Time Team S15-E11 Mysteries of the Mosaic, Coberley, Gloucestershire

just under the surface of this field here in the Cotswolds light a complex of Roman buildings how do I know when you're just going to look around you I'm virtually tripping over lumps of masonry that are sticking out of the ground the whole place is strewn with bits of tile there's hundreds of coins and fragments of pottery and Tesser a found around here but the biggest clue to the presence of a Roman site of some scale and importance is this it's a mosaic even I know that and a very nice one too so what am i walking across is this a villa or a bathhouse or a temple and in an area that's crammed full of villa estates why are our archaeology is so excited about this one we'll know in three days we're back in the glorious Cotswolds this time just outside the village of Kabul II in Gloucestershire our site is in this twenty acre field flanked to the west by a small River running north-south and to the east by the main road that links cirencester with Cheltenham we've dug Roman sites in the Cotswolds several times before but we don't usually get stuck in quite this quickly Neil what's going on beginning of day one hundreds of people working we've already exposed to mosaic that's not what we do on time team yeah it's not typical is it but we only think we knew the mosaic was there the local archaeologist did a small dig in 2003 and found part of it so we're really mosaic there and extending out the plank on the walls the room the mosaic fits in and Anthony you're gonna help us make sense of the mosaic hopefully so what do you think of it at first glance well the motifs are pretty standard but it's interesting because I think it might be quite an early amazing mosaic specialists are always so laid back it's a mosaic yes I know it's amazing but doesn't want to be too excited - at the moment because it might not be very much of it apart from what we can see don't be loads John you'd own the doof is already unfortunately we haven't um G requests have done this and they've got some fantastic results as you can see look there's the cops behind us this looks like the villa complex here and all these trap ways and ditches beyond extending right across the field rather embarrassing question if we've already got the geophys why are you here well no alder crest did was a magnetic survey in the time available so what we want to do is actually a resistance because hopefully that will give us a clearer plan of the villa building itself but this is a done deal isn't it Neil we've got a villa we've got a mosaic lovely lovely we'll find a few walls go isn't amazing the Romans had underfloor heating and go home well not the way that you and John are both using the word villa you're assuming it's a villa aren't you because of the mosaic in the middle of the Cotswolds it's a villa do we actually know that I don't know that and there's some very unusual things on that geophysics I mean what will we strange trackways and roads all about that doesn't like typical filler to me then we've got the springs on either side unusual so don't just assume it's another Villa it's all too playful quite rightly Neil's not taking anything for granted so while John and his team start their resistance survey to try and locate the walls of our possible villa in the mosaic trench they're getting to grips with the dimensions and shape of the room this here presumably is the edge of the border and this is where the war starts yes and you see Phil that they've reused flu tiles because you can see the grooves on these Tesoro grooves to match the plaster to on the walls looking at that if that is the edge of the border there yeah that's about 60 centimeters what's it like at this edge oh yeah give or take that's 60 centimeters so it looks like we've got a consistent border of this red tile coming all the way around the outside well me the interesting thing will be if this is sixty centimeters going this way because it'll give us the orientation of the room if this is more than 60 centimeters and the mosaic goes that way and the mosaic is likely to be larger than we suspect and also feel the material you're standing on if we can excavate that and get some coins or pottery that'll give us a date when the building was knocked down where exactly I mean if we think that this is an early floor it'd be very very useful to know how long the room was in use and in fact when over use it must have been in very good condition when the building went out of use it's hardly decayed apart from where the plowed damage has got to it so quite pretty floor saying that a Salesman over recent years amateur archaeologists have recovered hundreds of finds from this field they provide intriguing clues to the history of our site well we've got you got quite a nice range of material here from tesserae from a mosaic box flue tiles indicating heated rooms stone roof tiles and then we've got a range of metal finds the guys who have been working the side of called it over 60 coins and they give us quite an interesting date range the earliest we've got actually dates from the very time of the conquest it's a copy of the coin a coin of the Emperor Claudius and we actually end with the very last coins that come into Roman Britain dated to about 402 