- [Presenter] This channel is part of the HistoryHit Network. Stick around to find out more. (soft horn music) (dramatic music) - According to the
ancient tales of Ulster, King Conor had three palaces
at a place called Emain Macha. Well, this is Emain Macha, and massive traces of ancient
settlements have been found on that hilltop over there, and on top of another hill over there, but no one's yet had a chance
to look at the middle hill. "Time Team" have got just three days. Are we gonna find King
Conor's third palace? (adventurous music) You started then, Phil? - [Phil] Just about, Tony, yeah. - One of the main reasons
for excavating here is that this area features
in a famous collection of Irish stories called, "The Tain." Mate, I found this bit in "The Tain" that says, "Conor's
household was very handsome. He had three houses, the Red
Branch, the Twinkling Hoard, and the Ruddy Branch." - Yeah. - And this place is called? - Griever over the Red Branch. - Yeah. - So are we gonna find a palace here? - Well, we're going to try,
and have a good look for one. - There are marks on
the air pictures here, aren't there?
- There are, yes. - [Mick] Which is why we've
decided to go for this. I mean, there's a couple
of parallel lines, - Yeah.
- which look archeological, don't they?
- They do. And they seem to be part of
some big landscape feature that splits the whole
Navan area north-south for a distance of maybe half a kilometer. - Yeah. - So, it doesn't line up with
any modern landscape features. It doesn't seem to be a road. It's not going anywhere in particular. So it seems to be something ancient. - [Tony] These are the faint crop marks showing on the aerial pictures, which give us a good archeological
reason for digging here. They appear to be about 30 meters long, and could be parallel ditches, or possibly a palisaded
entrance to a settlement. - I mean, that rather implies a palace or something like that, doesn't it? I mean, I thought initially, we perhaps ought to be up on
the hill at the top there, but it's actually too sharp a feature. So, they're not likely to have built up there.
- Yeah, it seems to be. The slopes are too steep on either side.
- Yeah, yeah. - [Chris] But the area of Creeveroe extends beyond the hill itself into this flat land we're working, right? - Well, this is a much better
platform here, isn't it? With this, where we're
opening the trench up now. - And we're, soon as we get that- - [Tony] We can't be sure which period stories like "The Tain" relate to, as they were passed down
through the centuries by word of mouth before being written
down for the first time around the seventh or eighth centuries AD. - Well that's a big baby.
- Do you think it's just coincidence that
this place is called Red Branch and that you've got the
Red Branch in "The Tain?" - Well, it's obviously not coincidence. There's some connection. There's some connection, but
how far back it would go, I wouldn't like to say.
- Well, that's what we hope this trench will produce. - [Tony] Or do you think some
romantic middle-aged monk might've thought, "Oh,
well, this is likely to be the place where the Red Branch was, so we'll call it the Red Branch"? - I think it's very possible. - Our field at Creeveroe is situated here, in the middle of a
massive late Bronze Age, early Iron Age landscape at Navan, just outside Armagh in northern Ireland. And the discovery of the
two big hilltop settlements, Haughey's Fort and Navan Fort, which date from 1100 BC to 94
BC, have prompted speculation that these could be two of the palaces featured in "The Tain." So, according to these stories, there was this ancient kingship
place called Emain Macha. - Yes.
- It was ruled over by King Conor, who had
this hero called Cuhullin. - Yes, and ruled all of what
is now Ulster, basically. - And Cuhullin went around killing virtually everybody he could. - Yes, this collection
of stories, "The Tain," demonstrates the kind
of cultural background of the people that lived here. It's the story of a gigantic
cattle raid from Connacht by the followers of Queen
Maeve, she's rather good. And it's an excuse for
recounting all the doings of these two heroes, and the ultimate victory of the Ulstermen. - Centered 'round this one place. It's a bit like
- That's right. - Camelot or Troy, isn't it? - Yes, except that Camelot
never really existed, whereas Emain Macha, as the royal, as possibly also the
religious capital of Ulster, very definitely did. And that's the fascinating thing about this collection of stories. Unlike something like
Homer's "Odyssey" and so on, it's much more tied in to
the existing landscape. We can go and try and
trace the various places that are mentioned in it. - So all this area around here is the territory of Emain Macha. - [Robin] That's right. - [Presenter] HistoryHit is like Netflix, just for history fans, with
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off their first three months. Just be sure to use the
code, "Odyssey" at checkout. - [Tony] Well, this weekend should provide a great opportunity to explore some of the
references in "The Tain," but is it realistic to
try and find a palace site in just three days? The "Time Team's" approach will be simply to concentrate on the
archeology that's there, to look for features that
might produce evidence of new settlements, but even if not, will fill in some of the gaps, and tell us more about what was happening in this enormous ritual landscape. - I was just looking at these
two photographs over here, and there's something quite
interesting showing up on these. There's Navan,
- Yeah. - [Stewart] 'cause it shows
up on there quite well. There's Haughey's Fort. But further west, can you see that circular
field pattern there? - Oh, yes.
- Just there, with a dark line coming out, which might be a continuation
of a circular enclosure, a bit like Haughey's Fort. You see this
- Oh yes. - dark line coming out?
- Just coming 'round, just a line like that. - [Stewart] Yeah, and I was looking at this other photograph of the same area. - [Carenza] Oh, that's
a lower level one, huh? - [Stewart] It is, yeah,
it's a lot clearer. Look, you can see, quite
dramatically there. - [Carenza] Oh gosh, yes. And you can see that it's,
you can see the shadows cast by the trees there from the low sun. So that looks as if that might
be a bank in the field there, casting a shadow that way as well.
- It does, doesn't it? Yeah.
- That looks really - Looks promising.
