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Twenty years ago, during a particularly dry summer, parch marks revealed what seemed to be a huge Roman fort a few hundred metres from the Duke of Buccleuch's extraordinarily grand house, Drumlanrig Castle, in Dumfries. The discovery lay untouched until Time Team took on the challenge to investigate it further.
The Team sought to answer a number of questions. Was it actually a Roman fort? If so, it was one of the most northerly ever found and therefore of special importance to Scotland's history. So when were the Romans there? No finds made previously had given any hint of the date of the structure.
Time Team also wanted to identify the roads leading in and out of the fort. Was there any kind of civilian settlement or other features nearby? And could the Team work out how the Romans made their famous draco, the military standard that made a sound that was said to have struck fear into the hearts of their enemies?
As usual, Time Team had just three days to answer these questions – and possibly change the face of Roman history in Scotland.
Time Trail.
The period of Roman rule in Britain, which lasted from 43 AD, when Claudius invaded, to around 410 AD, when the legions were recalled to Rome, has provided Time Team with more sites than any other. These have included some of the most spectacular – including the astonishingly well-preserved mosaics at Dinnington that featured in the 2003 series; and the marvellous villa site at Turkdean. The discovery of this site led to the first ever Time Team Live in 1997, and also spawned this very website. It is also one of only two sites that the Team has visited more than once.
The Drumlanrig dig focused on the site of a previously-unexcavated Roman fort, first revealed by cropmarks during a particularly dry summer. Although the Romans pursued military expeditions into the far north of Scotland, little archaeological evidence has been found of these campaigns and it is unusual to find Roman forts so far north.
For the legionaries posted here, this must have seemed a remote location – but no more so, perhaps, than at other military settlements excavated by Time Team in the past. These have included the Birdoswald fort on Hadrian's Wall and Castleford fort in the north of England. Further information on what life was like for a Roman legionary can be found in The legionaries' lot. Information on many different aspects of Roman life and other Roman-era digs conducted by Time Team can be found in our special section on the Roman occupation.
Now try your hand at the Time Trial quiz to accompany this programme.
Test your knowledge with our quick quiz. You'll find all the answers by digging around in this week's pages and following our Time Trail for the Drumlanrig programme.
Time Trial
What was the name of the commanding officer's house in a Roman fort?
The Principia
The Praetorium
The Principalis
Which road led from the front gate to the headquarters building in a Roman fort?
The Via Praetoria
The Via Principalis
The Via Dolores
What is the name of the civilian settlement associated with a Roman fort?
Vicus
Wicus
Kicus
Which of the following has NOT been known to produce cropmarks that have been mistaken for evidence of archaeological features beneath the surface?
A leaking muck spreader
Tethered goats
A used fridge mountain
Vegetius tells us that every few months, a Roman legionary would be expected to complete a 20-mile route march with full equipment. What was the time limit within which he would be expected to complete it?
Four hours
Five hours
Six hours
Who was responsible for preparing food in a Roman legion?
The individual legionary
The legion's cooks
The legionaries' wives
Answers here.
For this programme, Time Team worked closely with county archaeologist Jane Bramm in an attempt to discover when this previously unexcavated Roman fort was constructed.
Excavation across the supposed defensive ditches revealed evidence for two phases of turf ramparts, with stone backing; a road running along the back of the ramparts; and a three-metre-deep defensive ditch. Both phases of the defensive ramparts were dated to the second century AD.
Geophysics covered most of the fort area and indicated the presence of the main roads, gates, ditches, possible barracks buildings and the Principia, over which two trenches were placed. One trench revealed the foundations of a stone wall and two phases of pink mortared floor surface. Another revealed a cobbled surface, sealing a midden and the remains of timber foundations. Pottery from both phases, found in both trenches, was dated to the second century AD; evidence for burning was also discovered.
Test pits were excavated over other features, including a 5m x 10m anomaly. This revealed a clay-lined wall. Burning debris was discovered across the fort site. This indicated that the second phase of the fort had been demolished when the Romans left. Finds were scarce, suggesting that the Romans had kept the site clean.
Landscape analysis revealed the presence of an annex. This, together with the alignments of the defensive ditches, indicated the possible presence of a first-century fort.
