Are There Roman Ruins Beneath This Graveyard? | Time Team | Timeline

this is the kissing gate of some kind of Burgas church here in the village of castor in Cambridgeshire and it's one of the most beautiful medieval churches in England and yet it's what under this church is graveyard that's got our archaeologists very excited because beneath my feet could be the remains of a mysterious Roman building but it's not just one Roman building by itself over there in the school playing field across there in the rectory in fact everywhere I look archaeologists have found impressive Roman structures this could add up to be something very special looks like it's gonna be a hectic three days that is if I can ever get down again [Music] [Music] [Music] Casta is five miles west of Peterborough in Cambridgeshire [Music] nearly 2000 years ago it was right next to the important Roman town of Dura breve I unless than a mile from urban street a major Roman Road that's still visible from the air today and over the last 400 years antiquarians archaeologists and even grave diggers have been discovering nuggets of caster's intriguing past you've been here before haven't you you're an old friend of William and his gravediggers yes I used to look after the archeology in this area so yes I know William well why why don't you keep coming here well if Mitama grave was dug a mass of Roman material would come out so you know it was obviously of interest and something that I ought to be concerned about this kind of stuff absolutely I'm just an enthusiastic amateur but even I can recognize distinctive rim and material like this ticular piece of Roman Chavez Ridge his appeal I rims hip across bricks what's this stuff you go here well about a couple of years ago the grave diggers called me to say that they thought they'd gone through a Roman building and digging the grave now obviously I wanted to have a look and they actually lured me into the grave which was which was pretty good nerving and peculiar but in the base of the grave it was obvious that they had in fact got something like a Roman floor and I could just make out this sort of thin band of Roman cement and I would dearly love to know what this was part of are you happy about us digging in your graveyard seem quite right no this area is not being dug before the no bodies bed here what this this strip along but even without any graves Geophysical still need to scan this narrow strip of churchyard before we open any trenches we're also surveying the playing field of the next-door school as this is where an intriguing 19th century antiquarian said he found some Roman Baths he was a man obsessed with casters archaeology and he's buried right here sacred to the memory of Edmund tool artist who died the 24th of December 18 vide roaded 46 47 in the 50 99th year of his age Edmund artists had a remarkable mix of talents a chocolate maker and a budding artist he wangled himself a job working for landed gentry in the castor area he then found he had a passion for archaeology and became a one-man time team digging all over the area and illustrating his efforts with beautiful drawings when there are slack periods during the work on the estate artist borrows labor from the estate and uses it for his excavations into archaeological sites and obviously he's going to have the blessing of the landowner because because he worked he's working for him yes that's right ideal or it absolutely yes they're wonderful stories for example if he makes great him through severe winters where all the workmen clear off because it's too cold but leave Edmund artists digging away to his heart's content so he's really a driven man actually artists also surveyed the whole village and published this map in 1828 it claims to show the location of lots of Roman buildings in and around the churchyard but antiquarians as we know can be a bit unreliable so we're going to test just how much of what artist says is here can actually be found on the ground it's obviously no commonality doing what he mapped and what's still here what you doing guys well what we're trying to do is look at first of all what artist mapped in the early nineteenth century and we've overlaid them against the the modern base map so it gets an idea of where these features were there are enough common features in there to be able to roughly work out where his buildings were and their orientation and sort of Roman buildings Roman buildings that's right now the problem comes when you add to that this overlay which is where various bits of what he found have been reactivated over years these bits in in yellow trying to match things together but it doesn't just looking at this I mean it seems to be more well you match at one site the other side's out you try and match on this side and this size all out so basically what just doesn't match this is pretty critical to sort out the orientation and alignment to these walls to understand what's here so what we gonna do so what we thought the only way to really do that and that's almost kind of throw away some of this stuff and draw a new map exactly create our own map so you have got quite a big job a new steward and Henry are going to make their own map of caster and mark on it the precise location of all the known archaeology a job made easier by the massive chunks of roman wall still visible in the lanes around the churchyard