- rather promising, actually, doesn't it, yes. - Though, and there is this
reference to three hills in "The Tain," so maybe. - Yeah, so everyone's sort of thinking that the third one's
Creeveroe in the middle there, but maybe it's further out there. - Yeah, so they're equidistant. - [Tony] The geophysics team
will no doubt be delighted if we've got yet another site for them to deal with this weekend. In addition to surveying
our field at Creeveroe, they've been asked by Chris Lynn to do some work around Haughey's Fort, in the hope that we can learn more about some possible ditches, which are showing up as crop marks, and appear to be part of the defenses of the settlement.
- Still, we've got this landscape,
and, as if that wasn't enough, on this photo, we've got an
enclosure right out here, which is as far away from Haughey's Fort, the other side of Haughey's Fort, as Haughey's Fort is from Navan. So we've made the area sort
of twice as big as we were. - [Chris] That's right. - [Mick] Did you know
about that one, Chris? - Well, I mean, we know of it as a site, but we haven't seen any such
good air photographic evidence. - Right.
- And certainly, it's a site that, in the sort
of research that's gone on, we've queried, what is this? It's a place called Ballydoo. There's a Tamlaght place name near it, which suggests it might
have ecclesiastical - Oh, right.
- connotations. But it'll be very old. - [Mick] Yeah. - What's the tendency, sort of, for, I mean, Creeveroe, is that a name that's likely to have
been given to this area, bearing in mind the fact that
the knights of the Red Branch turn up in "The Tain," or is
it likely to be original names? It bothers me, this. - Well, you would like to think
that the name is a survival from the time when the tales-
- Hello Mick, this is Phil. You reading me, over?
- Oh, hang on, hang on. Phil, yeah, this Mick, over. - You patched it at a rather
exciting moment, over. - [Mick] Go on, mate.
What you got to tell us? - Got a Tievebulliagh ax. - Get out! What, a Neolithic ax? - [Phil] The best! - It's all Neolithic, I told you. It's all Neolithic.
- Crikey. - Yeah, yeah.
- Come on, what's your reaction to that then? - Super. - We're just looking at each other here, and Chris has just said, "Super," over. What sort of condition is it in? - It's superbly ground. I mean, there's no evidence
of the actual flaking left. And there's a fairly substantial chunk missing out of the blade, so I guess that's why
they threw it away, over. - [Tony] The "Time Team"
are clearly excited because this is an object which you just don't find every day. But this stone ax comes
from the Neolithic period, which is at least a thousand years before the late Bronze Age, early Iron Age period we're interested in, the era when we think Conor's
palaces may have existed. What's more, the ax was only
found in the top soil here, so it doesn't necessarily mean that the feature we're
investigating at Creeveroe will turn out to be Neolithic in date. Nevertheless, the "Time Team" still feel it's a significant find, why? - People were able to sort
of reinvest these monuments and each new age, each new generation, continued to resanctify them and do their own thing inside them. And it's only logical to presume that this sacred landscape had
its origin in the Neolithic. It's another, yeah.
- Then the other thing, I mean, in Wessex, you get these huge,
Neolithic, sacred landscapes with everything we've got here, basically. - Yeah. - So the story could've been Celtic people moving into an earlier ritual. - Yeah, and I don't think
people necessarily move in. I mean, if you you've got a landscape that might be Neolithic and Bronze Age, which goes on being
used into the Iron Age, goes on being used until- - And then Saint Patrick arrives. - And then Saint Patrick arrives. - And it still goes on being used. - And Armagh becomes the cathedral, and it's just a logical, ritual, - Progression.
- ceremonial center, yeah. - I'm just so jealous of Philip. I always wanted to find a ground stone ax. - [Tony] Sometimes at first, I must admit, I find it difficult to
be quite so enthusiastic about a lump of stone like this. Although, once it's cleaned up and Victor's finished with
it, it's easier to appreciate that it's a valuable piece
of archeological evidence. But anyway, time for lunch, and I'm keen to get the
discussion back to palaces, and the idea that
literature like "The Tain" can be useful to archeology. - The tales really give
you a hint of the culture, the philosophy, and the life that lies behind the archeology, which, again, the archeology can never do. - And I think it's difficult
to treat this material as a documentary source. It's certainly not history. It's not pretending to be. - No, but-
- I think that we're looking for a settlement because it says there's a king's palace in that book at that point. I think that's very dangerous to try and constrain the archeology into finding what we're
specifically looking for. We've just gotta look at what's there, and try and understand it, against whatever evidence we
have for making sense of it. - Yeah, but nevertheless, in Homer, when he described the ancient
palace size of Mycenae, something like that did turn up. - Yeah, but the problem
with that sort of thing is that then conditioned Schliemann to go and just dig up what was in Homer. And he smashes through all
sorts of other material that he's not interested in, to try and relate the
stories to the archeology. It would've been better to do
the archeology independently. - [Tony] At the Navan Centre, which is our base for the weekend, the public can see an interpretation of the archeology discovered here so far. In particular, the complicated
sequence of occupation, which has been discovered
under the mound at Navan Fort. Here, you can see the
evidence for a whole series of large round houses, which
were built one after the other. - These houses had large enclosures attached to the northern sides, and they were approached
by palisaded droveways. And they seem to have
extended from about 350 BC down to 94 BC. - [Tony] Could these Bronze
Age and Iron Age houses have been the palaces
of the kings of Ulster? Well, certainly, some of the finds suggest that this was an
important place during this time. - That's the skull of a Barbary ape, which seems to have
been brought to the site in the Iron Age. And it must have come
from the Mediterranean, and proves that the occupants
of the site at that time were of such high prestige
that they were getting gifts, in fact, fit for a king, being brought from as far away
as the Mediterranean lands. - So, all of these things
were excavated from here. And we're digging just across
this hill here, at Creeveroe. - Phil! This here's Ted Laughrin,
he's a local farmer. - How do you do?
