Trench One 5: From landscape to Netscape
Trench One 6: Written in stone
Trench One 7: Save our heritage
Trench One 8: Game on
Trench One 9: Time Team on the web
Trench One 10: The great Barbie hoax
Trench One 11: Studying archaeology on the web
Trench One 12: Magical history tour: schools resources on the web

Time Team on the web

From Trench One 9

If you’ve never heard of Mangleworzel Moonbeam – or Jethro Dufflecoat, or Panda, or Soupdragon, or many others of similar ilk – the chances are that you’ve never visited the Time Team Forum on the Time Team website (www.channel4.com/nextstep/timeteam/forum). For these are just some of the many monickers adopted by the Forum regulars, who use the facility to chat, ask questions, exchange information or discuss issues connected (or, quite often, unconnected) with Time Team and archaeology in general.

Mr Moonbeam is in fact better known on the Forum as Mr W, a committed rationalist with a somewhat intolerant edge, who transmutes into old Mangleworzel whenever the subject of druids, earth religions or – and this one really gets him going – Seahenge rears its irrational head. Here’s Mangleworzel on the subject recently:

‘By despoiling the sacred shrine, the archaeologists have been cursed by the Mother Earth Spirit. They’ve been tripping on paving stones and their gardens are becoming overgrown with weeds as the Earth tries to reclaim what is hers. Harding is the worst despoiler. Not only does he cut down trees, laughing at their screams of agony, he also plucks flints from the bosom of Mother Earth and cruelly knaps them as bloody shards fly in all directions. And the Evil One known as Robinson has seen his hair become hideously coloured after his sacriligious act. The Time Team are reaping what they have sown!’

All meant in a spirit of scathing satire, of course. But don’t worry – Mangleworzel gets as good as he gives. And there is plenty of more serious archaeological discussion on the Forum too, just in case you were thinking that this was one of those places online where only the virtually insane feel at home. Where else on the web can you ask about ‘an interesting piece of stone’ you found while walking across a field and get half a dozen highly informative answers in about a third of the time it takes to complete a Time Team excavation?

The Time Team Forum was originally set up to support the Time Team Live weekend in August 1997. It proved to be such a success that it has continued ever since, attracting in the region of 2,000 postings a week during the last series – and continuing with about 500 a week since the series finished. There is even a group of Forum regulars, calling themselves Time Team Forum Friends. They have their own website – run, as the address suggests, by Time Team enthusiasts John and Sandy Colby (www.btinternet.com/~johnandsandy.colby/ttff/). This contains information about some of the personalities behind those Forum noms de plume (or should that be noms de net?) and any web pages they produce. It also provides details of informal local groups of TTFFs, events, meetings, archaeological pages and re-enactment societies. There is no membership requirement: if you consider yourself a Forum regular you’re welcome to join them.

The Forum was also the starting point for a handy new website set up by another Time Team enthusiast at www.timeteamlinks.co.uk. This provides an extensive – and growing list – of Time Team-related links on the web. There are a surprising number of them out there.

Try, for example, this detailed description of the medieval book binding recreation carried out for the programme filmed at Hartlepool for the 2000 series: www.ncl.ac.uk/bindery/timeteam1.html. Or this account, with splendid pictures, of the Team's visit to Plympton for the 1999 series: www.members.aol.com/plymtime. Or this one, featuring Time Team's visit to Cornwall at the end of March 1995, drawn by the presence of a fogou and the possibility of some exciting Iron Age finds: homepages.primex.co.uk/~jomay/timeteam.htm. No prizes for guessing what Mangleworzel Moonbeam might make of the landowner's report: 'That night I had a dream in which the fogou said, "If you want to find more then dig closer to me."' But then part of the attraction of these enthusiasts' websites is precisely this sort of, dare I say eccentricity, reflecting the differing personalities – and ideas – of their authors.

Another site with a range of Time Team-related web links, maintained by Jean Manco and part of the Open Directory Project, can be found at
dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Arts_and_Entertainment/
Television/Programmes/Factual/Science/Time_Team.

Among other things, this features links to a variety of articles about Time Team and its leading participants. For some reason, very high on the list is Planet Bod's spoof on the 'wonderful quirkiness' of the programme (www.durge.org/~bods/tv/timeteam.live). Sample dialogue: 'Tony: So Mick, what have we got here. Mick: Well it looks like the Ark of the Covenant, Tony, but what I'm interested in is the context of this find.'

I'm sure Mangleworzel Moonbeam would have something to say about that.