this another eye can see another large chunk out the country I mean this looks big part of a wall that was heading in that direction through thee through the churchyard but the mystery of what lies beneath caster can only be solved by digging so ignoring some underwhelming GF is so what are these colored blobs along here then Mick decides it's still worthwhile opening a trench close to where Ben was lowered into that grave and under the watchful eye of Phill and Raksha now digger gets trench number one under way see what we're getting is lots of reflections close to the surface John's a bit confused his radar was showing very little here but we've barely scratched the surface and we've got archaeology which could be that but this is reality this will tell us whether there is anything there is that Roman already pieces of Roman mosaic flooring called tessera are turning up yeah Williams said you get a story and the graves here finally John figures out where his GF is as God roll we've got the Roman filter on what you felt or the Roman oh yeah that imaginary filter would have to be pretty effective because when artists first came to castor he claimed to have found staggering amounts of Roman archaeology grenade burned artist comes here in the 1820s he refers to all standing in considerable high if we look at this which is a newspaper report from Edmund artists a 7th of December 1821 local papers the local paper Drake hard Stamford news and the report says on the north side of the church five rooms have been discovered the walls of which are beautifully painted and from ten to eleven feet high but the floors are all destroyed that's massively high isn't it so that's as high as the walls in here actually yeah back outside it's now raining cats and dogs on our archaeologists in trench one but despite the weather and the geophys results this trench is turning into something of a gold mine we got supplies we're getting the loads of finds out already this is just a selection there's this stuff which is kind of Saxo norman dates the 11th early 12th century remember the time the church was built so they're quite possibly robbing out the Roman buildings for stone to build the church and we've got our first bit of early middle Saxon handmade pottery five six seven st. sorry something like that what about this chunky stuff well we've got Roman as well there's some bits of Roman color-coated pottery which is late third fourth bit of a mosaic tester as well possibly Kraken selection of fines already it looks like there's something coming out of the trench film yeah this is the crucial thing Tony as Paul says we are beginning to get Saxon pottery these are the first levels that we're actually coming down on to they could include Saxon buildings here this is really rather extraordinary for us we always have a problem finding Saxon on time team to find it great but then define it on the start when we're looking for Roman he's a little bit more difficult what are we fine next probably snow afternoon of day one here at the fabulous castor parish church in Cambridgeshire where we're looking for what could be some very intriguing Roman buildings already films put in a trench over there on the far side of the graveyard and has come up with some Roman stuff but now we've moved on to the old rectory Stuart why are we here well it's clear that when artists produced the plan the site there were Roman buildings under the rectory garden and some excavations were conducted in the 1970s which confirmed little bits of wall through keyhole trenches so we know this stuff under here but the problem is these are only tiny little bits we don't know whether this range extended further that way or further that way and if you look at this lovely drawing that was done by artists at the time this is what we found down here you see the church in the background yeah I can see that just just through those trees there so you can see it's quite a long way down if we can find some of these features we can then get the orientation we can map them and we can add them to that map that we're creating the site to find out if this is one building or a series of buildings so we're going to open our second trench here in the Old Rectory garden and after some promising gia fears we've decided to put a third trench in this corner of the school field this is another spot that our antiquarian artists and later archeologists have explored and it seems to have been an artist favorite because he drew the remains of this impressive Roman bathhouse he reckoned he'd found here one thing about excavating here is that there's something very identifiable we can we can latch onto we know exactly where we are but it's never actually been excavated at all in in that direction so we like to get to any Roman remains as we start to get to grips with this site I'm getting a feeling that there's something special about caster goodies for archaeologists seem almost guaranteed here this is an amazingly impressive group of finds this note and all from Peter brood museum and all found at caster that's right yeah all from cars at the caster area what's particularly interesting is the collection of pottery here there's a wonderful hunt Cup for example so cool because it has greyhounds or dogs chasing here it comes up the hair lovely sinuous wonderful yes but its finds like this painted wall plaster