lovely that's very nice we've got to brunch Ragman switch our late first early second century and a lovely little miniature fourth century bracelet it may be for a child or it could even be a little votive object so what all these finds tell us about our sight mark well certainly it looks from the finds that we've got so far that people have been living on this site since the beginning of the Roman period through to the end and probably just beyond the end back at the mosaic they don't have any dateable finds yet but Phil's been making serious headway helped by the fact it was partly uncovered in 2003 this mosaic is good isn't it's getting big about a minute it's getting better Tony we've got the room next door when it's got a mosaic as well oh I see yeah so is this earth in between is that the wall that's the wall between that room and that room it's not looking bad is it but it does raise a problem doesn't it how much of this mosaic are we gonna expose in our three days I mean take a look at this bit here you've got a beautiful petal thing with inside this roundel it looks so lovely this is irritating piece of earth just in one section of it I'd love to whip that off not for good archaeological reasons it would just be so lovely to see you well that one irritating little block of soil is gonna go Tony because that is actual a backfill from the other excavation so we can reveal that but where we're getting back to is just about the edge of where they got to when they when they stopped there do core it's all happening on day one you turn you back for one minute and another trench has gone in what's got into people guys you another trench in well you know I said the Reds was gonna provide a clear plan of the building as they always do yeah it hasn't it's just not working why well a lot of excuses I think the main reason is the archaeology is so shallow but I thought if something was close to the surface it would make it easier if here's a fine no we need a greater depth of soil so the electric currents can go in and actually sort out the rubble in the wall lines at the moment we're not succeeding so for the moment we're putting this trenching over this really clear response in the magnetics I'd like to guess it was sort of something like a plunge pool a sunken feature so basically you're saying it's the only thing you've been able to find so let's dig it well not only that Tony you know how important it is for us to excavate down to try and find out when this building was constructed now if we can dig up against an outside wall of the building we can dig down find out any pottery from the lower layers how do we know where the outside wall of the villa is no that is the line of the main villa building so that actually comes through at this point here yeah we were just solid estranged Tony but you can see where Phil is over there we've got a mosaic in a room now I reckon is pretty a corridor coming out about where you're standing so we could find out whether this is the front corridor or the back corridor that's gonna be important fact you're working at are planning the villa and digging down will give us this crucial dating evidence look at this blob in a very vague bit of geophysics if that is a plunge pool I'll eat my shoe so a second trench is going in to locate John sunken feature and find what Neil hopes will be an exterior wall in the incident room we're looking at mosaics from other sites nearby they were obviously designed to be decorative but there are individual symbols on all these floors that actually mean something this one comes from great Whitcomb it's a third century mosaic and that's just a few miles away oh yes I'm five miles away from here this device is called a cancerous what's that well the cancerous was a wine mixing jar and at your evening feasts you would mix your wine with water and dole it out to your guests but the cancerous is also symbolic of Bacchus the god of wine and entertainment and also god of rebirth oh so it would have also had a much deeper meaning yes mm-hmm this device is called the Gordian knot the unfathomable not representing the twists and turns of fate and another good luck device is the Medusa head that's amazing because I find Medusa a very threatening image yes but to the ancient world the snakes were friends and the point of Medusa was that Medusa turned evil to stone and protected the household any of these things we may well be lucky enough to find if you want to find out more about mosaics you can log on to our web site at the usual address it's mid-afternoon a quick tea break gives me a chance to have a natter with Neil and try to get a sense of the bigger picture earlier on you said to me ah this is a mysterious site there's lots of unanswered questions like what well a site of this complexity Tony you'd ask hundreds of questions but I guess you can actually sort of boil it down to two real points I mean function and chronology and so function is interesting because you know you can use sort of labels like Villa or temple or shrine but really they just cover up the fact what are people actually doing here I mean if it was a villa where they farmers or were they sort of aristocracy would have been seen dead out in a field and then in terms of chronology what we need to find out is