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00:03the Colosseum the most notorious building in the Roman Empire from 80 AD it was home to the
00:13bloodiest spectacles ever devised as entertainment for the masses displays of warlike courage as men
00:24fought to the death and executions with criminals burned crucified or exposed to ferocious beasts this
00:35was what the Roman people demanded of their emperors in return for their loyalty but not
00:43just in Rome wherever the Romans conquered they built amphitheaters from the searing deserts of
00:50North Africa to the freezing hills of Wales one of the key locations in Roman Britain was Chester here
01:03buried in the modern city lie the remains of the most elaborate amphitheater in the country did
01:10Emperor Vespasian the man who built the Colosseum leave us this legacy
01:19this is the story of a massive archaeological project to bring the Chester amphitheater to life
01:25the two men in charge face hard graft and painstaking analysis we've saved every
01:32bloody atom of this stuff there will be highs who's gonna pay for his burial and there will be lows
01:49over a long season of urban archaeology they're determined to discover what happened here when
01:55the amphitheater was built and what exactly it looked like the secrets of Britain's lost Colosseum
02:07the excavation begins in mid-June there are 20 skilled archaeologists there are surveyors
02:24builders geophysicists and archivists Romanists and medievalists
02:31they first wrote white they're led by two experts on Roman archaeology Tony Wilmot from English
02:39heritage okay you want to take a day's leave and Dan Garner from Chester City Council
02:51the team Tony and Dan have gathered together will be working seven days a week for 15 weeks right in
02:57the middle of the city center and it's all on view to the public it's going to be hard manual
03:09labor digging
03:10down until they reach Roman level to reveal the buried amphitheater the layers of structures that
03:18we got on site we peel off in reverse chronological order because obviously uppermost is the latest
03:23um so I've got 19th century pottery at the top layer that's likely to be a 19th century layer as
03:28we go
03:28down we will get earlier material contained in the deeper layers that will give us the dating
03:33evidence for those layers and the relationships between the layers gives a nice dated sequence through
03:39that sort of layer cake that we have on the side Chester prides itself on its Roman heritage and its
03:51amphitheater is a showpiece in Roman Britain it must have been an awesome site it was the largest amphitheater
03:59in the country a grand stone structure built to serve the largest fortress in Britain it seems that Chester
04:07was destined for great things in 43 AD the vast Roman Empire was still expanding and Britain was an
04:26irresistible prize at the edge of the known world Julius Caesar had failed to capture Britain a century
04:33before and now Emperor Claudius wanted its gold and its grave he landed four legions 20,000 men at
04:48Richborough on the southeast coast they marched and fought their way west and north capturing territory
04:55from British warrior kings and queens for three decades many of the British resisted the Romans and for Roman
05:03soldiers it was a notorious posting Britain in some ways is seen as the armpit of the Roman Empire I
05:10mean it's it's it's you know it's wet it's cold it's barbaric it has one of the largest it needs
05:16throughout its history one of the largest standing garrisons because it's full of trouble and rebellion
05:25it's the tough place it's the place where you go to wear trousers and not have bare legs where the
05:34wine
05:34would be awful because it's had to travel a long way and where the natives by and large are absolutely
05:40pretty appalling the Roman frontier advanced regardless and by the 70s most of present-day England was settled and
05:51peaceful to guard the north and west frontiers legionary fortresses were built at Chester York and Callean
06:01but there were plans afoot to go further and Chester lay at the heart of them Chester's fortress was built
06:09on the river D it was a perfect seaport with deep river access to the northwest coast it could be
06:16the
06:16launchpad for expansion not only into Scotland but also Ireland the evidence from the manuscripts which say
06:23that perhaps one legion would be enough to conquer Ireland and certainly the Romans were in touch with Irish
06:31chieftains and there's certainly plenty of evidence of trade Vespasian was emperor in the 70s AD he had been with
06:41Claudius at the
06:42invasion of Britain and now he wanted fresh conquests Vespasian is not aristocratic he's a bluff good
06:51soldier and and he's wanting to make come make victories and make waves I mean you know he builds
06:58the Colosseum to restore Roman values he wants conquest to show that he likes Caesar and Claudius you know
07:06is is is is is a an emperor however lowly who can actually deliver and deliver glory to Rome
07:17we know that at some stage there was talk in the Roman world of invading Ireland and it makes sense
07:25you'd then have a nice province consisting of Great Britain and Ireland the British Isles
07:31and it makes sense that Chester is the obvious base from which to launch the invasion
07:35and for reasons that are no longer particularly clear that invasion never happens
07:43the theory runs that Chester was not only a perfect invasion base
07:47but the perfect capital of the new expanded Britannia
