Wreck of the Spanish Armada | FULL EPISODE | Time Team

[Music] 20 years ago a teenage boy found an ancient cannon under here he discovered it was part of a ship that had been wrecked here off the Devon coast some 400 years ago but we still don't know the actual identity of the ship after all those hundreds of years under the water is there still enough of it remaining for us to be able to work out what he was and what he was doing in these waters can the time team finally solved the mystery of the Timnath wreck [Music] just about don't want to get much rougher dead lucky with it we usually get on welcome aboard Tony this is Roger and I'm gonna see and it's your side absolutely yes so where exactly is the wreck well just about where that orange survey vessel is she's just about right over it now actually it's right in closeness at low tide you can stand there yeah yeah they are undertaking a survey well just like the geophysics exactly the same as we normally do you see they're towing the equipment along there behind it can you say that yeah and it's just like any time team same procedure exactly once we know where the show is or exactly where the layout of is then we can decide where to put any trenches that we got to put in trenches underwater well we got to dig and we [Laughter] this big diving boat is our base for the next three days but Mick is getting a much better view of our site through his telescope we're searching for the remains of a shipwreck in an area of sea roughly between the big boat and the shore Simons found cannon on what appears to be the contents of a 16th century galley scattered across the seabed here but he hasn't found the wooden structure of the vessel it's probably buried under 400 years of sand so he needs our help to uncover it the time team has never excavated a wreck site before so we've got an awful lot to learn about underwater archaeology over the next three days but we've already discovered that the basic principles of land archeology also apply at sea we still dig trenches and we still rely on our survey results to tell us where to dig them so while bernard and kathy fix a satellite datum point over our site on board the survey boat currents is discovering how underwater geo phase differs from the land version i mean normally when we do physics on dry land they will say well it's not working very well today because there's the moisture content of soils wrong now obviously we've got a moisture is a whole different problem out here what techniques can you use we primarily acoustic techniques in fact acoustic techniques are the only way you can get any higher energy low-frequency sound waves to penetrate the seabed and reflect from different textures or different layers of media a bit like an ultrasound scan ultrasound scan are actually high frequency sound but the the effect is the same it bounces off different layers in your body different layers of tissue this just bounces off different layers of rock so this goes down from the boat through the water down to the sand can you go through the sacks we've got a lot of sand on top of the wreck do you put enough frequency enough power in a low frequency you can go through rock I mean oil it's the same techniques as all that spray define rock so you're confident that you will be able to find the road sure if there's anything down there we'll see it between the sand and the rock as well as the acoustic survey geophys are also checking for iron remains with a floating magnetometer this should pick up any cannonballs or ships nails hopefully still in their original Timbers if there are still bronze cannon down there we should pick them up through the boats metal detector but even with all this equipment it's going to take some time so while they troll the seabed I was learning more about the site from the man who discovered it 20 years ago I was swimming off the coast only about 200 yards spearfishing and I came across this enormous bronze cannon sticking out of the sand I didn't know what it was of course so I rushed home and told my old dad and he said what what is it made out of I don't know I have no idea and he said well he said if it's made of iron he said I don't think it'll be worth bringing up but he said take this file down with you scratch the surface and if it shows a golden color and it's made of bronze of course we've learnt a heck of a lot since then that there's probably one of the worst things he could possibly do scribble it absolutely absolutely but it started the ball rolling and then you were able to dive the site for the next few years we dived the site for two years and of course it attracted the attention of archaeologists and eventually we were protected as a protected site so the site has now been officially licensed by the Department of the Environment what does that actually mean it means Tony that we need an archaeologist that can come and dive with us and we're very lucky you know we've got a chap called Chris priests who's our archaeological director and he's really shown us how to do it properly and he keeps an eye on us and he understands the physical difficulties out there especially the sand so can we do I have to do no I'm afraid you can't not until Chris's home this is the guy who's flying back from Libya absolutely absolutely and so we can't we can't dive today I'm afraid you can't yes back yes well let's keep our fingers crossed that the flights going to work out absolutely absolutely since that first discovery Simon had recovered another five guns and a whole host of other objects from the site back on dry land Mick and Robin were off to the town museum to test the local view that these finds point to an armada connection yes a cooking pot a church rocks wreck which we think was part of the Spanish Armada which sailed up the cello in 1588 no that's how it is Armada we think so yeah what other things have you got then that suggests the Armada and then the fates