that may be the key to unlocking the secrets of caster or this one which appears to have some sort of image of foliage on it we have sleeves being painted the whole impression is of a really really opulent building really not really building at artists marks lots of structures to the north of the church could this be a complex of swanky Roman buildings if so our trench in the Old Rectory garden could be right on top of one but if artist this plan is accurate it's the North graveyard where we really need to focus our efforts so Jim is now geophysical he's latched on to something and you've turned up just at the right time look at this we've got a really strong reflector here and it's at least five metres across well that's nothing like anything else in the churchyard is it no no up until now I mean there's been the odd reflection but they've looked like they could just be stone casket slab line grave but I mean this is much much bigger and it's about halfway up the slope just beyond where this messes well this is where the one building was meant to be from antiquarian records where they got this early mosaic it's possible Jim is detected this striking Roman mosaic floor that artists drew in his book of illustrations and if our antiquarian site plan is to be trusted it makes sense that geo fees are getting a strong signal here it's slow-going bit of a challenge I'll leave you to it thanks but over entrenched to at the Old Rectory there's already good Roman evidence turning up you got loads of Roman pottery you've got Roman tile you've got a tiny bit vessel glass yo yeah it's all Roman as far as I can tell and there's a couple of Roman coins as well which is a late third century of they're about I mean most of the pottery is kind of late 3rd to 4th century I mean any time within that span really well I mean it looks like a primary deposit it's stuff that you know it's found where it was dropped sort of thing it may not traveled far but I've on inkling that we might be looking at backfill down here yeah because the pottery is very well distributed through at the top it's very loose it's very homogenous thick deposit so where I think we may be looking at where artists died one whose holes really so Matt could be onto a posh artists building but once again it's chucking it down nevertheless Tracy's battling on in the school field searching for the Roman Baths just a pipe you've got in your trench or is it a wall it's neither Tony I mean this trench is turning into a bit of a nightmare at them why's that well we've got these little pockets of upstanding Roman archaeology all these little yellowy orange two patches down there this stretch here everywhere else officers just dug into it it doesn't look like I expected it to look to be honest I thought we more full of walls and it is that's what I was hoping for it does not yet know no sign of horses yeah but if he isn't a wall what is it this is looking like demolition material it may be that this is over the top of something it certainly has painted wall plaster in it but if we've got that painted plaster then we'd know it's Roman oh yeah and we've got these tiles and stuff so it looks like it's the bat it may be a mess but at least it's a Roman myth none of that nasty anglo-saxon stuff oh I like Saxon a day not as much as the Venerable Bede end of day one and as the rain at last gives way to sunshine something's going on behind the church that must mean something here than to rob and raid to use yeah what are you guys doing here all the excitement's on the far side of the church you're stuck around the back yeah but we've been looking all the Romans stuff built into the church the tile and the stonework and so on and the idea that comes from a huge Roman building that somewhere around here the back of the church artists had a theory that all the Roman buildings to the north of the church were one giant structure and Stephen thinks this is how it might have looked well it's a pretty enormous building Tony I mean from where we're standing to the far side a hundred and ten metres well if it's that big of an absolutely dwarfed the church wouldn't it yeah it would be 3 or 2 or 3 times bigger than the church so what could something that size actually be let's get back to artists he called it a Praetorian what's a Praetorian well in artists its turn is here we used to digging villas of fairly modest size and this was the biggest thing that he ever saw and ever dug and he gave the term Praetorian implying its size what does it mean probably means a headquarters for some state or military function have you Jeff is this area yeah Jimmy's done over half of the graveyard and to be honest it's been a nightmare absolute nightmare with all the graves it's been one of the most difficult surveys he's done the problem I've got is what we're not seeing in these results a massive Roman walls foundations or rooms the same way we didn't this morning you know in Phil's trench if modern technology doesn't see the archaeology that you think maybe they're an artist thought maybe they're the wanting to do is to put a trench in and look can we dig the church up we can dig in this church one day the dass has given a permission very excited we need to grab the charm that's so we've got just a single day to find this mysterious Roman Praetorian and not much evidence to go on we're gonna need some luck tomorrow