07:52it would be ideally placed it's more or less central to that imagined province and it would explain some
08:01of the peculiarities about the fortress there are some buildings inside the fortress that have no
08:07parallels anywhere else in Roman military archaeology
08:14the magnificent buildings are now hidden under streets which follow the original Roman plan
08:21Chester's fortress was 20 percent bigger than any other in Britain some of its monumental walls still
08:27stand as grand as those of any Roman capital I mean Londinium doesn't exist London doesn't really
08:34exist at this stage I mean it's just a sort of rather not muddy place by the Thames and Chester
08:42could
08:42well have been intended as the capital of the new provinces
08:51a capital of the new provinces would deserve a fine amphitheatre
08:56emperor Vespasian built the Colosseum in Rome
08:59did he build an amphitheatre here in Chester
09:02or was it built much later under a different emperor altogether
09:07Tony and Dan have to work that out during their excavation
09:15the amphitheatre was discovered in 1929 but it was excavated partially in the 1960s by the late Hugh
09:22Thompson then curator of Chester's museum
09:27the Thompson report revealed a magnificent stone building with 72 buttresses
09:33it would have held seven to eight thousand spectators it had 12 entrances and its arena wall was painted bright
09:41red
09:42he also found that before the stone amphitheatre existed
09:46there was a smaller amphitheatre on the same site built entirely of timber
09:52in the last few years the Thompson theory has been severely questioned
09:57that's why the new excavation is taking place
10:04it's up to Tony and Dan to uncover the truth
10:08i think we approach existing report with an open mind
10:12we're digging for the story we're digging for the story and when we've got the story we want to tell
10:17people the story that's what archaeology really is all about
10:21Tony and Dan have decided to dig two areas of the site
10:25a curved section of seating bank trench a which Thompson dug in the 1960s
10:31the second area is a wedge of seating bank and arena trench b which is virgin ground
10:41the diggers have their work cut out if they're to find answers in the next 15 weeks
10:47it's only day two of the dig but already they're onto something exciting in trench a
10:57they picked it up on the metal detector so they put a tag in for it
11:02no one don't find one coin in a whole excavation so this is great
11:07you can tell us a little about it from its size
11:10um it's likely to be earlier rather than later it's going to be first or second century rather
11:16than third or fourth but we'll see but it's not so great to realize that Thompson's team must have
11:23put the roman coin back by mistake when they refilled the site in the 1960s
11:29in those days archaeology was less professional than today unskilled laborers did much of the digging
11:36and even schoolboys one of them was di morgan evans i think i was a bit blasé about it i'm
11:43afraid
11:44a ghastly 16 year old rather cocky and full of himself the problem wasn't only untrained diggers
11:54in the 1960s bulldozers were used to save time today small hand tools are used to sift through every inch
12:02of earth
12:07it's slow painstaking work
12:10it's vital that every meter is methodically recorded for the archive
12:18archaeology is an unrepeatable experiment when you've removed it it's gone you know it's it's
12:23archaeological stratigraphy now it'll be hauled off in skips in due course or some of it will
12:35the objects they find in the debris are taken to the finds room in the nearby visitor center
12:42here they are cleaned catalogued and studied by a team of experts we were staggered when they started
12:50calling out actually because they came out of one of the uh pits which thompson excavated and then
12:55backfilled um same in where with say uh scenes of wild beast hunts or gladiatorial scenes were sold as
13:03souvenirs around amphitheatres though important finds were missed in the 1960s tony and dan's team
13:10have retrieved them because thompson refilled the site with the earth he had taken out
13:16it was a surprise on the quantity and the quality of what we've recovered uh we knew that thompson had
13:22removed a lot of the top of the excavation area with the bulldozer in the 60s and then presumably
13:27all that stuff just got shoved back in as backfill so we suspected he would have missed things and that
13:32certainly seems to be the case we've got some really good quality roman artifacts which include
13:37this really great southern gaulish samian were pottery it's very highly decorated there's a
13:42recurring scene of a lion probably part of a wild beast hunt here which was we know popularly
13:48reenacted in amphitheatres so that might be relevant glass beads which would have been off a necklace
13:55they've come up from various parts of the site so i don't think they're off the same necklace we've
13:58you know presumably got several necklaces represented there uh and then if we move forward in time
14:03we've got medieval pottery 17th century clay tobacco pipe 18th century drinking glass
14:1218th or 19th century paint pot um then going almost to the ridiculous we've got
14:201960s artifacts including a milk bottle possibly one of thompson's men's shovels
14:26and a kp nut packet this is obviously stuff that was either being consumed or used by the excavators
14:33in the 1960s so we know where they got their milk we know somebody had a penchant for peanuts and