yeah when was a building constructed how did it stay in use when was it demolished you know there's a really important questions that's very comprehensive and really cogent but I have to admit there's a tiny little bit of me that's thinking so what what can that tell us about the Roman occupation of southern Britain all I think actually tells you a lot toasts about wealth creation I mean the idea is the Cotswolds are wealthy in the late Roman period now is this because people are starting off income poor farms and the first and second centuries ad gradually and making some money then in the third and fourth centuries ad V okay let's spend their cash that buy hard-earned cash that our ancestors built up with mosaics and fancy houses or is it the case of actually coming in an early stage bringing money in from outside into the Cotswolds to build things and that tells you a lot about how Roman Britain actually functioned and where the money came from over in trench 1 Antony can now see enough of the mosaic for identify parts of it and more importantly work out a date look Helen we've got a cancerous oh yes you notice here we've got 2 handles this one with a snake's head and a broken one here what a pity we've lost snow stick yes the lease is enough there to show us what the would have been yes and here we've got a Gordian knot oh gosh it's simpler than the ones who you're looking at in the incident yes so what date do you think it is looking at the overall design with this grid of read the the poised squares of grey the mosaic is based on pink opus Signum oh now what's that it's its mortar with crushed I'll bound in to give it out it's strange I see and the fact that it has red borders which coming all the way around yeah in the Cotswolds is generally a sign of an early mosaic I would think that it was probably late 2nd century to 3rd century which would make it one of the earliest in the Cotswolds but could the construction of our villa predate the mosaic we still don't yet know the chronology of our building you see what those cars are up there in the fines tent that's the way I come into work in the morning and when I do all I can see here is a field just like any other field but down here you can see immediately there's this flat well-described plateau and it slopes away down to this little valley here well does that mean that this landscape has been deliberately sculptured there's absolutely no doubt about it you're quite right that area there has been leveled to take the structure and we've got this little valley which heads down to the river but the geophysics show that this entire valley has been framed if you like by this pair of massive ditches that come right up one where we're standing turns at the head of the valley and then run back down the other side why would you do that well exactly and what's really interesting is that towards that clump of nettles yeah we know that there's a spring there has been a spring there in asked and the fact that this valleys framed the spring at the head it does make you start to wonder whether there may be some kind of structure around the spring itself and we talking ritual we might be I mean you could envisage at least two contexts for structures here one would be a little spring head shrine the other if you've got a good force of water is a bathhouse if marks right and the lines running around the gully on the GF is a ditches enclosing a shrine spring or bathhouse then our site could have a religious dimension over in trench - there's no sign of John's plunge pool and that's a relief I was worried I might be eating my shoe from in it there but bridge has made a discovery that could help piece together the plan of our building you like your knee and have got is it at the wall it doesn't look like it looks like the face of it coming along here just with the inch trailers it is it mortared yeah it's a nice little since yellow here just puts a remanent of water in between well that's just the right position tie up the geophysics to be the actual outside wall of the house so I guess you and Ian are now actually in the corridor yeah behind which is the room which fills in with the mosaic so at the end of day one we think we found the main outside wall of the building and we've got a corridor linking it to the two rooms with mosaics in trench one Neal's convinced we found range of rooms running north-south across our site and from the GF is he thinks there may even be to further ranges running east towards the cops good day a fantastic day we found not one but two mosaics and just as important we've got this long wall here which marks the western extent of the building but what exactly is it frustratingly none of our archaeologists are prepared to commit themselves let's hope we get some clues tomorrow right here beginning of day two here at Kabul II in Gloucestershire where we found this fantastic Roman mosaic look at that gorgeous but the question is what kind of building did it originally sit in some of our archaeologists have been speculating that it was a villa others have said a temple others a bathhouse we've even had this dreadful phrase building complex which Neal has been using we're not morrible what exactly do you reckon it is I don't know yeah but yeah find out later on I think the