or the firebot well what's that this is this little thing here oh just 16th century hand grenade which is very rare because as they were built for destruction not many left yeah what about this thing yeah that was brought home in 1992 it's a merchant SIL we think it's some about 13 to 15th century with the initials and you have the cross which was quite uniform then come on I can't wait six cannon in all brought up Oh we were - minion made by Sigismund abu Getty in Venice we think between my 1570 and 1600 and there again we've matched it with other guns yeah her mother wrecks presumably one of the things Robin that we should be doing is looking at the the background - they use this weekend I mean absolutely I mean I had a look at your booklets earlier earlier and the the one that went to Pendennis castle the Seiko was it take a yeah actually has a coat of arms on it yes and we've got photographs of that back in the incident room and I think that could very well provide us with the clue as to who they were produce for that would be useful thing for us to do there'd be various yes we'd love to know so the prime clues to the identity of the wreck rest in that coat of arms and that merchant seal right could our wreck really be a 16th century Mediterranean war galley sailing as part of the Spanish Armada the museum certainly thinks so and has given Victor something to go on but the cannon Simon found his Venetian and could have been cast 50 years before or 20 years after the Armada set sail and the merchant seal certainly suggests a much earlier date you know I'm not sure that I'm that happy about the certainty of the Armada connection yeah I mean the thought occurred to me that if it was if it was an armada ship it would probably be known about after all all the others that went down around Scotland and Ireland well swear no and none people went to look for them I can't believe it wouldn't have got into the local folklore and I mean it could have been a trading vessel that might have been around at the time of the Armada or a good deal after work yeah and after all the Venetians work with it were the great traders and commercial people anyway yeah and we know that Timnath they've been bringing wine in from all the all ports around from yes that their cargo from the Mediterranean wouldn't be that necessarily that unusual on that crest there on the ship the coat of arms because that that's the photo of the the cannon that's now pendennis Castle and you're thinking that if this gives us a particular family well that might help it sure it should do because all the cannon that have come up seemed to be of a period in other words this is not a one-off that's being captured from another ship and installed on this particular one or whatever what about that term that all the sail thing I mean is that well to be honest I have to say I did this or touch chances are of identifying a merchant from his initials of that kind of period I mean we try but quite often there can be a number of possibilities what we see what we do so we could be looking for a merchant man not a war galley a vessel possibly on route to trade with Timnath while we survey for remains of our wreck at sea on land the search is on for a contemporary with our wreck [Music] right now from this point on we begin to pick up lanes on the left-hand side going southwards as well which were punctured sto a French raid burnt tin muck to the ground a hundred years after the time of our ship the buildings around the present harbour all appear to be much later in date but local legend claims some buildings survived whispering if there is anything left standing of our 16th century port even a chimney then our buildings expert barek Morley will find it [Music] out in the bay the survey of our wreck site was complete on previous dives Simon had found bits of broken timber from the hull of the ship so we were all keen to find out how much of our vessel had survived under the sand but it has nothing at all I don't think so no that's right isn't it yes we get the hold of a protected area yeah something from line one there and every five meters down to 9:30 we did 39 this is the last one and what we should see is between the sea surface and the first layer of rock here if there was anything hard down there don't check and nothing has come up within the climb why doesn't the ship's Timbers showed up well if they're waterlogged they have the same acoustic density as the sand so what you're saying then is that um this particular survey won't show up timbers not waterlogged Timbers never hardwood with some air trapped in yes I do but not these type of Timbers soft timbers Shannon how long have you been waiting for the survey 20 years Tony so you must only got it yes I was hoping to see a nice the shape of the ship yes better so what do we do now well I think we just have to accept this hasn't worked and it would be nice if it had and when we know where the wreck is still we we know there are Timbers down there I think we just have to sort of press on and see if we can get down and have a look at it and I'll show you this this hasn't shown anything up this time you know the geophysics is not with nothing to show from our survey Victor and Sue are using little artistic license to reconstruct what our boat could have looked like it's a nice try but let's hope this isn't all we have to show for our efforts at the end of the weekend 9 o'clock in the evening and Mick and I are at the airport waiting to meet the sights underwater archaeologist Chris prease he's already half a day late and if he doesn't arrive tonight we can't dive the site tomorrow morning Chris well we thought we'd spot you easy enough as well he's very pleased to see you we've got lots to talk about they've got a vehicle let's go sir end of day one we've got Chris thank goodness we've got a boat which everybody seems to think is Narmada boat but we're having serious doubts about whether