14:39this
14:39is the sort of shovel they were using it's early july and the excavation is going well the team has
14:54emptied the area close to the arena where thompson dug in the 1960s further out towards the road
15:00lie the stone foundations of two great amphitheater walls but they're not easy to get at because they
15:07lie beneath a sewage system from recent housing
15:21there's just pipes going everywhere actually they're going
15:24obviously you know the houses on the site needed their services but it's uh
15:29there's a real network this is a main sewer and then you've got the offshoots to the individual
15:32properties going off in all different directions i've done a lot of destruction to the actual
15:37fabric of the amphitheater that's urban archaeology then that's where it goes the order is destroyed
16:01there's little hope of digging down methodically layer by layer apart from the sewer pipes there are
16:08also vast pits to be dug out these were medieval cesspits which filled up with rubbish over the centuries
16:15i don't think i think i think it may be the continuation of the butcher's foundation
16:22interpreting this pockmarked site is like playing three-dimensional chess
16:26and it's increasingly difficult to work on
16:42a month into the dig there are some significant finds
16:47things now this is really good actually fantastic um it's bone it's got these little ridges on it
16:56and what it is it's part of the actual grip of a roman gladius a sword handle nothing else in
17:03the roman
17:03world made of bone looks like that the grip the the ridges are specially made so you get your fingers
17:09into it and i can i can just about get my fingers in to the exact places there i have
17:15a replica here that
17:16is based on an archaeological find from another site um that's the gladius handle and if we compare
17:22the fragment almost identical of course this is based on complete examples which have been found
17:28not not just fragmentary ones like this so we do yeah we do know that that is exactly what this
17:33is
17:34it it tells us that's still good stuff to be found here i mean in in in fines terms and
17:39stuff that
17:40relates directly to the use of the amphitheater
17:44the next job is to open up trench b
17:52it seems to have been a garden perhaps belonging to the neighboring church
18:02before long a small skeleton emerges from the mud too small to be looking like a sheep
18:10um it's a bit big for a rabbit i suppose it could be rabbit but
18:15analysis proves it to be a victorian cat
18:22over in trench a they're still not at roman level it's not what dan and tony expected
18:30it's full of slate brick rubbish scrap iron the first five weeks have been tough
18:40just because there's been so much 20th century archaeology to get rid of
18:44all the excavation trenches and sewer trench fills and things like that but now now we're getting
18:49into the real thing it's gonna it's gonna cheer up
18:51uh
19:00uh
19:14Today, there's a buzz at the arena.
19:17It's National Archaeology Day, with public events all over Britain,
19:22and gladiators here for the first time in nearly 2,000 years.
19:38There's still bloodlust at Chester.
19:43He should kill him. Yeah, yeah.
19:45You get up! You get up! You get up! You get up!
19:52Oh, blood everywhere.
19:58Who's going to pay for his burial?
20:00In the Roman world, the watching of these spectacles
20:05is meant to instil good Roman virtues in the spectator.
20:10The gladiators who fight in the afternoons are dressed as barbarians.
20:15These are the other, the people we don't like,
20:19the people we've conquered,
20:20and they're dangerous and they're nasty,
20:23and we contain them.
20:27In Britain, there are 25 amphitheatre sites built from the 60s AD onwards.
20:33Most British amphitheatres are very different from the monumental Colosseum.
20:37They're simple earthworks like this one at Dorchester,
20:40a dugout arena surrounded by turf-covered banks.
20:46Only two have stone outer walls,
20:49Cullion in South Wales and Chester itself.
20:52With no historical records to tell us what went on in British amphitheatres,
20:57the archaeological evidence is all the more precious.
21:02The amphitheatre in London has produced evidence to suggest
21:06that there might have been wild beast hunts.
21:09It's certainly involving wolves and probably wild boar.
21:14And in Chester, we have a plaque that was found very close to the amphitheatre site
21:19depicting two gladiators.
21:21So people knew what gladiators were
21:24and had presumably seen them fighting in the amphitheatre at Chester.
21:30Back at the dig on National Archaeology Day,
21:33the team has unearthed something useful to wounded gladiators.
21:38It's a miniature spear.
21:39It's not. It's a medical probe.
21:41A medical probe?
21:42Yeah.
21:44Pull out the broken bits.
21:45When you've got a bit of metal lodged in you.
21:50That's amazing.
21:51Pull it out.
21:52This just came out of the ground ten minutes ago.
21:55The evidence is now starting to begin to stack up.
21:58You know, of course, we know it's an amphitheatre,
22:00so obviously there's going to be gladiatorial combat and so on.
22:03But we've got same in-wear with images of gladiators and lions on,
22:06more than perhaps we might expect.
22:08We've got the bone sword handle,
22:10and now we've got medical instruments.
22:12So, you know, the evidence,
22:14the sort of thing that's going on in the arena,
22:16I didn't expect to find stuff like this at all.