key is to get the plan of the building now on the earlier geophysics what we thought we had was a range of rooms going across here and practive wing coming up here and a wing coming up here so that's their field mosaic is and that's where bridges back wall is but this in color here this is John's new resistivity and can you see these big anomalies here this is like a range of rooms going back the other way which makes much better Saints cuz potentially perhaps you've got rather than having a bit of like fact actually got an h-shaped villa facing down the valley towards the river so what I think you might have now is actually rooms going off the nose direction so you might imagine a villa it's kind of an 8 shaped and there fulfils mosaic or be kind of in the cross of the H Neels also identified a location for a further trench if he can get dating evidence here where the end of the roman building appears to lie on top of an earlier ditch running underneath he's hoping to establish when the building was constructed so while John goes off to look for two new ranges towards the river trench three goes in now is it just me or do you get the feeling our experts are having trouble making their minds up I can't believe it that still none of the archaeologists will commit as to what kind of building we've got now I can't believe it either it's a villa well I thought it was a villa yes course is a villain why won't they side well because archaeologists just love to disagreed only I mean you know whatever wouldn't you call a group of archaeologists um add out an argument to archaeologists a confusion of archaeology oh this is a bit more loiter in back in trench three it looks like Phil's got off to a flying start are you lovely little thing you you're a big piece aren't you a big blue one sing it out then nice no Senate nice trim on it Phil they buy her some wings a decorated loins on it too round ear ah who needs a metal detector when you can see coins like that then now you're like a kid in a toy shop yeah well I know what else we got here must have loads of stuff over in trench one we're scratching our heads over the mosaic it is a shame about all this plow damage how could they ripped out this whole bit here with one blow you know I've been having second thoughts about that because I'm you can restart this damage here is underneath this demolition is untouched demolition and it doesn't seem to be much plow marks through this so this would have protected it and also you can see this damage here it's circular and all the other plow marks are straight going off in that direction so I think it's might be something else Anthony if it's not plow damage what do you think it might be well I think it can be one of two things it can either be damage caused by the collapsing roof and walls or it could be iconoclastic damage what do you mean well if you notice there's a cancerous jug there that's the mixing bowl yes and if this is a 9 panel scheme the most pertinent person to put in the center would be the god Bacchus god wine and of course His image would have been in an asthma to Christians so when you say iconoclastic you mean it literally smashing up icons like Cromwell's soldiers used to do when they came into the churches and cut off the faces of the martyrs solutely but I don't think we'll really know until Matt has excavated this area and we see if the damage continues I think that's a hint notice if the damage to the central panel is evidence of Christians wrecking a pagan icon then that would add a fascinating twists of the story of our building after a promising start fills trench now seems to be going nowhere there's no sign of any fines let alone a Roman building or ditch Phil's not happy down in the gully for some reason we appear to be digging more trenches I mean hopefully that meter or cover it no one tells me anything I'm about 100 meters from our site and what have we got here not one but two new trenches what's going on guys is there a breakaway faction from tithing starting a new program last night we were pretty gung-ho we bit how things are going I think the best word to describe this morning has been challenging the troubles start in Phil's trench the position is trained to try and catch this ditch coming through which we fought might underlie one of the buildings of the villa but bizarrely is absolutely nothing in the trench at all why not junk we can't explain why we can't find it in Phil's trench so what I've suggested is look let's move away from the area where it's complicated where we've got all the Roman building material on top and let's take a section of ditch that is far clearer for us to investigate well we're trying to find Sony's material that predates the construction of the building so what we've just done is opened up a trench here across one of these ditches to try and get some dating evidence is it early Roman is it late Roman could even be Iron Age then we'll put another trench in here trying to Sarah knew these anomalies these could it be industrial could it be a bath house who knows but the key is if we can get pottery and coins out of these Liars which relate to these ditches evidence from here helps us understand the date of the building over there that's the stuff Neal not put off by his failure to get