- Hello fellas. - He's anxious to meet you. I wanted to see how you
were getting on, really, 'cause I haven't seen the ax. I haven't been here since this morning. - Right, well, things are
looking pretty good now. See, we got these, nice linear feature, running right the way across the site. That's the thing that they picked up on the geophysic.
- Oh, right. - And they, the fills, we
got two different fills. We got this nice stone-free material running along this side. And then on that side of the ditch, we got quite the stoney fill. - Yeah. - So it's, that one is
resolving itself quite nicely. - And what sort of finds
have come out of this? - Not a lot at the minute. I mean, we're still plenty high enough. - [Mick] Yeah, I mean, this
looks lovely soil to me. - [Ted] It's a very productive soil. - Yeah, I mean, this is what, limestone? - Limestone, yes. - Yeah. - You'll get a lot of that
in this area, like I said. The country is just peppered with limestone.
- Right. - [Mick] Yeah, it's almost as
if they've gone for this area because it's good land.
- Oh yes, no question. They would've chosen
this area deliberately because of the productive
quality of the soil. - [Mick] Yeah. - And then, originally, it would've been in the church hands, and any ground that was in church hands was always well looked after. - Right.
(Phil and Mick laugh) - That's good. - Any route, yeah, come and
have a look at the other trench. - Yeah, let's join the crew.
- It's very similar, actually. - Yeah? - [Tony] In both of our trenches here, we found evidence of what
appear to be parallel ditches. But at this stage, it's too
early to say what they might be. Curiously though, this second trench has started producing finds
associated with metal working. - [Mick] That's a nice find. - [Phil] See, that's the
bottom of the furnace. - Oh, one of these blooms.
- Yeah. - [Mick] Oh, that's good, isn't it? - [Phil] Yes it is, indeed. - But we've got no idea of
knowing the date of this, although, except presumably,
it's not recent, is it? It's not gonna be in the
last couple hundred years. - Oh God, no. Shouldn't hope so. - Yeah.
- No. - And this pick with nobbles on there.
- Yeah. - [Tony] So the mystery continues in our two trenches at Creeveroe, while at Haughey's Fort, which is the field on top
of the hill in the distance, we now have a new excavation underway. It's to test our geophysics results. These show what might be
the remains of a gateway, linking the Fort with
another contemporary monument in this landscape, a Bronze
Age sacrificial pool, rather strangely named,
the King's Stables. - [Mick] Have you got anything
out of this yet, you chaps? Anything coming out?
- No, there's nothing come out at the moment. - No flints or anything like that? - No, we have one piece of flint, but it's natural flint, at
the moment, that's come out. - Right, right. So we've obviously gotta go quite a lot deeper
- We've gotta, I'm afraid, bash on it a little.
- to get down there, yeah. - [Tony] The geophysics
team have moved on, and are now busy surveying
the site at Ballydoo that was spotted by Stewart, and they hope to have some
results for us tomorrow. From the air, it's easy to
see the C-shaped field hedge that seems to continue as an earthwork, forming a possible enclosure like this. Is this our third palace settlement? Well, hopefully, we'll find out tomorrow, but having chosen to work here as well, it does mean that we're now stretched between Ballydoo and
Navan, over a mile away. - [Mick] You can handle the
two trenches at Creeveroe, right, Phil?
- Yeah. It's a lot of work you're manning up, (chuckling) but carry on here. - This is digging there, right? - Oh, fair enough. - You're not gonna just not work at all. - It's the end of day
one, and as you can see, there's this vast amount of things which we could possibly do. Everyone seems really exhausted, and a bit dispirited, quite honestly. I think it's something to do with the fact this is a massive site. It's by far the biggest thing that "Time Team's" ever had to tackle. Just getting from over here to over there seems to take half the day. And so it's very difficult to know what everyone else is doing. And there's all these
little bits of evidence which are like bits of a
jigsaw that don't fit together. I think I'm gonna suggest pretty soon that we have a bit of a breather, and think about it tomorrow morning, 'cause this great bit
in "The Tain" that says, "The men of Ulster were with
Conor in Emain Macha one time, drinking from a big vat. It could hold 100 measures
of coal-black drink, enough to fill all the men for the whole evening at one sitting." I think I'm gonna suggest that we try a bit of
that coal-black drink. See you after the break. (dramatic music) Day two, and the first
excitement of the day comes from our new site at Ballydoo, where the geophysics team
have found clear evidence of a ditch, which is following
the line of the earthwork first spotted by Stewart. - [Chris] So in fact, basically,
our results are fitting in with the crop mark evidence, and also completing the
circuit, we think, as well. - [Mick] And this stuff here? - Well, that's the very- - Is that this mound? - It is this mound. - You see, kinda, there's
quite an obvious lump there as well.
- Yeah, you see, I was- - And the end there.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - This almost looks
like a plowed-out barrel or something like that.
- Yeah. I mean, I thought that was natural when we came in the field. - Well, it might be, right?
- May well be, but the thing is, it is situated
right in the enclosures. - I mean, I think you see that
the possibility with this is that it might be the
third site in this line. - My third palace? - Well, could be. I mean, and even if it isn't, it's another part of
this complex landscape. It might be contemporary Navan. I mean, it could be another fort, it could be another
enclosure of some sort. But this looks too important
to just walk away from there. - Well, it's completely
unexpected, I think. - Where would we dig the trench? I mean, as a punter, I must
say, I would want to have a look and see what was on that little knoll. - Well, but you see,
in terms of dating it, we might be better somewhere in the ditch, where there's gonna be
stratified stuff down below. And that will give us
the date it was built. If we could get a trench
somewhere that combined the two, - Yeah.
- that's the possibility. - Yeah.