Time Team's illustrator and artist, Victor Ambrus, has been with the programme from the beginning. In the early days his contributions involved working on a touch-sensitive computer pallet connected to the graphics team's software. Today he crafts fine-art watercolours, which are digitised for the computer, complete with morphing animations in tandem with Raysan Al-Kubaisi's 3D graphics.
An illustrator of more than 300 books, Victor can capture just about anything and when trying to bring the trenches to life his pictures repeatedly hit the right note with the specialists.
'I never really know what I am coming to when I do a Time Team,' he says. 'They just say "It's a Roman site this week Victor" and that's about it. The first thing I do is to have a good look at the landscape so that I can set my picture into the right context. Then I keep a good eye on the trenches to see what's coming out and I always talk to the specialists a lot to make sure I'm on the right track.'
Victor creates between five and ten pictures for each programme over the three days of a dig. He often draws Tony, Phil and Mick into the characters and in recent years has worked more with colour.
'I like to use watercolour with my drawings – it can really highlight a piece,' he says. 'I don't have lots of equipment with me because I have to move about the site most of the day. I just have a small drawing board, my pencils and a small watercolour pallet. When I've finished a picture I leave it. I don't change any of them after the show.'
'Apart from a few rare examples that I've given away to people after programmes, I keep all of the pictures I do,' Victor says. 'I have nearly 12 years' worth of Time Team drawings at home. I say nearly because in the early days when we did the electronic computer thing I never had a hard copy, so those have been lost. That's why I really like to stick with pencil and paper today. I get to keep my original and the graphics chaps can do their marvellous stuff to a digitised copy.'
Ros Ereira, cameo producer
Ros Ereira, Time Team cameo producer, explains how a draco was made for the Drumlanrig programme cameo.
The draco was a Roman military standard. Initially used by the cavalry, its use eventually spread throughout the army. It consisted of a dragon head made of a copper alloy, held in the air on a pole, and with a body/tail made of fabric, which would blow out behind the head when carried on horseback.
We also know from written sources that the draco made a noise. This noise is perhaps its most intriguing feature. Despite the fact that we know from the written sources that the draco was a common standard, very few clues survive about how it was constructed. The best example was found at Niederbieber in Germany, but even there all that survives is the copper 'head'.
I decided that Time Team should try to find out more about how the dracos were made, and how they might have made a noise. Could we hear a sound that has not been heard for 2,000 years?
Making the draco had three separate elements:
The metalwork
The tail
The noise-making device
Each of these elements had its own inherent problems and degree of interpretation required. There was also the additional problem that our draco had to be made and demonstrated within three days. The head of the draco was made by Tim Blades. Valerie Hancorn, a kite-maker, made the tail and Peter Taylor investigated the noise-making element.
Tim Blades, metalworker
Tim Blades, metalworker, explains how he made the draco.
When I got a call from Ros Ereira at Time Team asking if I could make them a head for a draco, my first question was 'What is a draco?' She put me onto a website for a German museum where there was a good example and a scale plan and even though it was much larger than I was used to I said I would have a go at it.
The first thing I did was to make a rough cardboard one to see how big a bit of metal I would need, and I hammered out a trial piece of copper to see where it would stretch and how far I could shape it, especially around the nostrils and eyebrows, which were the widest areas.
The draco would originally have been made out of sheet bronze, probably in a workshop in Rome, and issued to the cavalry to take with them. Studying the photos of the one in the museum it became obvious that the bulk of the work was in the top half: the bottom was a fairly straightforward tray with a raised edge for the teeth and shallow scales.
In their day, producing pieces of bronze sheet large enough and thin enough to form into the correct shape would probably have been the hardest part of the job. I found it difficult to find a suitable piece of bronze, so I eventually elected to make it in copper. To do the job in two days meant that I needed a metal I could rely upon to be straightforward to work.
My first trial piece had come out with the nose much too short – I had underestimated how much I would need to curve around for the nose, and it did not have enough metal for the eyes. Apart from that, the tool I made to do scales – from a piece of water pipe! – was a great success, and I could see that if finished it would look a lot like the original.
Starting with two roughly rectangular pieces of copper, three or four hammers, a few punches, a sandbag and a couple of blocks of wood carved to a suitable shape, it was a relatively simple operation – if a bit slow.
In the early stages it looks like a rather battered old car bumper, but as soon as the form takes shape you can see where more work has to be done. As you stretch and bend the metal it 'work hardens' and has to be softened. This is called annealing and is done by heating the metal until it glows and then quenching in a weak acid. This has to be done many times during the process – otherwise the metal would crack.