results from the main building he's changing tactics down in the galley he's putting in to further trenches one to find evidence of industrial activity a spring or a bath house and more importantly a second to find dating evidence in the double ditches back in trench one the store is moved on again is that a pattern I see then yes it's the top of a cancerous a second cancerous another wine jar that's right it's in much better Nick isn't it than the other oh yes it's a much better count for us as well so what's this thing here well you know that we had this big hole in the middle of the mosaic or we've got more now there's another one appearing there and this one is quite curious because somebody's actually cut into the floor this absolutely beautiful mosaic floor and then they've built can you see these these are Roman roof tiles for foundations of a war and there's there's some stones mortared in there and on the other side it's mirrored just there they've cut into the floor again and there's more blocks and more mortar that looks like it could almost be a kiln or a fire or well that's the thing what is it has this lovely mosaic area gone out of use and they're using another part of the villa are they using this as an industrial area we just don't know yet it would be a tragedy if your theory of iconoclasm proved not to be true because it's such a fantastic word yeah but it looks like it might not be right well it may not be writing indeed if this is a press or something like that put into the these old rooms then it could easily be borne away by industrial process what's so intriguing about this trench for me is that every time we come back here there's a slightly different story and we've still got about 1/2 meters left it clear I'm sure it'll change again to give us 2 hours Tony meanwhile John's struggling to find the double ditches that run round the gully there are small bits in it but nothing like the quality we've got over there I'll go on through I think I mean it's such a clear response we've got to find an explanation for it if it turns out to be geology then so be it but I cannot believe us geology two straight there has to be an explanation for such a strong response hey I'm down I'm depending on you at first glance it might appear our building was in the middle of nowhere but closer inspection reveals it was in fact strategically located sure this is a really unusual part of Britain in Roman times isn't it because we're right between two of the largest cities Gloucester and Cirencester and all these villas around here must have been connected to these towns indeed they must I mean here's our site here cirencester is here and Gloucester is here you can see it's very close to both of them and the only way connects the two and the location of our site just here is really interesting look at this minor road that actually directly connects the M Street here main Roman Road with port Street over here it's a direct link between the two and on the geophysical survey you can see there's a track way leading from here directly into the villa complex so in this kind of triangle of roads it's in an ideal location I suppose it's common sense because there's no point in having a villa with an economic base farming or whatever unless you can get your produce out and all those luxury goods that you want to bring that game salute Lowe as an economic farm farming Villa it's in an ideal location now we just gotta prove it was a farming villa back in the gully John looks a bit desperate I mean given that we've got several hundred metres of this can't we just hit it hard John there seems to be a lot of scratching of heads going on here what's the matter people aren't believing me this is it now if that is not a ditch then I might as well just give up and go home we're not I mean you don't get natural ditches that do this and you can't see a ditch well it's Tony this stuff is so hard I mean it just I'm gonna give John the benefit of the doubt which is goes against my natural inclination but my goodness if this is backfill this is so compacted backfill but this is always like hardcore could it be that they just haven't gone down far enough here ah well we're gonna go down a bit further but I don't know you've got it resolved absolutely right we're gonna know one way or the other whether it's here or not but are they digging in the right place I hope they're I feel a bit under pressure on it John we're a team and not Chum we are a team yeah there's there's no pressure mate net nada nosey will point the finger at you no no absolutely remember that plunge pool I do yeah okay but just one scoop later we've just shot that what 20 seconds ago are you setting oh look just look at this place just say that again could I borrow your second look hard rock and what have you got there soft plate soft clay with tile yeah yeah this is not natural that isn't that true we need see a bit more of this what you need there's a bit of Roman pot in it John you might just be right well done mate I never doubted you I didn't know not at all nobody in the whole shoot dip okay in a little bit more out I think so after some initial doubts we're getting Roman finds in the double ditches just what Neal needs to start dating the site and we're making further progress over in