- But in a way, we need the resistance done first, so that we can see how that fits in. Hang on, I've got one as well. - So, if this turned out to, this could turn out to be
the third hill, couldn't it? - Try this one here, Tony.
- So, - [Mick] Look this is- - [Tony] Oh, that's far too
complicated for me, all right. - [Mick] Well, it's
nice and colored though. You see, there's Navan. - [Tony] Yeah. - [Mick] There's Creeveroe
that we're digging up. There's Haughey's Fort. - Yeah.
- And there's this one. - [Tony] So, maybe this is nothing, and it's just called Red Branch because someone at some later date thought that it might
be the Red Branch hill, and those three would
actually be the hill. - That's the possibility. And there's nothing else
quite like this 'round here. It's not that we've
picked one of a selection. The next sort of things are miles away. - [Tony] So what we
need now is permission. - Morning!
- Good morning. The arrangement so far is
just for geophysics here, but how will the farmer feel about us digging a
large hole in his field? We've just geophysed the
field, or rather, Chris has. And as you can see, we've found this strange-looking
ditch thing around it, and also evidence of something
under that little lump just behind you there. And we wanted to ask you a big favor, which is, if we could dig an
exploratory ditch somewhere. - That's okay. No problem. - Okay. - Well, that was easy,
wasn't it? (all chuckle) - We thought you might
say no, with us coming in or something like that.
- Not even a struggle. - [Chris] Obviously, we'd fit it all in. - [Tony] By using a different
geophysical technique, called resistivity, targeted
on just one strip of the field, the geophysics team
hope to quickly produce a more detailed picture of
the archeology underground, which will help us put our trench in the best possible place. Robin, meanwhile, has gone
to the archbishop's library in Armagh, and is hoping
to find the origins of some of the place names we're
investigating this weekend. - [Librarian] Oh, I see, yes. It's got the site of Navan, basically. - This is 1819, isn't it? - Yeah. - Oh yes, "The ruins of Emain Macha were visible in O'Flaherty's
day, were spoken of by Colgan, and by Camden, who corrupts the name. There is a townland near the Navan hill, which is yet denominated Creeveroe." That's the earliest reference I've found to it being named as such, which, in English letters,
expresses the very sound designated in the Irish
characters, the Red Branch. And then he goes on, "There is an adjoining
townland called Trea." Now that is what I think we're looking at, as far as Haughey's Fort is concerned. "A mound which, in form,
resembles this figure, and is universally denominated,
the King's Stables." Well, that's interesting. So they're referring to the
mound as the King's Stables, rather than the artificial pond, which we're also looking at. - [Tony] Well, I suppose it is possible that a mistake could've
been made by someone while drawing up a new map of this area. And it would certainly explain
how the sacrificial pool, called the King's Stables,
got such a peculiar name. There are, in fact, two ritual
pools in this landscape. The second being Locknashard,
which is located here, and is associated with Navan Fort. Amazingly, it still survives, despite the quarrying around it. And it was here that four
bronze horns were found in the 1790s. This is a replica of one of them. And although it dates to the
Iron Age, it clearly shows how sophisticated bronze
working had become. - As you can see, it's beautifully made. Two tapering cylinders of bronze, carefully riveted together, with a beautiful semicircular curve. And then this great sort of end piece, decorated in the sort
of Celtic-Latin style, and also welded onto the end of the horn. - Which is, feel it. It's wafer thin. Thin, isn't it? That's all been beaten out into a very, very thin sheet of bronze, and then this beautiful
pattern beaten into it. - [Tony] Using the same
primitive technology, we thought it would be interesting
to put on a demonstration to show the kind of effort and skill that would've gone into
making something like this. However, Cormac, our bronzesmith, has complicated matters somewhat by deciding that he'll
only speak in Gaelic. - Yeah?
- Yeah. - And that's been? (Cormac speaking Gaelic) What? Now, hang on. (chuckles) (Cormac speaking Gaelic) - Hammer. - Ah, hammer. I was gonna say, I
think you understand me, but I don't seem to understand you. (Phil chuckles)
(Cormac speaking Gaelic) What are we making then? - It's a disc. - A disc?
- Uno disc, yeah. (Cormac speaking Gaelic) - [Phil] So basically then,
we're making this bit. - [Cormac] Uh-huh. - So how big's this gonna be? (Cormac speaking Gaelic) So are we gonna come, well, it's gotta be beaten
out quite a lot yet then. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of work, a lot of work. - [Phil] And that's
been put in the furnace? - [Cormac] Yeah. (speaking Gaelic) - What, just lay it in, do ya, or work it down in amongst the embers? Just stick it down in amongst the embers. - [Cormac] Yeah. (speaking Gaelic) - [Phil] Some good-ole
peat in there, is there? Well, I assume you're just saying stick that in amongst the embers, yeah. And how, will that take
long to heat back up again? - [Cormac] No, no, no. - [Phil] No? Pretty immediate, is it? - [Cormac] Yeah. That may be too much. - Ay? - [Cormac] So that'll
stop it. You can stop. - Oh, I can stop? - [Cormac] Yeah, yeah. (chuckles) (Cormac speaking Gaelic) - You're a local chap. Do
you understand what he says? - Not quite. - Not quite? (chuckles) - Not all the time. - Nah, well, I'm glad I'm not the only one who's in the dark about it,
that's for sure. (chuckles) Any route, let's see ya beat
out a bit more of it then. - [Tony] Cormac will
spend the rest of today beating the metal to the
right thickness and size, ready for the decoration
to be added tomorrow. (metal clanging) At our original site at Creeveroe, life is not only quieter,
but progress is faster. Trench one has nearly uncovered
the bottom of the ditch, and has started to
produce important finds. - Well, yeah, I mean there's
bone remains coming out. - Oh, yeah, really? - And we're also getting, I mean, very, most interesting of all is this piece of pottery.