it is or not and we're not sure whether there's anything left under the water for us to find but at least Phil and I first thing tomorrow morning we'll be getting into our dive suits and that would be something worth hanging around and so far to see off of the ground [Music] day to 10 to 8:00 in the morning about an hour off high tide and I still have not a clue where we're gonna die time team sitting down to a pretty swanky looking breakfast morning Tony good morning Chris what's the plan for today well we decided basically that it would be a good idea to look at this area here we're in the pre archaeological days if you like in a salvage days they came across these Timbers with it would be interesting to find out what these Timbers are whether this stone Timbers or power Timbers that would tell us more about the orientation of the vessel when it broke out it's just like on land Tony it's a sort of evaluation trench going to see the extent and sort of preservation of the site except it's underwater how do you dig a trench underwater especially since the the sand is mobile and keeps backfilling in which is a problem but basically we use water lifts which like come giant vacuum cleaners as well when they suck away the sand and we see what's below archaeologically speaking the principles are the same you know we excavate carefully and slowly and record as we go along and how long will it take to dig one of those pits well I would think with four water lifts with any luck we can do it in the day but we're gonna be pushed it's a good thing we've got the extra divers okay so if there's nothing in the first pit then actually we're gonna be pretty pressed for time we've only got like a day and three quarters well what are we doing sitting around I'll finish my quest well that's right cracking we're going to dig our trench close to where Simon discovered the first cannon our survey suggests we won't find any more metal down here but Chris believes we stand a good chance of finding some part of our wooden ship the broken Timbers Simon found here 20 years ago suggests either the front of our ship the bow or the stern it's back we need to uncover intact Timbers to decide which if these have been preserved then it would be here buried in the deep sand beyond where the other guns and objects were found however Chris is concerned that the survey results may mean that any remains have been swept away by last year's unusually stormy seas these bad storms prevented any excavation of the site last year so no one has been able to dive down to the site for well over 12 months so Chris and Simon are extremely anxious to get into the water as soon as possible to check that everything is okay before they allow us amateur divers to join the storms that prevented diving last year also moved most of the team's marker boys so Chris and Simon's first job is to locate the area of the site we're going to excavate at the moment their only source of reference to the surface is the GPS data point we laid in yesterday we're in luck Simon's been able to find a marker boy still in place by measuring along the sand from this one point Chris can start to recreate the underwater grid we'll need to mark out our trench ten feet down and in this visibility that isn't as easy as it sounds but as soon as the markers are in place we can get the sand suckers in and begin the real archeology back on deck our land archaeologists are watching their underwater counterparts close exactly the same definitely can't talk to people this is your this is your boy line a net so that's he's pulling the reference and then you'll measure off from that right so later on if we can measure up from that and then to get a point for the GPS it would be lovely wouldn't it if we took the sand off and actually saw some timber sticking up some that's your ribs of the wreck they've got to be there and so they've got the trench to survey it in there really so we're ready to start how'd it go that's even hard we haven't actually finished laying out the trench it's taking a bit longer than we thought so why is that why why because it's hard work looking waits around and just getting the measurements of doing it so we're getting that what was the visibility like not bad not bad and it's certainly getting clearer as well I think yeah there's a bit of a plankton bloom in the water look - you couldn't see and any bits of wood okay that was all the encouragement I needed I'm no pro diver and Phil is a complete novice so to start with we'll be taking turns to visit the site underwater they're finishing off laying out the trench this is much more difficult than on dry land an inch out either way in this visibility and our trench could completely miss any evidence of the ship at all [Music] [Music] it's coming by about three foot of sand I think so this is where we'll put the treasure how'd it go Tony it was brilliant it's great fun it's very tiring I think the problem is that actually it's pretty shallow there and so you have enormous trouble keeping your buoyancy right because you've got to keep low enough to be out of doing your work but you've got to be able to keep high enough so that you're not scraping the sand all the time and causing the visibility to get worse see on the monitor yeah but you're right at low tide at the moment so it can only get better yeah I think it'll be easier once it gets deeper yeah I saw some of the divers coming out earlier and they were touching their toes for about five minutes after they got out before they even took their kiss off or anything because their backs were hurt so much the problem is you're carrying you know 2530 pounds on your back and you're pushing against it all the time in order to keep straight so you can do the work that's required so you want to do some of that then yeah we better get you out then meanwhile Robyn's trying to trace the coat of arms on our ships cannon if he's successful then we should