beginning of day two here at the Church of sand kinda burger in castor and today we're faced with a big challenge we're looking for something that's been called a Praetorian which is a massive Roman building thought to lie somewhere in this graveyard but we've only been allowed one day to dig it and the second problem and hopefully our osteo archaeologist Jackie's going to be able to help us with this one is that nowadays a lot of people feel far more sensitive about the issue of human bones than at almost any other time in history so how are we going to respond to those sensitivities well the first thing obvious thing is that there's so many gray stones around here we're not gonna be able to dig this to the Machine we're gonna have to do everything by hand now there's no modern grades here obvi think we can say is either late 18th or 19th century so presumably there's gonna be bones under bones under bone exactly a lot of unmarked graves here and the other thing is that there will be an awful lot of material that sort of loose in the soil because in the past it's being disturbed when they've dug grave they will have hit graves that weren't marked and bones will have been disturbed disarticulated this articulated bones over phone gone robust about these things in the past as long as they didn't leave the consecrated ground of the graveyard and that's one of the things we have to make sure happens here that everything that we do goes back in the ground our efforts will be concentrated north of the church because that's where antiquarian Edmond artists marked a series of mysterious structures if we can confirm key parts of his plan then we could be on the way to getting our Praetorian a very special Roman building we've only got one day Ben what do you think our overall strategy should be well I think artist was very good archaeologist for his time but I'm not so confident about this sort of floating building here is it attached to the other buildings around it what alignment is it on we need a trench across there to try and tie it to the other buildings and sort out the alignment yeah then I think we need to do something similar in the west part of the churchyard just here yeah you can see that wall in the path yeah well a few years ago I cleaned up a bit of wall there and there's definitely something there but I didn't get much of a look at it it's that a big building range as artists depict it so Phil's on the move to this spot just north of the church to help Jackie dig a new trench in the graveyard and raksha's opening a trench as well in the area that Ben's interested in but why though might the Romans have chosen this corner of Britain to build a Praetorian from everything we know about this site it seems to have been in use in the second third and fourth centuries ad what else was going on around here in that time an awful lot I mean it's very important place in Roman Britain is it oh yeah definitely on the local Roman town you're a breather which is about a kilometer from here is immensely important it's 44 acres within the walled area but the significance of dura briefer is it's got 480 because if suburbs with it caster was right on the edge of dura provides vast industrial suburbs an area the size of Roman London and of course here we're very close to erm industry Talent with that that very important north-south roadway that's become the a one its along that route that some of the significant characters of Roman Britain with a pass speak like Hadrian and constant time and that hatreds particularly important yes or the fender exactly I mean Hadrian was very keen on draining places and we think that that he actually oversaw the improvement of the fens the drainage of parts of the fence or at least works to make it economically productive so he might actually have come here sure yes oh absolutely this is not somewhere that's insignificant or sort of tucked away this is somewhere that's sort of at the hub of of Roman Britain by the 3rd century caster was perfectly placed with dura breve eye on one side and the Imperial Fenland estates on the other it may have become the center of an economic boom area and that could be the reason why Praetorian was built here since yesterday evening we've been using this word Praetorian but quite honestly I still have no idea what it means well in a sense anyway lumbered by what artists oh how artists used the term pretoria and if we look at his book he shows for example all the villas that he excavated the ones here and here and here as comparatively small structures but look at the size of that structure which is the Praetorian this building it's been much much bigger so is he just using it to mean a big building he's that's exactly right he's simply saying this is a walloping big building I don't understand but it's clearly significant and probably more significant than the surrounding villas but there are things called Pretoria around the Roman Empire of course there are yeah I mean they're normally associated with the residences of state officials or even military officials the truth is though we still haven't a clue what you have to admit that's the case we know we've got something very big we know it's surrounded by other Roman buildings but I suppose a bit like artists were still struggling to put it in a sort of context a framework we're still looking to clues still looking