- Ooh! - Yeah, it's a club rim,
coarse, hand made, I'm sure. - What sort of date you reckon for it? - Well, I mean, conventionally, we would probably put
this at late Bronze Age, as well as the bone.
- So, do you think this is domestic stuff? - Well, this looks like domestic debris that's found its way into the,
- So this is settlement rather than ritual here, yeah.
- Yeah, so, I mean, the material has found its way in from a settlement close by. - [Tony] This is a reconstruction
of that bit of pottery. It comes from a late
Bronze Age cooking pot, but it's very different to the finds coming out of our second
trench at Creeveroe. - There's another piece of pottery that's just come out of this other one. - Oh, ooh, that looks a - Very thin wall.
- slightly better-made piece than the other bit, doesn't it? - Yeah, it's substantially later than that one, unfortunately. That would probably mean that-
- So what sort of date do you reckon? - [Malachy] Well, I mean,
it could be averted rimware, which would mean that it's early Medieval. - [Tony] This bit of Medieval pottery would probably have come from
a pot that looks like this, but it means that we now have two pots coming from parallel ditches, which come from periods
almost 2,000 years apart. So even though we started work here first, we still have a mystery
on our hands at Creeveroe. However, the geophysics team
have extended their survey, and have a theory about
what might be happening. - This is where you're digging now. These black marks are where
the high readings came up and we put the trenches across there, but they reckon there
might be an enclosure which comes 'round like that. And they're particularly interested in this circular structure here, which is about 12 meters
across, and could be, well, either a ring ditch of a
burial mound or a hut circle. We could, perhaps, put
a trench across that. See if it's really there, see what it is. Also, if you can get
that measured out on the, - But that's this area here then. - I'll leave you with the
geophysics plot, okay? - We can't afford scissors. (chuckles) - [Tony] The workload for the geophysics team
this weekend is immense. While half of them have been
concentrating on Creeveroe, the rest have been hurrying to give us some resistance
data for Ballydoo. - We've surveyed the same
area with the resistance. And I mean, the really
exciting thing we get, seem to be getting a second ditch inside. - [Tony] That's even clearer than the first ditch, isn't it?
- Yes, I mean, it is very clear on that. So, I mean, if we have got two ditches, that will be really good. So, they've decided to put the trench at right angles to both of them. - [Tony] So we should get both ditches in the trench.
- Well, I hope we will. - [Tony] So with more geophysics
information to guide us, our first trench gets underway
at our new site, Ballydoo. Hopefully, this excavation will discover, not only the ditches,
but also dating evidence to prove that this
could've been a Bronze Age or Iron Age palace site. Meanwhile, on the next hill
along, at Haughey's Fort, our excavation has achieved
everything it set out to do. Not only has it found
evidence of the gateway linking Haughey's Fort
with the King's Stables, but we've also started to find bits of late Bronze Age pottery. - [Phil] Finishing our
first bits then, is it? - Yes. That's the first piece there.
- Bring it in. Oh wow. - [Dermot] That pottery is dating to about 1,000 to 1100 BC.
- Yeah. - [Dermot] That's the
typical blunt-shaped, - That is brilliant.
- coarse-round pottery from here.
- It's brilliant. - [Tony] This piece comes
from the rim of a pot which would've looked like this, and confirms that the gateway
is late Bronze Age in date, and contemporary with Haughey's Fort. - Here we have this sort
of coarse metal surface. - Yeah.
- So we think it's some sort of walkway. - [Phil] That's what we
were saying earlier on. And I, yeah. I mean, that looks very,
very good now, doesn't it? - Yes, uh-huh, and this, with the ditch starting determinate here. - Yeah. - And we are picking up something
else in the corner here, until that is removed. - And you got natural
again on the other side. - Yes, with a possible evidence of a small stakehole, posthole came up, and we have not fully excavated there, - Right.
- but we'll see that this here's delineating
the walkway itself in the trench. - [Phil] That's brilliant! - This will be great news for Chris because the discovery of a gateway here in the middle ditch of Haughey's Fort strengthens the idea of a connection with the sacrificial pool
at the King's Stables. So you reckon there would've been people standing around here and lobbing stuff? - Yeah, well, I think, if you're
going to make an offering, you want to make a bit of a
splash, and call attention to the fact that this
is what you're doing. - How do we know this is
Bronze Age though, Chris? - Well, we know because 20
years ago, we had an opportunity to do a little trial trench,
just in the edge of it. - [Mick] Right. - And we find Bronze Age sword molds, fragments of red deer antlers, masses of chopped twigs, the
facial part of a human skull, and the four quarters of a dog, which had evidently been thrown in intact. And this is a little trench,
which is only really about 1% of the whole area of the monument. We also got charcoal from
a little cross section through the bank around
the edge of the thing. - Right, right. - And that, again,
dated to about 1,000 BC. So, everything tied up
very, very neatly indeed. - So it suggests the hole
and the bank are being built round about that time.
- And you get the same conjunction of water and fire - That's right.
- that you get at Navan. - Yeah.
- Mm-hmm. - And if we're right, and
we've got a little exit to Haughey's Fort here,
- At Haughey's Fort, yeah. - [Tony] leading down to this pool, it really ties the Fort in with the pool. - [Robin] You can imagine
these processions coming out. - [Tony] So now, not only
can Victor recreate a picture of how this sacrificial pool
might've looked around 1100 BC, but he can also add a reconstruction of how one of the gateways could've looked to the people in the Bronze
Age as they passed through it on their way from Haughey's Fort to the King's Stables at
the bottom of the hill. Meanwhile, at our new site, Ballydoo, Stewart is excited about
a discovery he's made while surveying the
existing field boundary. - This field, isn't it? It gets narrower at the bottom. - Is this all stuff the farmers
hoiked outta the fields, presume, isn't it?