22:19If we come back this afternoon, we'll probably put it to good use.
22:27Don't damage yourself. I need you tomorrow.
22:29Yes, yeah.
22:30I need you to work.
22:36Temperatures have been over 70 degrees for a week.
22:39Digging is much harder and slower.
22:44We've got so much to do.
22:45This site is really baked solid.
22:47We could do with a good downpour,
22:50good overnight downpour,
22:51wet it down,
22:52lay the dust,
22:53and just bring up the colours so we can see what we're doing.
22:56This is completely baked out.
23:01It's now late July,
23:03but answers to Tony and Dan's major questions are not emerging.
23:08In fact, the dig is getting more confusing.
23:11Bizarre features turn up,
23:13like a 1920s car inspection pit.
23:16Who knows if the early motorist realised
23:19he was digging through a Roman amphitheatre.
23:22The excavation is enormously complex,
23:25and one of the biggest questions
23:27is whether Hugh Thompson was right
23:29in thinking that there were two amphitheatres.
23:34He envisaged his magnificent stone building
23:37as the second amphitheatre on the site.
23:39He found evidence for a small timber amphitheatre
23:42built 30 years earlier.
23:46Because you just can't see them.
23:48Because see on this side, they're all pretty regular.
23:50Yeah, they are.
23:50Thompson's excavation plan
23:52shows the foundation of the timber amphitheatre,
23:54like a red train track running around the arena.
23:57I can still see those.
24:00That same foundation is now emerging on the ground.
24:05In Roman times,
24:07the long, narrow slots held timber beams.
24:11The first person to find these slots in 1960
24:14was Di Morgan Evans.
24:17The trowel he used is still a prized possession.
24:21This is the trowel, yes.
24:23Yes, yes.
24:23I mean, it was larger.
24:25I can't...
24:25You can't actually say that was the edge
24:27that found the timber amphitheatre,
24:29because the edge was actually more about there at the time.
24:32So it has shrunk through hard troweling.
24:37Like Thompson,
24:39Di believes the timber foundation
24:40was laid down in the 70s AD
24:42under Emperor Vespasian
24:44as a framework for a holy timber amphitheatre.
24:51Keith Matthews disagrees.
24:54The former Chester archaeologist
24:56has doubts about the timber beam slots or grillage.
25:00The difficulty really with the timber grillage
25:03is understanding whether it's a separate structure in its own right
25:08or whether it's simply part of the stone structure.
25:13And there are various ways in which archaeologists could go out
25:16and test this idea that weren't tested in the 1960s.
25:23Keith believes there was no timber amphitheatre.
25:27He thinks the timber foundation supported a seating bank
25:31for the large stone amphitheatre,
25:33built in 100 AD, 20 years after Vespasian.
25:39There's only one way to sort it out.
25:42A gladiatorial debate.
25:46Well, well done.
25:48Right.
25:49Right.
25:4944 years ago,
25:51I found the first timber amphitheatre at Chester.
25:55And it's one of the things that I've really kept with me
25:57for the whole of my archaeological career.
25:59You're trying to take it away from me.
26:01You did discover the timber framework.
26:03I have no argument with that.
26:06It is an argument about the relationship
26:09between the timber and the stone.
26:12I think the timbers have to go in after these walls.
26:19The arguments are complicated
26:20and go on for an hour
26:22around the intricacies of amphitheatre construction.
26:25I don't agree.
26:26It does actually seem to be a rather cack-handed way of doing it
26:28is build your arena wall up to that height,
26:30put your timber structure in,
26:31and then throw the stuff over.
26:32I mean, why don't they sort of start off
26:34by throwing the stuff over
26:35then build the wall
26:36and then put the timber...
26:37I mean...
26:38It seems even more cack-handed to me
26:39to leave an earlier structure in place
26:42while you're building the stone structure.
26:46OK, so...
26:47The clincher for Dai is historical common sense.
26:50In the 70s AD,
26:52amphitheatres were being built
26:53all over the empire by Vespasian,
26:55the man who built the Colosseum.
26:58Vespasian's really into amphitheatres, isn't he?
27:00Oh, yes, absolutely.
27:02I'm disputing his influence on the amphitheatre at Chester.
27:07An amphitheatre-building dimmesty?
27:09The odds are that when they come and build
27:12this extra-special fortress at Chester,
27:14that's 20% larger than anything else in the country,
27:16they're going to put an amphitheatre in.
27:18The probability?
27:19Quite possibly, yes.
27:20No, no, not possible.
27:22Probable.
27:22Come on, come on.
27:23Both are bloodied but unbowed.
27:25They'll have to wait for this year's excavation results
27:29for the answer.
27:30It's not so much an argument in its favour,
27:32but it is an argument about the newlyweds.
27:39It's still going slowly.