for clues meanwhile down in the school field what measurement do we have Stuart has mysteriously changed into period costume six meters 60 Stuart you look magnificent look at this look at the Colin Firth of time see what exactly is it though that you're doing what we're trying to do is get back into the mindset of artists when we mapped this site in the early 19th century so you are our artist that's me absolutely and what I'm going to do is to get myself back into his mindset and the problems he would have had linking all together all these bits of Roman finds and trenches into an existing map so I'm good to try and do exactly the same with a modern-day existing map but using the equipment that he would have available something like a plain table the site rule probably was magnifying glass I say going a bit and various bits bouts of surveying equipment to see how easy or how difficult of what problems he would have encountered doing it but you on your own are you hang on a minute here is Matt your long suffering servant sir apart with which I empathize somewhat what are you gonna be well all the measuring was done with these chains because we use these to measure across the fields there's lots of running around cross the bogs and stuff so we're basically doing whatever Stuart tells me to do he's officially my chain man that is the term would have been used for for the role that matt has stuart and matt go to work antiquarian style the other corner please hello Phil how's it going Phil and Jackie are searching for a structure with a mosaic floor that artist claimed was under the graveyard we do actually have a piece of the floor itself if you turn that over you can see that Matt is actually made of one two three four five individual Tesori all mortar together patch the surface that they would have walked on looks a nice nice piece but we've also got the walls as well because we cluster wall plaster in red and a sort of gray green as well so with a bit of luck if we carry on down we should get the floor and there may be the walls without disturbing the grace that would be a great relief to all of us with over 20,000 burials in this churchyard it's not gonna be easy finding any evidence for our Praetorian but in the rectory garden trench which phase now taken over from matt we may be on to something well I seem to have this surface it's got a few tesserae in it but it's very peppery and they're not very good but you've got archaeology oh yes definitely I think you're looking now that's what's interesting because where I am I've got nothing I've got a great big rectangular hole with no archeology in it and my only explanation for that can be that this is where artists shoved his trench and he basically took everything away with him and therefore that's why we've got this line along here which I think's an opt-out wall but what I need to do is find a depth for this because I'm hoping that he left something at the bottom like a hyper core system or something a bit more today yeah so some good news faze trench may have a Roman structure but there's still no sign of these massive walls were hoping for [Music] everywhere on this side we seem to be following in the footsteps of this chap artists some of us quite literally I need some measurements from this line now so I can put them on the drawing oh excuse me excuse me your pardon I think the pegs come out who put the peg in Matthew sorry sir I went up and again that's your wages docked yes mr. Ranger Luke's the rectory guard and next Matthew and then you say mr. Ainsworth down at Tracy's trench we're working in an area where artists drew this illustration of his Roman bathhouse excavation so have you got on then Tracy well we're getting there and they've got war something's showing there which she didn't have before and we have a sheet that's lovely it's got herringbone wool they're forming one side and another one on this side and it's it's forming a channel running up here to the remnants of this larger wall here this has been rubbed off - okay well that all ties in nicely with bathhouse this doesn't it I mean he doesn't quite look like artists he's drawing does it there's a lot more stonework and stuff there I think the problem is we don't know how long this was open after artists excavated it out so you think people care Unger nicked it basically houses it yeah yeah yeah but I probably didn't look quite like that when artists discovered it anyway I mean I doubt very much whether all the walls with this uniform height for example the pillai again will this uniform height I think he got large chunks of this and has just helped us to sort of visualize the hole and I think I think there's a slight amount of embellishment going on here so we've got a sizable bathhouse but we don't yet know the relationship between it and what's up behind the church back in the graveyard Phill and Jackie are up against the clock digging carefully around lots of human bones they've now only a few hours left to get down to the floor of a potentially massive Roman structure we're definitely on the site of a building but of course what we're encountering as we go down is lots of human remains these individual burials are are they lots of bones on top of each other well we've had a lot of loose bones spread about turning up all the way across here but the difference here is you can see we've got about