- Ah, yeah, well, this is really what I want you to look at before I get any further. Have you seen on this boulder here? - [Mick] Oh, crikey. - You seeing this? A very right, sweeping curve, coming to a right angle.
- Yeah, yeah. - [Stewart] It's mirrored
by this one here. And it's been broken off here. - [Mick] It has, yes. - [Stewart] How do you think about it as Prehistoric rock art? - [Mick] I mean- - It is a carved stone. - It's a carved stone, isn't it?
- Yes, yes. - I mean, that is incredible.
- There's no doubt. - I think, I mean, you're happy with it being a carved stone?
- Oh yes, yes. - There's no doubt about that, is there, Chris?
- It's not a Christian symbol of any description, is it? - [Chris] Not, at first glance, no, it doesn't remind me of anything at all. - [Stewart] It looks
Prehistoric, doesn't it? - [Mick] Now, that's incredible. - [Stewart] It's a lovely find. - [Mick] Significant, though,
Chris, or what do we do? - It must be significant, but, I mean, are we looking at a stone which is directly
associated with this site? - [Mick] Yeah. - Or is an older stone,
which the builders of this happened to incorporate in it? - Yeah, well, can I
give you my take on it? - Right, okay. - You see all this stone that
we're standing on just here? - [Chris] Yeah. - It just occurs here in that swathe.
- Yeah. - And I wondered if it's been plowed, and the farmer's got rid of it 'cause he's been plowing this field. - [Mick] He's plowing into something
- He just dumped it. - up here, perhaps.
- Yeah, something just over there. - [Chris] Some stone monument or a building.
- Yeah, like a stone monument, or a cairn, a burial mound, perhaps. He's just dumped it in the ditch. - It's a silly question, Stewart, but presume you've looked
through the rest, have you? - Well, this was the first thing I got to, and I got so, so excited about it that, I mean, realistically- - [Tony] This is the
location of Stewart's stone, and it's an indication that this could be a really ancient site. But as the end of the day approaches, we've yet further developments as a piece of metal is discovered in our trench here at Ballydoo. - Well, it might be the stone wall or stone revetting, isn't it? I mean, it looks as if
this might be a stone wall of a clay bank at the moment. - It's curved, you see that? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I think you can even sort
of, it goes in like that. - [Mick] Yeah, can you
clean that up a bit more so we can see?
- I would say, yeah. - I mean, you don't wanna
take anything out, do you? - I just, I wanna be very, very careful. - Is that a bit more of it there? - [Tony] This is clearly a job which will have to be left 'til tomorrow. All we have time to do
now is to take a look at the latest refined
geophysics results for Ballydoo, which seem to show
evidence of buildings here. - [Chris] I mean, this seems to be almost a hexagonal-shaped feature there. - [Stewart] Crikey, yeah. - We need to do some more processing. I've sort of highlighted it on there for those that don't believe
what we're pointing out. - [Tony] This hexagonal shape indicates that what we're unearthing here
might be a later settlement. And if that's the case,
then I've got to hope that tomorrow we can find an
Iron Age palace underneath. - Lot of features. And if we, we were talking earlier about some sort of ecclesiastical
or religious complex, perhaps early Christian,
then that sort of noise would probably fit with monastic enclosure or something like that. - There's usually a
mass of activity around, even buildings changing
site, things overlapping, and ditches, paved
areas, graves, anything. - Yeah, I mean, it's
another high-status site in a landscape full of high-status
sites of different dates. - Right, yeah.
- So it rather fills in the story, doesn't it? - And convincing.
- But the three big hills. - I was gonna say, you're after, I mean, the king's residence. - [Mick] Yes. - But it does show you that
the Irish loved finding bumps and doing things on top
of them, doesn't it? (all chuckle) - Should we go then?
- Christmas? - [Mick] Yeah, that's good. - So, end of day two, and the finish of what's
been a fantastic day. Still a lot to do tomorrow,
but everybody seems really up and only too keen to join
Tommy McCree for a ceili at his house to celebrate progress so far. (upbeat Gaelic folk music) (slow Gaelic folk music) I think we're gonna be
here for a few hours yet. See you after the break, slainte. (Robin wailing) (dramatic music) Day three, and while
Cormac prepares his furnace for a final day's bronze working, out at our original site, Creeveroe, there've been a few
developments to catch up on. Firstly, the news that both of the ditches are now thought to be of the same date. This ditch is essentially
Bronze Age or earlier, like the one parallel to it. But we got confused at one time,
and thought it was Medieval because we were pulling out Medieval finds when the dig got down to about here. And the reason is because
of all this black stuff. What happened was that the Medieval people dug a little pit or whatever, and appeared to have chucked
their waste stuff in here, which was why we were
getting Medieval finds out. But when we dug lower, we found the bottom edge
of this Medieval pit, and then the old ditch continued. So, the ditch itself is very, very old, and we were just confused by
this little black curve here. So that's that mystery solved, but it now seems we have a new problem, which stems from the fact that we have two sets
of geophysics results. One which shows two
so-called linear ditches, continuing to the bottom of this field, and another which shows
one ditch curving off around a possible settlement area. A decision has to be made quickly to work out how many
trenches we need to dig here to sort this out, but we have
disagreement in the camp. - I know that. - I take John's point, but I
suppose, on a broader scale, if I was going to sort of dig this area, I'd say, you put one
over the core settlement, and maybe put one over the- - Why, when we know that
the ditch is clearly on the magnetic, plot?
- This is dissent in the geophysics team.
- It is, it is. - We don't very get this, do we?