27:42The much-needed rain has arrived,
27:44but that brings its own problems.
27:46Oh, they're spoiled. Keep on with it.
27:49It's raining!
27:52George, bring them in!
27:55They would like to give an answer to Diane Keith
27:57about the Timber Amphitheatre,
28:00but it's difficult.
28:02We can't go either way yet
28:04because the information that we need to look at,
28:08the evidence we need to look at,
28:09is still buried.
28:12And we're not going to uncover it
28:14until last week, I suspect.
28:16Absolutely.
28:19But there is also the potential
28:21that neither of them are actually fully right,
28:23and the truth lies somewhere in between
28:25their ideas.
28:27I think the idea
28:28that there are two phases of amphitheatre
28:31is looking good,
28:33but the idea that one of them is holy timber
28:35and the other is holy stone
28:36is not going to be the case.
28:43Rain has stopped play altogether.
28:46It's the wettest August on record.
28:51The weather in the last couple of days
28:53has been lousy,
28:55and at this point in the excavation,
28:58it's the last thing we need
29:00because the site's resolving itself
29:01into a lot of deep holes.
29:04If it rains hard,
29:06and thunderstorms we've just been having,
29:08if it really rains hard,
29:09it wrecks the site.
29:12They had imagined they would find
29:14a lot of amphitheatre walls and foundations,
29:17but there is very little stonework left.
29:20That's because, over the years,
29:22it has been removed by stone robbers
29:24for use in other buildings.
29:29Hundreds of tons of stone
29:30have been removed from this shattered monument.
29:33In its place,
29:34hundreds of tons of earth to dig out.
29:40And thousands of finds.
29:43Back in week five,
29:45Tony was thrilled with a Roman medical probe.
29:49I was checking through some books
29:51to check a reference on another find that we had,
29:54and there was a picture,
29:56exactly, or almost exactly,
29:59looking like this,
30:00and they call it a medieval pen
30:01rather than a Roman surgical instrument.
30:04So, it was really exciting
30:06to actually come across something
30:07that was a pen,
30:09but I had to go and tell people
30:10that it actually wasn't Roman,
30:12and it wasn't a surgical instrument.
30:15You know, in the heat of the moment,
30:17you get a little bit excited
30:18and a little bit carried away.
30:22It was a reasonable hypothesis at the time,
30:26but it just happened to be wrong.
30:33And the weather doesn't improve.
30:38Really, really, really don't need this.
30:43Makes life very difficult.
30:47And the problem is that walking on this
30:49means that people are going to
30:50be bringing half the archaeology back on their boots.
30:56And I don't want to have to lose another day.
31:00And here it comes again.
31:03I suggest we go in.
31:16They need a break.
31:26Oh, in the south of France.
31:28A chance for Tony and Dan
31:30to get some sun and entertainment
31:32in a standing Roman amphitheatre.
31:40I think it's the closest thing you're going to get
31:42to experiencing entertainment
31:44in an amphitheatre
31:45as a citizen of Rome,
31:47no matter where you were in the empire,
31:48be it Rome or Chester.
31:52The amphitheatre at Arles
31:54is larger than Chester's,
31:55but its architectural layout
31:57is very similar.
32:07In Roman times,
32:08the spectacles were free to the public,
32:10funded by the emperor
32:12or leading citizens.
32:15Seats were allocated by wealthy patrons,
32:18well-connected toffs at the ringside,
32:20slaves and women up at the top.
32:25Everybody would know exactly
32:26where they were going in the arena.
32:28Everyone knows just where to go
32:29to find their seats,
32:30the correct gateway to go into,
32:32the correct passage to go through.
32:37I think it's very interesting
32:38the way everybody came up
32:39the one flight of stairs
32:40and then dispersed around
32:41the circuit of the amphitheatre
32:43and went up their individual
32:45designated entrances.
32:46And that's a great design
32:47because it acts as crowd control
32:49and it disperses people
32:50so you don't get a huge crush
32:52at any single entrance.
32:55Well, I think the spectators came
32:56for a number of things,
32:57I mean, to see and be seen
32:59in the crowd,
33:00to meet friends,
33:01family day out.
33:24I'm sure that's what it would have been like
33:26in Roman times.
33:27People would be applauding,
33:28I don't know, swordsmanship
33:30or whatever facility
33:31with weapons
33:32that the gladiators had.
33:36But there must have been moments of,
33:38you know, drama,
33:39moments of hush
33:39when people were wondering
33:40what's going to happen.
33:49That whole mix of,
33:51sort of, entertainment,
33:53people really getting into it,
33:55cheering on the bullfighters
33:57and that whole aspect of the fact
33:59that what you're actually seeing
34:00is something being put to death.
34:03It's very powerful images.