know the name and nationality of the owner of our vessel after that finding out what it was and where it was going ought to be easy I think to get that ready yeah yeah okay slide for next keen to find out exactly how 16th century sailors would have loaded and fired these huge metal cannon on board a moving ship he's enlisted the help of armory expert Nick home it is a replica and obviously you can't fire original gun no well here it should can you take me through how how they would have worked this I'm not beginning to the end key to firing any gun is to create a charge large enough to propel your shot but you need an awful lot of gunpowder and wadding to fire a heavy 16th century cannonball the powder chamber as far as we know that the powder would be poured in loose yeah and then there'd be a ward on top no on land and hey with a commonly available material right here I grass yeah I could just fine because most campaigns as you know we're forcing the summer anyway yeah yeah on a ship Okin common so how this is bits of string is it and you put some of that in RAM it down on top of the powder right now well we missed that well apart from putting the Gunpowder in you mean well we yeah we put we assume we've got gunpowder on the top was we want to hit the enemy don't we so we need a projectile ah right this is actually one found locally it's an it it wouldn't actually probably be fired from this gun but is this rough in the right size for this yes but it would be it would be loaded at this end uh yeah he's actually slightly big big but it was one that was from the site so we thought we'd just write so but they were they were pretty good in there okay so we've got our boolean we've loaded a ball we've got a change we've got it change that one T if you hold it it's like a beer tank it is yeah yeah and it's got the little hole in the top then that's okay for spine so that goes up into the back of it pop that in that and then do you see this big wedge here if you know what this this thing here yeah and obviously goes in the back who goes in there we actually have to knock that in once the charge is firmly in place all we need to send the ball on its way is a little more gunpowder and a 16th century match the order from the gun yes this should be lit yeah that would be lit you would touch it off bang offered to go midday and we're finally ready for the sand sucker to go into the water I've come across the first major difference between land and underwater archaeology on land we'd use a JCB to dig a trench this deep but underwater we have to use a huge vacuum cleaner that just gently Hoover's up the sand it's a frustratingly slow process I'm feeling there's gonna be some that's a days job or something right you know I mean I suppose if you ant it was he talking about a fourth b1 yeah call it flow you've Foley B 1 B 1 that's 5 cubic meters of sand it's more than that isn't it I tell you what if you had a ship for your cubic metres of sand that's a fair amount of sand a shift yeah a lot of sand are cubic meter the sand from our trench is sucked up to the surface and spewed out several meters away from the excavations this will prevent it flowing straight back into the hole we've just dug back on land there's more to be done to find our 16th century port the development of the estuary may give us clues to its location then we'll get to look at the point that we're really interested in the 16th 17th century period what's happening now is a split to built up and it's a series of banks and gravity banks of gravel high points and low points the channel has got narrower and these deposits behind I started to force the main river flow out round a bend around there and round that bend is where it achieves it's the river flowing out achieves its maximum force and therefore starts to scour very deep and the hydrographic soundings provided by the amplitude confirm this is a deepest point here and so this will provide a deep water access to that point there and crucially absolutely victory I see that's where you get the natural Shelton so you've got deep water and the natural harbour developing so that the ship could in fact have been coming in 2timothy itself it's quite possible I mean the survey that I was doing yesterday with varrick and Mick around the town we were coming to the same conclusions that this early date we got from this map here where there's buildings in this in that by 1727 it's silted up before then all indicate that this has been settlement and activity in this area's been going on a lot longer than anybody else's that there's ever thought of you know well that's brilliant but we nee ship and the town doesn't we haven't had that before it seemed that the town was later and that we couldn't tie them in but the possibility that ship could be actually been coming in at Harbor that's great on the front Mick was now primed and ready to give us all a lesson in seawater okay then Nick where's the other one load these for us shall I get their barrel clean while you're doing that these used to sweeping the floors and old you were the mopping and that goes into there you have to imagine that this is on the edge of the all right we ready to go then all right a bit of powder priming powder communicates flame to the main charge inside the chamber make ready as the Sun set over the yardarm our sand sucker had been going for five hours it was time to see what if anything we'd uncovered fills curiosity to see an underwater trench had finally overcome his reluctance to try out his newly acquired diving skills he was ready to take the plunge what's it like down there Phil it's carrenza can you see any any Timbers or anything down there and it looks a bit empty here you lock the bottom of the trench now over take some more sand try again tomorrow yeah okay Phil come up now and we'll get the pump turn back on as quickly as possible okay end of day two are no wreck yet but our investigations back