five skulls all dumped in together in one place so you think that that could be a gravedigger who's cleared earlier graves dug a pit chuck these in so that more people can be very yeah I mean basically it looks like a charnel pit but we do have a problem don't we that we've got lots of bones and lots of smashed mosaic but no structures whatsoever what we can be certain of is that in places the grave diggers have been through the Roman floor otherwise we wouldn't have this sort of material what we've got to hope is that they didn't destroy it all and that they've left some of it for us and that means digging deeper that means of digging deeper thankfully rakshasas trench at the western end of the graveyard looks to have got something more substantial this tripped in here to find what we thought was a wall coming through so we've got one wall here he's in running in that direction and then where John is we have the return and that's running in this direction so they should actually come out and converge around about here it's amazing isn't it this is the first time that we have seen anything like the kind of monumental walls that Edmund artists saw yeah this is that this is the only trench where we actually have huge walls mm-hmm and it's our failure so far to find other big walls that's becoming a major concern for all the wonderful Roman buildings artists said were here we hadn't actually found much yet Matt this is a turn-up for the books we usually put you through about 24 hours of Hell in these reenactments but it's only been three and you practically finished I mean once we got a system going between us rolling out the chains and back again it really really didn't take very long at all and what have you found out well we've got what one two three four five trenches open got some bits of war line exposed where the roads cut through what we actually found out is that we haven't got very many walls at all and if you look at what we've what we actually know about this site from modern methods these are excavations and the seventies and so on these are the only bits and black where bits of wall have been found so you know how do you how do you join all those together it's actually extremely difficult going to rely an awful lot on what artists put on his plans on what he drew I imagined that very soon we would be able to paint this incredibly large Roman building just behind us but I'm just starting to have my doubts beginning to disappear the trouble is on our Praetorian diagram we're only certain of the black bits all the other colors depend on our antiquarians observations so how reliable do we now think he is well very interesting thing to point out here with this wall line the artist mapped it's completely in different orientation to everything else which raises a doubt about the orientation of some of this theoretical stuff what about G Affairs have these lines been knocked out yeah well Johnny's team of done geophys and radar in all the failure in here and there's no other additional lines to add to that yeah I can be extremely skeptical about the work of antiquarians it's not always what it's cracked up to be I don't think that's fair in the case of artists I will defend him to the hilt in some places I mean that he's a fantastic draftsman his plans or in some cases backed up by beautiful general views and the details of where the walls go you always match the relevant plan especially as these red artists walls have often been confirmed by more modern excavation these are okay I'd endorse that as well having mapped this village and when he shows them on here in the similar techniques and you come up with similar answers in where he's position we've got it down in the bathhouse bottom we've got his plan and we beginning to find the walls all right say this red stuff is right Ben but there's still a lot of other colours here well I saw a wall fragment here as well and okay it was only part of a wall but it was a whacking great wall and the Romans didn't build bits of whacking great walls for no reason this substantial wall must be part of a bigger building so on one hand we've got this mega a building which should be casting its long shadow over us right now and on the other hand as far as things that we can actually 100% guarantee we've got there and we've got just one day left got some work tomorrow guys beginning of our final day here at castor in Cambridgeshire and we've just had some fantastic news the diocese have given us permission to dig in the graveyard down there for one final day although whether we'll find our big Roman building the praetorium is a huge question so we're spreading our bets today in the Old Rectory Garden where we're looking for what could be the East Wing of our Praetorian we now have two trenches but our main hopes lie with these trenches in the graveyard Rock showers at the western edge and fills just north of the church beneath these bones we're trying to find this roman structure marked as earth on the plan that artists drew it's here that he said he found a brightly colored mosaic floor well you know how I said I was getting a lot more building material and big blocks of Tessera oh wow now I'm getting lots of P grit which is coming this fine grit and look what it's coming down onto it looks very like a flaw and this is an integer burial that's myung directly on top of it rather look at