- No, what we're trying to do is save the archeologists work. One trench here, on this
putative settlement, will solve the question. The geophysics is clear. We've got two ditches
running across the field. The only difference is, the fill of the ditch at
this point is different. We think it's different because you've got
settlement at this point. - Yeah, I've got it. - So why put a trench down there? - Chris, can we borrow you for a minute? - I mean this is- - [Tony] Well, if we carry on like this, we won't have time to
dig any trenches at all. What does Chris Lynn think? - Well, yeah, I'm happy
that it's the same ditches. - Yeah, I mean, there's no
doubt it's the same ditches. - And whatever date they are here, they'll be the same date up there. - But weren't we just
digging a trench across there to confirm that they
were the same ditches? - But it's clear on the geophysics, mate. - Well, are you happy with that? - Yes, I'm happy with that. I mean, again, it's the
logistics of the last day. - [Tony] So at last, our
third trench at Creeveroe gets underway to investigate
the area geophysics believe might contain evidence of a settlement. Meanwhile, at our new site, Ballydoo, workers started to excavate
the mystery metal object. - Site and find.
- What is it? - What's coming up?
- Wow, we got this. - [Phil] Some sort of
a metal, an iron plate. - [Ted] Oh, I see, yes, yes, mate. - [Archeologist] Not sure what
it is, actually, but yeah. - [Phil] What we gotta do is we gotta clear away
all the spoil around it. - [Ted] Yes, I see. - [Phil] And we wanna see whether or not it's actually sitting
on top of the stones. If it's sitting on top of the stones, it could be quite recent,
and just moved its way down. But if it's actually buried in the stones, that's a lot more significant. - Could then get into
something quite ancient. - [Archeologist] Oh wow. - [Phil] Yeah. - [Tony] It's slow, delicate work, which means we'll have to wait a while before we know what this item is. But meanwhile, we have
another find in this trench. - Well, you got something interesting. - [Excavator] Yep, very interesting. - Oh wow. Here. What is it? Do you know? - [Excavator] It looks like lignite. - [Phil] Lignite? - [Excavator] Yep. - [Phil] What's lignite? What is it on? We don't get that 'round
where I come from. - [Excavator] Well, it's
a sort of a halfway house. It's almost a coal type. - [Phil] Yeah? - Stone.
- Yeah? - It was used quite a bit in
the early Christian period - Yeah? - in Ireland for bracelets and
rings and that type of thing. Well, it appears this is. - And you gotta, I mean, it occurs naturally
'round here does it? - [Excavator] Yes. - [Phil] Right. Does this stuff need
conserving, or does it? - [Excavator] No. - [Phil] It's perfectly robust
on its own right, is it? - [Excavator] Yes, yes, it's okay. - [Phil] That's good. - [Tony] Back at the Navan Centre, Cormac is making good progress too. He's thinned out the
bronze to the right size, and can now prepare to
add the Latin design. (soft folk music) The discovery of our
broken lignite bracelet in a good stratified context means that we can now date
our settlement at Ballydoo. This is a bracelet which
we know would've been worn around 800 to 1200 AD. So this changes everything. It looks like we've got an early
Christian site at Ballydoo. But I don't mind giving up
the idea of a palace here, if what we're finding
is equally as exciting. And it is, because
apparently, it's very rare to find an early Christian
settlement outside of Armagh, and even rarer to find
one we can excavate, because it doesn't have a church
or graveyard on top of it. So we must press on here,
and learn more about it, and hurry with our second trench, which is targeted at investigating
the hexagonal feature discovered by geophysics. Meanwhile, at Creeveroe,
our original site, we may have a Bronze Age
settlement after all. - Well, it's a bit unclear. It's got a nice line coming down, (shovel scraping) like that. And then, (shovel scraping) oh. That looks a bit - Possible posthole, yeah.
- postholey, doesn't it? That was, 'cause yeah, we've still got the edge of this feature - Coming through.
- coming back here, yeah. So we've got a line coming along, sort of like that, a possible posthole. I wonder if that might be - Another one?
- another posthole there that goes with the edge. It waves a bit there. - [Tony] So once again,
last minute excitement and a race against the
clock on the final day. But back at Ballydoo,
our early Christian site, the metal object has been
revealed, and it's a horse spur, and dates to the Medieval
period, about 1500 to 1600 AD. It doesn't help with
the dating of this site, but it's nonetheless a nice find that makes a change from
the usual bits of pot. - [Victor] Carefully. - [Tony] Meanwhile, our
second trench at Ballydoo is progressing nicely, despite
the occasional interruption. - [Malachy] A little bracelet
down in the other trench. - And does this have anything
to do with the Navan Fort? - Well, that's what we thought. That's why we came here to dig. And then all of a sudden,
it's a later site. It's an early Christian site. - My friend wants to
be an archeologist too. And she's from Kerry, County Murphy. - [Blonde Child] Could you
have any ideas for to give her? - [Brunette Child] Just
make sure you like muck. - [Malachy] Muck and worms. If you can stand the worms, you're okay. - I like worms. (all chuckle) - [Tony] Well, we could
certainly do with some help, because there's still lots to do. Phil's in a hurry to help with
the recovery of the rock art because he thinks he's
got to go and help Carenza with the excavation of the postholes. But the latest news from
Creeveroe isn't good. - Well, we have this sort of, this is supposed to be
where this hut circle was. We have this, no sign of
the hut circle at all. We have this long, linear
feature coming through that. We reckon it's a lazy bed. - [Phil] That's where they were digging for their taters, isn't it? - Yes, and we haven't
even found any potatoes. The postholes that you were
sent over to help us with, as you can see, they only
go down an inch, but- - [Phil] Well, you reckon
were the stones ripped out or something like that,
- I think so, yes. - weren't they?