34:13Tony and Dan find it too hard to stomach
34:16and leave.
34:24It's really not for me.
34:25I couldn't, I couldn't,
34:26I couldn't do it.
34:27I couldn't watch that poor beast
34:28being done to death out there.
34:31I'm, I'm obviously not a material
34:33of an ancient Roman, am I?
34:34but no, that was too rich for me,
34:37I'm afraid.
34:44It's an echo of a past age.
34:53Certainly, to a British audience,
34:55it's maybe considered to be
34:56a somewhat bizarre blend,
34:59but I think that this is what
35:00this building was built for,
35:01essentially,
35:02and that's exactly what
35:03people have been coming here
35:04to watch for 2,000 years.
35:06So, if you want to see
35:08what Chester's Amphitheatre
35:10was used for 2,000 years ago,
35:11this is it.
35:13It's pretty good.
35:21Back in Chester,
35:22things are looking up.
35:25We've got four weeks left,
35:26including this week.
35:28The weather has improved,
35:29considerably,
35:30so it looks like we may
35:31get our Indian summer,
35:32which is very good.
35:34Sight's drying out very quickly.
35:36People are down in holes.
35:38We're doing well.
35:39We're doing well, I think.
35:43After weeks of hard slog,
35:46the Chester Amphitheatre
35:47is beginning to yield up
35:49its secrets.
35:50The two stone walls
35:51of Thomson's second amphitheatre
35:53have emerged as curves of rubble.
35:58What exactly it looked like
36:00and whether there was
36:01an earlier timber amphitheatre
36:03is not yet clear.
36:07Tony and Dan
36:08are very close
36:09to a new interpretation
36:11and it starts
36:12with some exciting finds.
36:18We've got a very high proportion
36:20of these.
36:21These are ribs.
36:22They're beef ribs
36:24and they look like
36:25the remains of any barbecue
36:27that I might have
36:28in my back garden.
36:30And you can't help
36:31but wonder
36:33whether these aren't
36:33the residue
36:35of fast food
36:37that spectators
36:38at arena events
36:40are eating.
36:41Whether
36:44the people watching
36:45the amphitheatre spectacles
36:46are licking
36:47the barbecue sauce
36:48off the ribs
36:48that they've just
36:49bought from the concession stalls
36:51just outside.
36:54The concessions
36:55may be selling
36:59souvenirs.
36:59This bowl
37:00I found yesterday
37:02unfortunately
37:02I hit it with a mattock
37:03but you can still
37:04fit it together
37:05and you can see
37:06that it shows
37:08scenes of gladiatorial combat.
37:10You can see
37:11the heavy helmet
37:12there with a bit
37:12of a plume
37:13going out behind it.
37:14Square shield
37:15in front of the gladiator.
37:18The arm guard
37:19the segmented arm guard
37:21down here
37:22with a sword
37:24running off
37:25against the side
37:26of the shield
37:27the legs
37:28including the armoured
37:29front leg.
37:30So it's a reasonable bet
37:31that that's the kind
37:32of thing that's going on.
37:35The spare ribs
37:37and gladiator pottery
37:38came from the space
37:39between the two stone walls.
37:41That suggests
37:42that the inner wall
37:43once stood alone
37:43with the debris
37:44piling up around it.
37:49If the two stone walls
37:50were built at different times
37:52that would be highly significant.
37:57Peter Hill
37:58an expert
37:59on ancient masonry
38:00has been called in
38:01to examine the site
38:02starting on the inner wall.
38:05The stones
38:07are less well squared
38:09when you get tapering
38:10on the stone there
38:11and that one there
38:12tapers
38:12from what
38:14say 100mm
38:15that end
38:15150 at the other end.
38:17it's a different design.
38:20It looks like a quicker job.
38:23It looks as though
38:24they wanted to get this up.
38:25So there's not the same
38:26concern for appearance?
38:28No.
38:28Right, well I really wanted
38:29there to be a difference.
38:30Well, you've certainly got
38:32what I wanted.
38:32You've got a difference here.
38:34Yeah, very definitely.
38:36The difference in quality
38:38between the inner
38:38and outer walls
38:40confirms Tony and Dan's
38:41growing belief
38:42that there were
38:43two stone amphitheatres
38:44on the site
38:45built at different times
38:46and by different people.
38:51They now have
38:52their own new interpretation
38:54of Chester's Roman amphitheatre
38:56different from Hugh Thompson's.
39:00In the last week
39:01we've become
39:02absolutely convinced now
39:03that we can forget
39:05all the stories
39:05of a timber amphitheatre
39:06followed by a stone amphitheatre.
39:08What we've actually got
39:09are two amphitheatres
39:11basically of stone construction.
39:13That is pretty unexpected.
39:15Pretty unexpected.
