell. I mean, it's an enormous site. I can't believe the size of it.
52:14The width of the geography and the breadth of time is almost overwhelming, the amount of information that we can take from it and learn and interpret.
52:27It's just amazing to be able to see what's happening across a whole landscape like that.
52:30I mean, that's the value of these big digs, that you're not just kind of opening up a small area, you're actually able to see what people are doing right across that landscape.
52:37Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you would say, well, if you dig a big enough hole, then you'll find something and we've dug a massive hole and we found everything.
52:44Yeah. So you've got some objects to show you that depth of time.
52:49Yes. So this is about 40,000 years old. This is a Neanderthal hand axe.
52:55Isn't that amazing? It is. It's absolutely incredible.
52:59I mean, 40,000 years ago takes us back way beyond the peak of the last Ice Age.
53:03We're into Britain being a completely different landscape.
53:06Yeah, absolutely.
53:07There are no modern humans here. It's just Neanderthals.
53:10When you hold it in your hand even now, you can feel how usable it is, you know, for butchery, for working fibres, maybe even for woodworking.
53:18It's still a perfectly usable tool. It's just incredible.
53:20That's amazing. OK, so 40,000 years ago, and then actually we're getting relatively close to the present now.
53:26Yep. A little 4000 BC sort of era. Yeah.
53:30So these leaf-shaped arrowheads, this one in particular, I just think it's just incredible. It's so fine.
53:36So fine, so thin and completely symmetrical.
53:41It's kind of shocking to look at things like this and realise that they were such violent items.
53:45There's a tension, isn't there, between admiring the beauty of it and then realising actually that that is designed to pierce flesh.
53:53Yeah.
53:54And kill something.
53:55Yes.
53:56Yeah, yeah.
53:57These are a little I&H coin hoard. These are so cool as well. The detail on these is exquisite.
54:02Oh, wow.
54:03Yeah.
54:04Yeah.
54:05Don't you love it?
54:06Isn't it lovely? A little horse. So I can see his front legs there and his back legs there. And then there are some other little details on it.
54:16So when does that date to?
54:17We think it's about 20 BC to 50 AD, sort of that real transitionary period as the Romans are coming over to Britain.
54:25These finds beautifully illustrate how culture changes over the centuries.
54:30Iron Age coins give way to Roman brooches. And as the Roman Empire fades from memory, we find Anglo-Saxon weapon burials.
54:41And then there are exquisite medieval finds.
54:46This is so cool. I have to show you this. So, this looks quite sombre to look at it. It looks very dark.
54:51Yeah.
54:52Yeah.
54:53It's a pilgrim's badge, or it would have been a necklace. And if you now pick that up and hold it up to the light...
55:01Oh, wow.
55:02OK, so it is glass, isn't it?
55:04It's glass, yep.
55:05And this is amazing. So we do have the same iconography, exactly the same, but only from Eastern Europe and Russia.
55:13Really?
55:14And there's, we think at the moment, only about one or two of these in Western Europe, including this one.
55:19In the whole of Western Europe, not just Britain. So this is, I mean, this is really special then, this find.
55:25Yeah.
55:26Almost unique.
55:27I mean, I presume it's not made locally, I presume it's come from elsewhere.
55:30We think imported from Venice, we think it's Venetian glass.
55:33Yeah, yeah.
55:34And presumably, very sadly for them, they've just dropped it.
55:37They must have been annoyed, wasn't they?
55:38Keeping it as a talisman, yeah. It's a beautiful object, if it was gifted to them, we can have all kinds of imaginative interpretations.
55:43That's a really special thing.
55:45Yeah.
55:46Wow.
55:47What is this thing, Rosanna?
55:48Oh, this is a lead seal matrix. So it would have been a news for impressing into wax, for sealing letters and things like that.
55:54Wow.
55:55It's got a flair de lee in the middle, it's got writing right on the outside.
55:58Yeah, and this is very cool. So it says, the seal of Matilda, daughter of Godwin.
56:03I can see the Matilda there, I think.
56:06Yeah, in reverse.
56:07Yeah.
56:08And what's awesome about it is, obviously, we get a lot of information about men.
56:11Yeah.
56:12In the record. Yeah.
56:13But Matilda was obviously quite an important woman.
56:15She's got her own seal.
56:16Important enough to have her own seal.
56:17Yeah.
56:18So presumably, she's writing documents and sealing them.
56:21She'd be elite, yeah.
56:22To have her seal that.
56:23Well, if she can write letters and has a seal in the 13th century.
56:25Yeah, yeah.
56:26Yeah, she must have been.
56:27That's amazing too.
56:28Must have been pretty elite.
56:29So we're coming closer to the modern day, and then we're right up to 20th century.
56:34Yeah.
56:35So this is World War II evidence.
56:36This is a bottle of beer, still with the beer in it.
56:39And that's actually the beer still in it?
56:40Yep.
56:41Yes.
56:42Yeah, I don't think I'd like to try that.
56:4385-year-old brew.
56:44I think that can stay in there.
56:46Is that a compass?
56:47Yeah, this is quite beautiful.
56:48That's lovely.
56:49Can I pick it up?
56:50Yes, absolutely.
56:51It's not too fragile.
56:52And it still opens and closes.
56:53I think it was a World War I issue.
56:56Okay.
56:57And that someone has then either reused it or been gifted it.
57:00Yeah, yeah.
57:01For World War II, because we found it in a World War II context.
57:03Yeah.
57:04And it does say USA Knight.
57:06So it's American?
57:07It's American, yeah.
57:08Yeah.
57:09That's a beautiful object.
57:12Lovely.
57:13So we've got...
57:14Wow.
57:15What have we done?
57:1640,000 years of history on the table.
57:20And all human life is here.
57:22Yeah, yeah.
57:23From conflict and to just domestic issues, to eating, to how you want to design yourself
57:32and how you want to look.
57:34Self-care.
57:35Yeah.
57:36Death.
57:37It's all there.
57:39All uncovered at Sizewell.
57:41Next time on Digging for Britain, archaeologists in the Cotswolds unearth a unique find.
58:00We could see this carved bone object.
58:03I've never seen anything like it before.
58:06A dig in Oxford teaches us a lesson about students of the past.
58:11We actually have a pier and we're calling it Smoker's Corner where you would just chuck your
58:15clay tobacco pipes.
58:16And in Kent.
58:17That is a plated gold disgrace.
58:20Archaeologists uncover spectacular Anglo-Saxon burials.
58:24It's a child with weapons, which is extraordinary.
58:31Wild adventures for people at the locker heads with each other.
58:34Bear Grylls seeks to challenge and heal family rifts on iPlayer.
58:38On BBC Sounds, Kimberly Wilson untangles our mental health, making the complex manageable.
58:45Comedy Next here on 2, we've dug up an old relic.
58:48Victor Meldrew is back.
58:51The sun to lay us dead out in the sun.
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