the mosaic trench man well there's a flash mosaic like that one earth you digging off a great hole next to it well what we want to do here is establish where the walls of all this building are and this we thought was our best bet for an external wall there's no wall there no no I mean it's been totally robbed out and you can see they've chucked back in all this yellow sandy mortar in these bits of rubbish stone but most interesting thing about this is its width look it's almost a meter wide there and I've gone down what almost 1/2 meter and it's still going so if the wall was that thick it would have been easily strong enough to hold up a another story yeah absolutely so I think that verifies that we've got on the external walls here the likelihood now is that our building didn't have just one but two storeys and Matt's also found a layer of rubble running all the way underneath the mosaic that could mean we've got evidence of an even earlier building at the end of a long day spent with his geophysical knickers in a twist John thinks he's cracked it look you two you've been giving me so much Castle I finally got the goods and if you don't believe me then that's it come on you're a bad day today mate so come on look this is the resistance you wanted I reckon we have got a whole new range along the brow of the hill they're turning the corner and joining on with everything that you've had for the past day and a half Neil it looks pretty convincing doesn't it I mean I guess what you've got is you've got the original h-shaped villa and that's your second sentry villa with your second century mosaics what it looks like really is what you're gonna sort of capitalize shaped so what's happened in the fourth century they've added on this whole new range of a courtyard so if Neil's right and the shape of our building has changed from a capital H to a capital A with an additional range to the west it's even bigger and more impressive than we first thought is it a villa well you know while I change I have a nice time and get off the fence Tony but it probably is a villa but before I'm completely certain what I need you see the trench in there tomorrow let's prove that that's fourth century and if we can get fourth century dating and maybe a fourth century mosaic then yet it's a done deal so end of day two we've nearly possibly got a villa and tomorrow we're gonna put trenches in here to see if we can find the really high status rooms and who knows maybe another mosaic stay free here at our mysterious romano-british building in cuddly and Gloucestershire with a marvelous mosaic 2nd to 3rd century AD we've located one of the exterior walls and we think we found the big ditch that surrounded the whole thing this is so typical of time team one minute we can't find anything at all and the next we've got the most fantastic archaeology you've got anything at all in yours field this is glorious as well Tony though to be quite honest when we stripped it off first I didn't think so there was nothing in this trench we were looking for a ditch and we were looking for the end of the villa I actually removed about that much material and look before your very eyes we have a ditch running through there and then this magnificent curve of wall going round there is that an apse that is the apse and this wall here but that gives a wave see this wall goes straight the way through to Matt and if you follow that round it goes down and it appears in the wall the other side of raksha so we've got this wonderful apps looking up towards the main entrance the grand entrance as somebody approached it would see this magnificent apse angled fill the wall is going through the ditch isn't it it doesn't that's the important thing about it shows how long people were actually on this site when this app's wood was built this ditch had already been dug used and filled up so have we got any dating evidence from the ditch we've got dating evidence from the top of the ditch which looks as though it could be early roman but what we need is material from the base of it it's a fascinating story and we've only got another day left we have indeed this is turning into a building of some grandeur with mosaics and now a posh curved end to the southern wing known as an apse it's likely this was matched by a further apps on the opposite side and Niels now busy putting in two new trenches to locate a further range of fancy rooms in a western wing that's your local variant so I think just literally this pull the loose backer thing I think that is the laminated bedrock down in the galley where John was looking for evidence of a bathhouse or industrial activity traces definitely found some kind of structure stone walls running along up the hill that way full of brick and tile and you've got evidence of burning on the internal edges of the stones here yeah so we're thinking maybe kiln I mean you've got the grays the heat damage but you've also got that that pinky tinge they're spreading into the actual stone yeah that's a sign of real intense heat their eyes change of color there any fines oh well yeah we've got some really nice Wow look at that beautiful piece of molded terracotta um well it's probably part of an a criteria they went on roofs what is fascinating about this is that these things are so