all that is good stuff blimey we could be just inches away from finally getting evidence of a big Roman structure and crucially it's slap-bang in the middle of our Praetorian plan back in the Old Rectory garden phase getting really stuck in and the sweat and graft is starting to pay off hi there Fay cool this looks a bit different than yesterday your well down fantastically we've got a huge great big section of the big Roman walls now yeah we shadowed up and we're a bit worried yesterday about the sort of relative heights of all this I mean there's a there's a surface very much higher than the Roman wall you can see where artists put his trench which is basically this lying down in this section here and I actually think that level there is where he was standing which is why it's so complete footprints boots did he have this is a wonderfully complex trench isn't it you can see where artist was actually digging for the first time and try and sort of understand how we unpick the site and how hey so this is actually a fascinating train and it's also a very significant chunk of walling on the east and side of what we think is one single enormous building phase discovery of this massive Roman wall previously dug by artists is a really good sign maybe we can rely on our antiquarian after all meanwhile there's breaking news from the graveyard we've spent the last 36 hours poking around in this graveyard trying to get permission to dig it getting permissions to dig it then finding nothing but Roman rubble and a tumble of old bones but a last feel we've got something exciting and we we have got artists floor look if you look down between that pair of legs you can see a mosaic floor actually in sit you smiling with it I've really excited about this if artists are right about this he might be right about the praetorium yesterday I think you were a little bit disappointed with the attitude of some of our archaeologists it was slightly rubbishing the eyes when I was cause pretory means a lot to a pass I mean I've got my Greek New Testament here the word is used Joey here we are they took Jesus from the house of Caiaphas estou Praetorian to the praetorium in asks his day he would have heard the word Pytor and when he went to church because that word used to describe him where Jesus was arraigned in front of Pontius Pilate so he was tried in Pretoria Toria but going I was going to say this is so important to what we're trying to do we've now got the floor you can actually begin to see some sort of an alignment on the tesserae we might be able to actually say exactly what the anointment of my building was but it tells us more than just the alignment doesn't it well the scale of the thing which he insisted was a private or a big official palatial type of building finally our efforts in the graveyard are being rewarded if you take off the more conjectural parts and the work of mapping our site is nearly done to everything we've looked at so far has been on that on a flat plan hasn't it you know I can see here you've had a new dimension what you actually trying to do well Henry's 3d map of a Pretoria MS still partly based on conjecture but there's one feature that stands out we're on the edge of a valley slope here aren't with a bit the buildings the structures are on the skyline up there and the bathhouse is down on the lower slopes towards the river below and if you were approaching the site from from down here then whatever was up on the hill whether it be one big structure or lots of other structures it's actually on the skyline are actually quite impressive wouldn't it whatever is up that's gonna be really visually stunning back outside in our other graveyard trench rat Charles found something stunning as well Raksha this is awesome I love this fantastic raksha's revealed a huge section of wall and a step foundation the classic herringbone style shows that this is definitely Roman people were bit skeptical yesterday I talked about finding this big herringbone wall and I suspect that people didn't quite believe we did kind of think that you're going slightly crazy but just to prove that you were right as always we carried on down and know behold here it is as you can see there's this huge wall coming through we have this step foundation so what does this tell us Ben about the significance for Hill building does it add to our picture of the building well this looks remarkably similar to what was found on the other side of the church in the 50s yes I remember that I've seen photographs yeah it's on a similar line and he found step foundations like this this is a photo of those step foundations excavated at castor in the 1950s they're more than a hundred metres away from our trench but they're virtually identical to those found by raksha so I think we're looking at something that was constructed at the same time basic and probably the same building one large building rather than settles well you have to say same construction techniques on a similar sort of limiting dimensions exactly so suddenly we've got two bits of building both of which have steps and both of which we think a line on this Stoke slope so again that's pretty exciting stuff I think we've been walking across the floor of a remand buildings been here for nearly 2,000 years just astonishing and as the last few hours of our diggit cast to tick by the news just gets better and