on shore have been a success and armed with their findings the land lovers from our team are venturing out onto the high seas to join us aboard ship I'm gonna drop a bombshell or possible bombshell because the heraldry in other words the coat of arms on the Saker might indicate a possible Dutch origin and therefore it may very well be a Dutch merchant [Laughter] open verdict open defines not particularly although to be fair I wouldn't exclude the possibility of it being of Dutch origin we've had a fairly fruitful day then over there but it's pretty frustrating here is no please well yeah we've had a fairly typical day here I mean it's and here is very mobile as a considerable depth of it and it's much further should we have to go down to get that I well looking at the trench on the last dive I don't think we're deep enough here to hit the tenders we can get that cleared tonight depends who's willing to work on there I see them working on it now yes I mean if they carry on for a few more hours over the saucer we're going to keep the sand sucker going until dark though it seems less and less likely that we'll be the ones to finally uncover the Timnath wreck still let's hope we wake up tomorrow morning to hear they found some Timbers day three they were sucking up sands and just before midnight last night and again first thing this morning well they seem to have stopped now I don't know why that is and as you can see the weather's changed still for once that's not no effect time team is it we're not gonna get any wetter excavating down there than we did yesterday help you find something [Music] while we struggled with the elements on board ship on slightly drier land Mikan barrack we're off to the pub for once their visit had real archaeological importance the pub is where we now believe the old port was and Barry believes he's discovered proof that this building survived Timnath destruction by fire if he's correct then the jolly sailor could be the only building in the town contemporary with our wreck now what do you reckon then I mean I'd say I'd say that was early ish yes however I can no good on roofs this is amazing because particularly that time being yeah there is very special the whole thing is of a medieval type but it's fairly scrappy work compared with it ordinary medieval yeah but there's something very special that it shouts out of that about this roof and it's fat beam over there bang tie beam has very funny joint as I pointed into the the main trust that's right it's not just lapped over anything it's just got a nick in the top Tom it's a sort of link in the bottom yeah in the bottom as well and and that sort of joint is basically funny enough in 11th 12th and 13th century clean but in the southwest here it has a reimagine s' very peculiar there yeah in the 17th century good Lord said this is a certainly I would say almost certainly this must be a 17th century roof great late 16th first half of the 17th century that's incredible well it's certainly before the time of the French made yeah and gives us a building which at last we've seen a building in the town that we can say yep this was a building that survived the French braid what a discovery oh that's tremendous we've found a contemporary building but we still have to find our ship Darrell this is Tony here can you hear me in our shot there is something long and black by the sand sucker what is that Roger what is that timber timber from the rag ok can you stand by Simon Christon yes ah great I said to him is it is it from the rag yeah and he said Roger they found some wood can you get down there as quickly as possible and tell us what it is thank goodness I was beginning to lose my bottom of it I was getting very nervous as we but we knew it was down there it was just a matter of time I think Meryl did you find the wood yourself odd was it revealed by the same sucker's those reveal as we're going along with a sunset going down it's about four feet down and how much of it is this but 8 inches 2 feet and it's not the lot oh no just just keep going so you know we just chased it along now I don't I hope are we gonna go along but it seems like we obviously on the river some think you know and any other evidence down there and that what is it absolutely no idea Chris Chris yeah yeah that is something that's akin creted ships nail see the timber there's come off the top what do you mean concrete it well there's a chemical reaction occurs in in salt water with iron and other minerals I mean you can see that bits of stone and bits of shell in here you see the show there yeah yeah yeah and you get a sort of well concretion rather like a concrete lump on top but they wouldn't necessarily still be a nail that might you might just have a ghost imprint is what they call it ghost nail a ghost now yes it's our first part of the weekend that's a shoots now you already can see the tomb is there the tip of that phil was now ready to see the Timbers for himself art of our boat is still intact but we need to uncover more to find out which part and to reconstruct what it looked like oh it's great with long hair oh so what did you see highs the most amazingly I've ever seen how big was it alright you must be gay big across and you could then I banish it get me fingers down the side of it I don't know how I quite got the bottom of it but it looked to fill I felt like me fingers would going underneath there it is ships timber it's unbelievable and does it look like there's any more of it yeah a one-stage I mean when I first saw him the the sucker you could see and what LO I'm sure that we're like just like the planks planking on this deck series of them and then as they move the sucker across of course what they'd seen before or silt it back over and you've got another one and it was just you know it just disappears in the sand on both sides you see this oh wow yeah well that's it see see what I telling you no I mean we see that's would