rare in this part of the world they're largely confined to southeastern England and in date they tend to be only first to that middle second century AD really high status billions nothing else and would would aspire to having a criteria so this is this is a real find yeah a criteria and not a Greek football team as you might think but decorations for a Roman building perched either on top or running along the edge of the roof so what did a villa look like well a few depictions have survived from antiquity that give us some idea this villa was obviously built to impress yep and it's quite likely that we had fine dress stonework painted in red we had upper galleries like this and corner towers large windows to let in the light we have one from me on Stoke in Hampshire that shows that the facades this is an actual facade that survives and it was polychrome many colored brick and stripes on a white facade in fact the whole facade would have been really quite colourful so anyone coming to Kabul in ancient times couldn't possibly had missed this vehicle yeah I would suspect that it was quite a thing in the landscape so what about the two trenches Neal had put in to find a western wing well do you want the good news or the bad news let's get the bad news out of the way first from trench six no fourth century range no-fault century range at all we haven't even got one piece of Roman pottery out of this trench so that dramatic GF is wasn't archaeology at all it was just this rock yeah I mean all we've got in the trench is a shallow ditch running through here but no rooms much over here we've actually got something I feel such a fraud yesterday evening I turned to camera and I said ah tomorrow we're gonna have a fourth century range here we're gonna dig it tomorrow put in loads of trenches who knows maybe we'll even get another mosaic and what are we walking across dirt yeah well not all that business is gold with geophysics but this is gold look at this classic Roman demolition wall plaster stones look at some of the fines coming out Sony these fragments of canted wall plaster with this nice purple color bits of like the COS box tile this wood channeled the hot air up the walls and these large bits of tile from underfloor heating system so we've clearly got a room oh yeah without a doubt and what we need to resolve is what date is this cuz one of the vintage aging evidence yes no not yet but with 30 days well I'm kind of hoping is that this might prove to be a fourth century bolt on 4th century rooms even with 4th century mosaics so disappointingly no western wing and John can't find any trace of a longer southern wing either but we have now found a high-status room in trench 7 down in the gully we're finally able to confirm industrial activity on our site yes looking good nose neck good depth the wall on here a nice edge running around there for maybe the stokehole yeah it's really clear isn't it the difference the black they're going to the under stove yellow you got a very clear line of division clearly now this is the entrance into the flue running up through where ian is this I think is actually the the ash pit you know where they right order charcoal out to reach firing it's likely this kill was where the materials used to construct our building were manufactured lime needed for more tower or terracotta tiles for the roof meanwhile bridge is getting to grips with what our villain looks like Bridge when I thought you yesterday you countdown to a mortar floor how's that work tail you know it's great because we're now getting down past the demolition layers and we've come on to two phases of flooring and you can see you've got the latest one here which is this nice white hard mortar yeah underlying it we've got the bidding make up for it and then here this bright white is actually an earlier floor I know it must have gone into either disrepair or it collapse because it's dipping in this way and they've had to build it up again and relay a new one you can see it comes to a dead stop right in front of me there that seems to be the edge of the rumor and then just beside it it's actually robbed out at the moment but there is a wall to the building there and how why is that wall bridge well it looks about 60 70 centimetres wide so pretty substantial yeah the interesting thing is we've been talking about a corridor being in this area here hmm coming down onto now what looks like an external surface can see this these small bits of stone have been deliberately laid as if it's outside the building rather than inside the building so they know what I'm thinking is we've already found this wall here could we potentially have the external wall to the building up here then from there we have a roof that comes over this external corridor and it comes to this wall here yeah I mean this seems much less substantial wall doesn't it I mean you might wonder whether this is actually was open could this supported like a colonnade or something well that's exactly what I'm wondering you see I've been interpreting this hole here as a rubber yeah but in fact what it could be is we're one of those pillars could have set inside the wall that's holding up that colonnade this is great it now looks like there was a colonnaded port or cloister within the main villa complex