better so what's the story of this trans info basically we have a Roman building and actually down there we've got a room with what looks like hyper core system so is this stuff that artist found that we've confirmed well artists did map on some walls he did suggest there's a hyper core system there but the locations of the walls and the size of the walls aren't entirely right right so this is new in fact yeah it is and what's also news we've got that that higher level up there we've actually got a two level building so what did they do fill it in or cover it up and then build something on top oh they had stairs that took you up to another area right right right a building on two levels makes sense because the Romans had to factor in the slope of a hill here in the Old Rectory garden and on the western side of the church down at Tracy's trench to the south our excavation of the Roman Baths is coming to an end and the finds are telling a good story well I've got a couple the selection of finds here this one's from Tracy's trench right down the south end of this site and this is some of the stuff that's been coming out a face trench which is right over the north end of the side now the stuff from Tracy strange I'm afraid to me looks like generic issue Roman pottery difference is having quite marked differences actually the bulk of the material from this trench comes from an earlier period second into third like this large shirt here and these assured Tsar beakers very typically local beakers and it makes a real contrast from the southern part of the site to the northern part of the site where you've got essentially a third and fourth century assemblage so caster has to clear roman phases which means the baths and the south end of the site will almost certainly built an earlier date than the big building up on the hill where fills now finished in the graveyard you got to be pleased with that mosaic yeah Tony but I think I'm pretty more pleased about the probable wall well we have another wall oh you know you can't actually see the wall but she looks disarticulated pieces of bone down there well when we actually got down to the edge here I totally missed I wonder if it could be a rob war so I thought it meself ah I'll get Henry to plot out the position artists is building on the ground from the mapping so that's what he's done one corner of the building probable building is over there red pegs over there yeah yeah that's one corner there yeah and then you see those red pegs there between the two gravestones over there it's truth all the way over here yeah but all this is one building know that when you loan up over there give or take a meet or allowing for the scale it puts the wall lowing straight through here not only that the alignment of the Atari is just slightly skewed round to the alignment of the church and that's exactly what the Tesori and the plan do exactly the same so regardless of what might be elsewhere we know that there was a massive construction here so it looks as though artist was right after all well it looks like he doesn't it from what we can see yeah yeah after a roller coaster three days here at caster just what have we learned then how do you think the Praetorian theory is holding up now pretty well it's not a villa villas are surrounded by farming estates they've got ancillary buildings have got farm buildings barns workers housing there's nothing like that here and what else is it it's a grand grand building what do we think this building was for well again let's just return to admin artists he first termed it the praetorium which would mean to him an official residence perhaps of an official linked with the state and that's exactly what it is how do you feel about artists now well artists and his plans still live yeah that's absolutely the way we have tested his plans we found them to be right and the other wonderful thing is of course they're very very beautiful it is his impressions his general views are gorgeous they're pretty as well as being informative everybody likes something to be pretty as well as functional like my hat [Music] the massive roman wall that raksha found at the western end of the brave' yard nearly 2 meters wide was built to support a building possibly 3 stories high and at an extrordinary a hundred and ten meters in length this is the largest roman building time team has ever excavated it would have had a vast red tiled roof and bright whitewashed walls a truly astonishing structure Mick I can't remember another dig quite like this one it's been fantastic to be able to dig in the church I wasn't it absolutely fantastic three days ago I don't think any of us could have dreamt of what we got absolutely not and this is so exciting to find this mosaic here underneath these bodies we've got artists telling the truth that's a real thing the praetorium exists in Mike Mike wonderful [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 333,807

Rating: 4.8589802 out of 5

Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, trench warfare, time team full episodes, time team special, time team specials full episodes, tony robinson documentary, tony robinson motivational speaker, tony robinson worst jobs in history, tony robinson walking through history, tony robinson time team

Id: 0yx5slLnMrQ

Length: 47min 48sec (2868 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 24 2019