39:18Tony and Dan's
39:20radical new interpretation
39:21shows that there was
39:23an early stone amphitheatre
39:24with timber seating banks.
39:26Many years later
39:27a larger amphitheatre
39:29was built
39:29by adding another stone wall.
39:36It may upset certain people
39:38looking at other amphitheatres
39:40in Britain at the moment
39:41who've used Chester
39:43with its timber amphitheatre
39:44as a model, if you like.
39:47But, I mean,
39:48that's what archaeology
39:48is all about.
39:49Challenging accepted theories.
39:54But how do they know
39:55this is true?
39:57It's all about
39:59the first stone amphitheatre
40:00and its outer wall.
40:03The evidence
40:04lies in the deposits
40:05either side
40:06of that outer wall.
40:09On site,
40:10that outer wall
40:12of the first amphitheatre
40:13is no longer there
40:14because the stone
40:15has been robbed away.
40:16But it would have
40:17looked like this.
40:21Where we are standing,
40:22you must imagine
40:24a wall
40:24with this material
40:26piled up against
40:27this side of it.
40:28And all of this
40:29is clean,
40:31sand and clay,
40:33which is the material
40:34which has been thrown up
40:35from the arena.
40:39so the wall's constructed,
40:42this material
40:43is excavated
40:44from the arena
40:45and dumped up against it,
40:46and then the timber seating
40:48is installed over there.
40:49But the important thing
40:51is that this material
40:52inside the wall
40:54is totally different
40:55from the material
40:57outside the wall, Dan.
40:58Yeah.
40:59Yeah.
40:59I mean, essentially,
41:00you can see that
41:01that's all a dump
41:02of material
41:02that's probably occurred
41:03over a fairly short
41:05period of time.
41:05On the outside,
41:07at the bottom
41:07of our section of soil,
41:10we've got the original
41:11Roman ground surface
41:12where Roman grass level
41:14would have been.
41:15Above that,
41:16we've got this band
41:16of red material
41:17which probably represents
41:18a fairly nice paved surface
41:21outside amphitheatre number one.
41:23And then we've got
41:24these deposits of soil
41:25and sand
41:26which represent
41:28occupation
41:29on the back wall
41:30of the amphitheatre
41:31in its first phase of use.
41:35So this chunk of archaeology
41:37is really exciting
41:38because it might actually
41:39give us answers
41:40as to what the amphitheatre
41:41in its first phase
41:42is actually being used for
41:44and the sort of activities
41:45that are going on
41:46immediately outside.
41:47It's sort of market stalls
41:49maybe selling
41:50Roman fast food
41:51or souvenirs
41:52and that sort of thing.
41:54I wonder if there is...
41:57So what will Diane Keith,
41:58the gladiatorial archaeologists,
42:00make of it?
42:01In a sense,
42:01neither of them are right.
42:02Yes, and both of them
42:04are right as well.
42:05Yeah.
42:06Depends really
42:06how you want to play it.
42:07Diane Keith will be very excited
42:08about this,
42:09very excited
42:10because they are both people
42:11with open mind.
42:13On a site demonstration,
42:15Dai has to face up
42:16to losing his timber amphitheatre.
42:21In my heart of hearts,
42:23I don't want to believe it.
42:24It's terrible to confess.
42:26I would have liked to
42:27have actually survived
42:28with a completely timber amphitheatre.
42:29And I'm not giving up
42:30without a bit of a fight.
42:34Keith has to accept
42:35there were two amphitheatres,
42:37though he was right
42:38about the timber seating bank.
42:41In the end,
42:42he never quite convinced me.
42:44And it's very gratifying
42:46to discover that
42:47I was right to stick to my guns.
42:49Does he believe
42:50it's all of one build?
42:51No.
42:52Right.
42:52He's been vindicated.
42:54Just wish he wouldn't look
42:55so bloody smug.
42:56But I don't blame him.
43:02Dan and Tony are delighted
43:04with their new interpretation.
43:06The small stone amphitheatre
43:08is a revelation
43:09with evidence
43:10for external staircases.
43:12These may well have been
43:13double staircases
43:14for increased access
43:16to the highest seats,
43:17as on the amphitheatre at Pompeii.
43:21The later, larger amphitheatre
43:23also differed
43:24from Thompson's vision.
43:26Tony and Dan think
43:28the vast foundation
43:29supported decorative arches
43:30at the entrances.
43:31And they found
43:33only half as many buttresses
43:34as Thompson.
43:44It's the last week
43:46of the dig
43:46and there's still
43:47one burning question.
43:50Was the first amphitheatre
43:52built with the fortress
43:53in the 70s AD
43:54under Emperor Vespasian?
43:58Got it?
43:59Yep.
44:01It's really fantastic
44:02that we've been able
44:03to prove
44:03that there are two stone
44:04amphitheatres at Chester.