- Yeah, quite. And we've had no finds out of it, apart from a little bit of glass. - Well, this is terrible news. No palace at Creeveroe either. But on a more positive note, Cormac has just about
finished the decorative disc. It's taken two days solid hard work just to make one piece
of the Iron Age horn. So considering the time and effort that would've gone into making the complete bronze instrument,
it seems hard to believe that people could then
have thrown it into a pond as a sacrifice. (bright folk music) (tools clanking) This disc, once it's polished up, will go on display here at the Centre. But as the end of the day approaches, it's time to review the archeology
discovered this weekend, beginning with our
original site at Creeveroe. So, all that massive debate this morning about where we should dig the trenches. - I think we took the wrong
option. We had five options, and the one we took has taken
us really no further forward. We haven't proved there
was any settlement. The pottery that came, the
domestic pottery we had that came outta that trench, has come from sort of one
small feature in the trench that's later than the ditch. We still-
- And remind me again, what was in the one
trench that we dug today? - (chuckles) a potato trench, a potato. - It's great. - Potato beds.
- It's very interesting. (all chuckle) - My sort of archeology.
- Shut up. (all laugh) It wasn't my idea. - [Tony] I shouldn't
really have a go at Carenza because this was one trench we had to dig. It could've been evidence
for Conor's palace. And we do have a real
success here at Creeveroe in trench one. It's given us the dating evidence, which tells us that these
ditches are contemporary with the other major monuments
in this ritual landscape. - [Mick] And it's, what is that? - There, you can see that
dark patch, just there. - [Mick] So it was already
beginning to silt up by the time the Bronze Age.
- Yeah, it was silted up, at least to here, and possibly, 'cause it's this lens shape, it looks as if it may have
been cut into the ditch when it's silted up to
perhaps that sort of level, and then cut into that.
- So that could be quite literal then, Chris, couldn't it? - But we got no pottery at all out of any of the rest of this, which is the same, in fact, as that ditch, where we've had no Bronze
Age pottery out of it. So, they're looking very similar, except in the history
of what happened to them after they were dug. - But I mean, this is great for us because this double ditch feature could've been relatively modern, - Yeah.
- Oh, yeah. - until just yesterday and today. - Yeah.
- So- - I keep hearing these
words, double ditch feature. Can we be a bit braver
about what that might mean? I mean, are we talking about a road with a ditch on each side,
or a fortification, or what? - I think more likely a sort
of so-called linear earthwork, with, let's say, we'll say a blank- - Looks like it's a landscape feature going across the landscape,
and probably enclosing an area, maybe separating off Navan from
this part of the landscape, maybe going around this boggy
area where King's Stables is. It's some sort of a big feature designed to mark up, divide up
the landscape, or enclose it, or maybe even keep
people out of bits of it. That's what we mean by that. And it's a double ditch feature
'cause it's got two ditches. (dramatic music) - Thanks to the geophysics work here, we know that these double ditches stretched across this field and beyond, although more work will be needed to find out where they stop. This is Victor's reconstruction
of the double ditches, based on the few other examples of this type of earthwork
in northern Ireland. Originally, it would've had
a slight bank in between, but it's likely that at Creeveroe, this has been plowed away. At our second site, Haughey's Fort, the work here today has
revealed more postholes, which run in a line
alongside the metal walkway. But our work here this weekend has been an evaluation exercise. And now that the gateway
has been discovered, a longer and fuller
excavation will be planned for later in the year. But what can we say about our early Christian
site at Ballydoo? Well, our first trench here
discovered the evidence for the bank and ditch, which would've enclosed the settlement. It also produced nice finds,
like this Medieval spur, which once would've looked like this. And of course, our dating
evidence, our lignite bracelet, came from this excavation too. But what about the other
trench dug here today? Why didn't we dig this middle bit? - Well, because the geophys
boys, they saw something else. And so we thought we'd hone in on that. And it appeared to be a
hexagonal sort of building. And what we did was we just
put a trench across it, and we've got part of the wall here. But the interesting feature of this is that there's a lot of occupation soil, just on the outside of it. And from this, we got a blue glass bead. - This. This, this, this, this. - That's the bead. - Isn't that wonderful? It kind of beats things like little bits
of pottery, doesn't it? You suddenly get an impression of a real human being
wearing something like this. - Well, that's locally made, again. - Is it? - Again, six, well, 600 year,
and about 900 or thereabouts. Ties in well with the lignite. - [Robin] Drop that at your pedal, mate. (all chuckle) - So, how would you
describe what we've found? - Well, I think you've found
what seems to be the edge of a very large and very
significant early Christian period, running into the Medieval period, site. I mean, it's 110 meters in diameter. And, I mean, that is absolutely enormous, compared to the usual
ring force of the period, which are sort of 30 to 40 meters. So, I mean, it is a site
of a man's prestige. - So it could be a palace, but it certainly doesn't belong to Conor. - Certainly, no, it
doesn't belong to Conor, although I'm sure that tales about Conor were current and were
told in a place like this, whether it was ecclesiastical
or secular at this time. (soft folk music) - The settlement we found evidence for could, of course, be secular, but given its position in an
area of religious significance, we feel it's more likely to
have been a monastic enclosure. This then, is Victor's reconstruction, based on the archeology
and geophysical evidence, informed by a knowledge of
other sites of this date. Of course, there's still
masses of work to be done here, as there is all across
this huge ritual landscape. I, for one, would love to
know what's under the mound in this field, and I'm
sure Stewart and Victor would like to know where the
rock carving originated from. Victor's tried to make some sense of it by interpreting it as a deer. And Mick's made the point
that future work here may still reveal a Prehistoric
site under the Christian one. So, all right, maybe we haven't found one of Conor's palaces,
but you never know. Maybe some 11th Century monk, when he was writing
his part of "The Tain," saw Navan mound, and saw Haughey's Fort, and saw some ruins here,
and that was the inspiration that led him to write
the part of the story that said that Conor had three palaces. You never know. (dramatic music)