with a view out over the river valley beyond back down in the gully marx made real progress in the double ditches running round the site do we know anything about them yet we've been very lucky Tony because you remember this is one of those ditches that surrounds the villa and then around the valley at the back and we've had a lot of pottery out of it and we can date it go on it's all second century ID and date including the classic Samian where imported from France so it looks like this stitch here is being back filled before the end of the second century so what does that tell us about the story of our village well it now demonstrates that you've certainly got Roman period activity here maybe from the first century AD there may well be another building because we did have those terracotta architectural features from over there this morning that are also early in day so it does point to an earlier structure we just haven't found it yet we're nearing the end of our final day Neil's determined to prove the northern range was added on in the fourth century so he's putting in one last trench back in trench seven we're starting to get a clearer picture of the de corps inside the room this has just come up and this is quite exciting it's like a road sign together yes well what it actually this is the this is a clue to what it is it's a candelabrum a white scheme with these thin black candelabrum that come out into a sort of a lily shape with foliot designs leaves coming all right dividing up the panels it's quite delicately done isn't it's quite small scale yes here we've got a bit to chose us that they have color schemes of this Pompeian red white bands and a straight line between yes this might have come from a square wall panel or it could have come from a dado strip about three or four feet off of the ground going around the room times run out there's lots of archaeology coming out of Neil's final trench fragments of wall plaster and tons of rubble but none of it proves this was a fourth century addition to a second century villa it's so frustrating isn't it on the other side we've nailed down the mosaic nailed down the double ditches we've got the apse and over here is chaos it is I mean I think we can show the wars structure through here I mean look at the fine strays Tony we've got masses of rubble there lots of building material clear there was a Roman structure through here but it's been heavily demolished and I think as well you know in retrospect that word again the main thrust of the building is fervor up here actually on the break of slope this is rubble being pushed down yeah we got the central bar with the mosaic no matching range over that side and I know John still wants us to believe in his geophysics across the front there but I have to go what I can see with my eyes and there's just bedrock there have we got the shape of the villa now I always gone from an a to a capital H to a small H virtually all the letters of the alphabet accent heard sure and what letter is it Oh half an H perfect so at the end of day three we can finally tell the story of our villa the core of the building a central bar with a mosaic and a portico were built in the late 2nd century perhaps on top and earlier villa and then a short southern wing and a long northern wing were added on probably in the 4th century it would have been an impressive sight approaching the villa you were met by grand APS's on either side of a main entrance it was a multicolored building with decorations around the roof inside there were centrally heated rooms one with painted panels and an intricate candelabrum design to the rear a colonnaded portico overlooked the river valley and what about our mosaic well on closer inspection the central panel appears to have been removed deliberately and then neatly replaced with stones Anthony now thinks it may well have been Christians destroying a pagan icon after all Anthony you're a bit laconic early on but you've got to admit that's some mosaic yes I'm very pleased with it especially the cancerous it's the finest one I've ever seen good so what's gonna happen to all this stuff it's good news the landowner the County archaeologist local groups have all come together to ensure this fragile star can be protected also thorough investigations in the take place well that's good news isn't it you know when I first came here I was hoping for something a bit exotic like a temple so okay we've got a villa but in fact it's much more than that it's two possibly three villas stretching over 200 years and it's covering this vast area from the kilns over there to the spring the lovely mosaic fills posh at looking out over the entrance all set in this beautiful landscape sculptured by the Romans 1,800 years ago makes you rather want to come back to the Cotswolds of Ganz isn't it if this week's excavation has inspired you to dig a little deeper visit the website at channel 4 comm slash Time Team for exclusive video clips games and the time team forum now coming out next we've got channel 4 news you

Channel: Reijer Zaaijer

Views: 470,133

Rating: 4.8532357 out of 5

Keywords: time, team, full, episodes, season, argeologie, archaeological

Id: sXegF6tZCC4

Length: 48min 0sec (2880 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 20 2013