44:07What's very frustrating
44:08is the lack
44:09of dating evidence
44:10we've got.
44:11We're just going to have
44:12to keep plugging away
44:13and hoping that
44:14something comes up
44:15in the last couple of days.
44:20The dating evidence
44:21must lie in the space
44:22between the two outer walls
44:24where Roman builders
44:25would have dropped things.
44:27it's a race against time
44:29to find anything
44:30that might help.
44:38At last
44:39something comes to light.
44:41Is it a ceiling?
44:42Is it a pebble?
44:44I haven't been for that piece.
44:45The green bit
44:46and the metal detector.
44:48It would have been
44:48a silver one.
44:50It's quite light
44:52for a stone though.
44:52I don't know
44:53whether you'd have...
44:53I don't know.
44:55I think that's cool.
44:55I don't know if you're
44:56running through
44:56the amount of seething
44:57that we've been doing.
44:57I don't know.
44:58What's going on?
44:59There's obviously
45:00something exciting.
45:01Well,
45:03we've just got
45:04a coin come up
45:05from this sand
45:07outside
45:09Amphitheatre 1.
45:10It's the first one
45:11we've got.
45:12Potentially,
45:12it's dating evidence
45:13for Amphitheatre 2.
45:15It's the only solid
45:16piece of dating evidence
45:17we've had.
45:18Unfortunately,
45:19it's in rather
45:19a bad condition.
45:20You can barely see
45:21it's a coin
45:22apart from that
45:22little bit of green
45:23on one side.
45:24But anyway,
45:24it's absolutely crucial.
45:27Absolutely crucial.
45:28We've sieved
45:29every bloody atom
45:30of this stuff
45:31and we've come up
45:32finally with
45:34one piece of dating evidence.
45:36Thank God.
45:42The coin is taken
45:44to the English Heritage
45:45Conservation Lab
45:46to be cleaned
45:47and x-rayed.
45:48It's the moment of truth.
45:50All right.
45:52V-E-S-P-A
45:54and before that
45:55possibly a V
45:56and an E
45:58Vespa.
45:59So it's either
46:00off the front
46:01of a scooter
46:02or it's Vespasian.
46:04I love the real thing.
46:05So let's have a look
46:07at the real thing
46:07then, shall we?
46:11Yeah, Vespasian
46:12and I'd recognise
46:13that ugly mug anywhere.
46:15So, the face of the man
46:18who built the Colosseum
46:19has turned up
46:20as dating evidence
46:21at Chester.
46:22But it's not
46:23the definite proof
46:24it might seem
46:25because coins
46:26from Vespasian's time
46:28remained in circulation
46:29for over a hundred years.
46:31The amphitheatres
46:32could have been built
46:33any time between the 70s
46:34and the 170s A.D.
46:38What's really frustrating
46:39is that we know
46:41that both amphitheatres
46:42must be, you know,
46:4580, 70 plus.
46:48But we haven't got
46:49the relative,
46:49we haven't got the dating
46:50that'll give us
46:52an idea about
46:53how long they are apart,
46:54you know,
46:55the lifetime of the first
46:56amphitheatre
46:56and the construction date
46:57of the second.
46:58As yet, it's really,
47:00really frustrating.
47:01I think it's the one
47:02most frustrating thing
47:03we come away
47:04from this first season with.
47:09Right, that's it.
47:10Clear up your loose.
47:13After 15 weeks
47:15and 900 tonnes of earth,
47:17the dig's over
47:18until next summer.
47:22It's been tiring,
47:23but it's been huge fun.
47:25You know, great team,
47:26really hard-working
47:27bunch of people
47:28who have produced
47:29fantastic results, really.
47:31They may not have
47:32construction dates,
47:33but they have proved
47:34that Thompson's 1960s
47:36excavation
47:37was flawed.
47:38They've got their own
47:39new vision of Chester's
47:40two amphitheatres
47:41and resolved at least
47:42one fierce debate.
47:45You never answer
47:47all the questions
47:47and the problem is
47:48that to a certain extent
47:49as we go along
47:50this summer,
47:51we're posing new questions
47:53that we might want
47:54to answer
47:54in future years'
47:55excavation.
47:58That's more or less
48:00the attraction of archaeology,
48:01if you like.
48:02the lure
48:02is the fact that
48:04for every question
48:06you answer,
48:07you create a new question.
48:19next week,
48:20Time Watch tracks
48:21the deadly power
48:22of the biggest volcanic blast
48:24ever recorded.
48:26Join the expedition
48:28seeking to unearth
48:29the lost kingdom of Tambora,
48:31revealing how a single volcano
48:33in Indonesia
48:34200 years ago
48:35could produce
48:36the year without summer.