but you tap it it's like iron is metallic really metallic I presume it's an AO on it yeah yeah I mean look I suppose it's it's blue you're pretty sat on one ain't ya I mean aren't we looking at summat like summat like that but I mean I don't know anything about your boat boat but when you start looking at boats and we're on one it's you kind of realized what the you know they're exactly the same really and they timber and nails yeah Stuart studies show Timothy estuary would have provided a safe haven for any vessel but he now believes the currents outside it would have been treacherous and it was probably these that led to the destruction of our ship armed with this information and after a night sober reflection Robyn's reviewing his conclusions last night you said that you thought the coat of arms on the cannon was probably Dutch which indicators it might be a Dutch wreck that we've got here I was very careful last night I said it was a possible identification I reckon if you went right the way through European heraldry you'd find a dozen families that would fit what we've been able to decipher on that gun bombshell was the word you used you're saying you no longer think it's done I'm afraid so yeah it could each individual section on that coat of arms could represent an individual merchants that clubbed in towards the purchase of this particular bit of armament yeah so I don't think that although it's a possible identification there are other factors that lead me to believe otherwise which are the the merchants ear well for a start we've got the the guns which we know were Venetian in origin yeah the two merchant seals lead me to suspect that it has to be a trading vessel rather than a fighting vessel why do you reckon this boat was here I reckon that it probably went down in a storm possibly trying to head into Tidmouth behind us and failing abysmally not only that but probably that it went down at night in a fierce storm otherwise the locals would have been out and taken those cannon ages ago because it's relatively shallow water and if they knew that a vessel had gone down then they did it would have been rich pickings as far as they were concerned and you I don't know whether you've seen the guns themselves but they're incredibly rich specimens you have to ally with that the fact that almost certainly every single man on the boat drowned in that storm because if one had got ashore the inhabitants would have found out from him that there were those rich picking is just below the surface so we have a Venetian merchant man last 30 years of the 16th century on a trading voyage to some port along this coast could have been Timnath possibly more likely to have been exeter which was a larger port at that time caught in a storm goes down loss of all hands at night we've got time for just one more dive but it looks like I may have to go alone after three days on a boat the sea has finally got the better of Phil I mean I suppose if I stay up here and I look at it in the monitor then you go on you know I mean I'd really like to see it but I'd like to see it in like a couple of weeks time when when I don't have to go now okay okay yeah Phil's bound to feel better when he gets out of his dive gear but with just an hour's dive time left there's no more time for sympathy we have to get down and see how much of our ship we've managed to uncover [Music] it's actually very romantic Tony this is Phil you receiving me over I can hear you feel landward contingent up here with me would like you to swim from one end of the timber to the other to show how long it is can you do that for us please over that's Chris there isn't it was Chris there yeah so how does this compare with archeology on land will having is beginning to look like archeology on land but it's problem yeah I guess it's sort of archeology and land in sort of early September you know [Laughter] yeah I mean maybe I mean it's exactly the same technique yeah I mean I've got a I gotta say I gotta take my out after you guys I mean working down there land archeology is gonna be so easy from now on in I'll tell you I will never complain like the cold I will never complain about the visibility I will never complain about the wet we've come a long way from Simon's first discovery we've uncovered the stern of our boat complete with the stern post that attached the ship's rudder to its hull and although we don't have enough evidence to gauge the exact size of our ship other Venetian merchant men of this age were about 80 feet long as well as a full cargo we know her merchantman would have carried six guns for protection it may well have been heading for shelter in tin muffs harbour which we believed contained a prosperous 16th century port it never made it and the position of our timber suggests that the ship broke in to scattering its contents and guns over the seabed to be buried by the sand it's hard to describe how ear it is when you excavate a piece of land archaeology once you've cleared the earth away it's just kind of there and it immediately begins to dry off and really look rather dead but the magical thing about what we've just seen is that as soon as you've seen it the sand moves in again and starts to cover it up and then you just wave your hand and it reveals itself again and all the time different bits of it are revealing themselves to you and then as soon as you swim away from it the whole thing gets covered up again something else [Music]

Channel: Time Team Classics

Views: 56,684

Rating: 4.9196348 out of 5

Keywords: Team Team, Archaeology, History, Education, Educational, British TV, British History, Tony Robinson, Phil Harding, John Gater, Stewart Ainsworth, Mick Aston, archeological dig, Channel 4, Time Team Full Episodes, Full Episode, spanish, spanish armada, armada, boat, shipwreck, shipwrecked, ship, medieval

Id: 2tMvBNWeuPg

Length: 50min 13sec (3013 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 30 2019