When the main shape has been formed and looks about right, finer details can be put in. The ridge around the nose, the nostrils, eye sockets, brow ridge and raised ridge around the teeth are not cut until the end to allow for any adjustment. Next, the scales are stamped in and their shape improved, while the eyeholes and the hole for the pole are cut in with a chisel.
A similar but much easier job was done on the lower half at the same time, to keep the line of the mouth the same. It was most important all the way along to make sure that the mouth would be wide open at the end. The final shaping was to put a raised rim around the back end to carry the tail.
The draco was now ready to be coloured and after a good scrub with a brass brush the bottom half was fluxed and heated so that molten tin could be spread on with an old rag. This had to be natural fabric only, as polycotton melts – not a problem the Romans would have had!
Originally the top half would been firegilded, which involves mixing pure gold with mercury, rubbing on as a paste and evaporating off the mercury. This is not at all good for you! So I used a modified 'pen-plating' system where you 'paint' on the gold in a conducting solution wired up to an electroplater. This took about 3.5 hours and at first did not seem to be working at all well. After a pause and a clean with a brass brush, however, it improved considerably, and at the end it really gleamed.
The draco was then put together with rivets, which were plated over, washed and had its tail put on.
My judgement of the original, having made a replica, is that the Romans would not have spent a great deal more time on it than I had – maybe another couple of days to do proper repousse work to get better detail on the scales, eyes, eyebrows and so on. This was a government-issue job, made down to a price and finished with a flashy plate. Gold paint was the 'go-faster stripes' of the Roman empire!
The website of the Dutch late-Roman re-enactment society, Fectio, contains further information on the draco, including other reconstructions:
http://www.fectio.org.uk/groep/draco.htm
Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third-party sites.
Roman Britain by Tim Potter and Catherine Johns ('Exploring the Roman World' series, British Museum Publications, 1992) hardback £19.95; paperback £12.99
A survey of the effects of Roman culture on Britain and its people, by two British Museum curators. Includes evidence from the latest archaeological discoveries, including the Vindolanda writing tablets and the Thetford and Snettisham treasures, as well as a gazetteer of noteworthy sites to visit.
Roman Britain by T W Potter (British Museum Press, 1983, 2nd edition 1997) paperback £8.99
The four centuries during which the Roman presence in Britain rose, flourished and declined changed every aspect of life: industry, trade, government, the arts and learning. This book gives an illustrated outline of the period.
Roman Britain by Martin Millett (English Heritage, 1995) paperback £15.99
Making full use of the archaeological material available, this introductory study of four centuries of Roman presence in Britain explores the central themes of daily life, laying particular emphasis on the social, economic and cultural history.
Life in Roman Britain by Joan Alcock (Batsford/English Heritage, 1996) paperback £15.99
An excellent social history of life in Roman Britain covering food and drink, clothing, recreation, administration and religion. Richly illustrated.
Companion to Roman Britain by Guy de la Bédoyère (Tempus, 1999) hardback £25
This book is a comprehensive compilation of historical and epigraphic facts about Roman Britain and seeks to set the record straight about where facts end and opinions begin. Includes a complete breakdown of all military units, when and where they were stationed and so on, together with details of buildings, officials, administration and the first full list of the Gods of Roman Britain.
An Atlas of Roman Britain by Barri Jones and David Mattingly (Blackwell, 1993, 2001 edition) paperback £15.99
An amazing accumulation of archaeological evidence has been used to map every aspect of Roman life on a countrywide scale, including the distribution of Roman forts, towns, villas, potteries and quarries. Lots of additional plans and useful descriptions on each topic.
What was the name of the commanding officer's house in a Roman fort?
The Praetorium
Which road led from the front gate to the headquarters building in a Roman fort?
The Via Praetoria
What is the name of the civilian settlement associated with a Roman fort?
Vicus
Which of the following has NOT been known to produce cropmarks that have been mistaken for evidence of archaeological features beneath the surface?
A used fridge mountain
Vegetius tells us that every few months, a Roman legionary would be expected to complete a 20-mile route march with full equipment. What was the time limit within which he would be expected to complete it?
Five hours
Who was responsible for preparing food in a Roman legion?
The individual legionary