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5 January 2003
Under the fishpond
In 1999, keen gardener Pat Jones and her partner, Morris, were busy digging their back garden to create a new ornamental fishpond. Little did they know that under their feet were human remains.
'We were amazed when we uncovered a skull and parts of a vessel,' says Pat. 'We called out the police, archaeologists and even the forensic people. My next move was to contact Time Team.'
Confines and restrictions
The Team has a struggle fitting all of the diggers and production crew into the end-of-terrace back garden. Soon the immaculate flower beds and lawns are fighting a losing battle against the shovels and mechanical diggers. With time ticking by, and only three days to discover what is hidden under the surface, the Team works into the evenings and digs deeper into the ground.
Series producer Tim Taylor has agreed to a strict research design, which limits the dig to the back garden and some adjoining allotments. 'The back garden digs are always good,' he says, 'and it doesn't do us any harm to concentrate on a small area.'
Typical Time Team
What Professor Mick Aston would term a 'typical Time Team' unfolds over the three days. After Pat's initial find, the Team discovers nothing at all on the first day. By midday on day two the production team is starting to get jittery – and then, like a long-awaited revelation, Phil Harding uncovers a grave cut. From this point on the finds come thick and fast, and the persevering diggers are finally rewarded with the discovery of a scattered Anglo-Saxon cemetery.
Saxon first aid
The reconstruction cameo for this programme was based around Saxon medicine and remedies. The experimental archaeology group 'Theod' set up a small encampment, complete with tent and camp fire, on a piece of land at the back of the incident room. Ian and Hazel Uzzell (Saxon names Billa and Ythe) head the group together with their daughter Jenny (Bebbe) and fellow re-enactor Martin Williams (Oswiu). Ythe was interviewed for the Time Team website across her table of concoctions.
'The selection of things we have here are from a slightly later date because there are no written resources about medicine from the early Anglo-Saxon period,' says Ythe. 'Even so, we are quite sure that these things were being used by the Saxons.' She explains the different remedies in turn.
'The first remedy we have is red wine and the herb betony, which would be mixed together to cure a broken head. Next is goat's milk and holly bark – used for asthma – or there's always goat's milk curds, used for ulcerated skin. For making a poultice we have breadcrumbs, lard, coriander and house leek. This would be mixed together and applied to help reduce a swelling.'
Moving along the table, Ythe becomes more enthused: 'We also have dried yarrow herb. At this time of year [spring] herbs would be few and far between, so dried stocks would be used. Yarrow was good for treating adder bites as a poultice, or sometimes carried in a little cloth bag for warding off the snakes.
'Other useful medicines include radish and salt ground together for an aching heart. This would be placed in a bowl of hot water to act as a vapour treatment. We also have ground comfrey root. This was burnt and then ground into a powder and added to honey. Taken internally it was recommended for anybody whose intestines had burst!'
Having Time Team in your house
Pat and Morris are the residents whose house and back garden provided the site for this Time Team excavation. What was it like to have their home invaded for television? Pat gave the Time Team website the low-down.
'Just under two years ago we were digging a new koi carp fish pond and we came across a skull,' says Pat. 'After going through the normal channels we contacted Time Team and then received the call from the production office to say that they wanted to dig our garden for one of the programmes. We were absolutely thrilled.
'It was great when the production crew actually rolled in. I'm enjoying every moment of it. My garden looks a bit like the Somme, but it's been worth it – I'm chuffed to bits to have the guys here. I'm sure I'm going to cry after they've gone home.
'Everybody has been brilliant, such a good group of people. Nobody has been starry or anything like that. They're just like they are on the telly. I was up at 5am this morning, I just couldn't wait for everyone to turn up. I think that when this is all over we are going to end up with a few more ponds than we started with, though, what with all these trenches.'
Mick Aston's thoughts
Time Team regular Mick Aston summarised the Raunds dig for the website as the dig drew to a close:
There was a lovely crisis on this programme about half way through. We had dug a lot of holes but found absolutely nothing – and I mean nothing. From an archaeological point of view that's not a problem because you just record that fact as part of your investigation, but for television it's quite disastrous.
The production people started to get quite jittery. Tony was trying to wind me up, saying 'We're not going to find anything, Michael.' But I really didn't mind: that's real archaeology.
I thought, 'Okay, this is the programme where we're not going to find a thing', but then at about midday on day two Phil spotted a dark corner in a trench and before you knew it we had a grave cut. We ended up with the male burial that Pat and Morris [the residents of the house] found originally; a fantastic female burial in Phil's trench; another burial in Trench Two of a child; and even some additional slightly damaged remains on the other side of the hedge in the allotments next door. That all adds up to a fairly scattered Anglo-Saxon cemetery. All good Time Team stuff.
This has been a challenging programme with us trying to stick with our original research design and keep it small. I've just been talking to some of the people of Raunds about our work and that is nice 'icing on the cake' for me. The reason I got involved with this whole business in the first place was because I wanted to get more people interested. We've certainly fired a few imaginations and that's what it's all about. It's been a good one.
Audio files
Helen on female burial
Joe on helicopters
Tim on the first shoot
You may need a free RealPlayer to hear these interviews.
Further reading
The Salisbury Hoard by Ian Stead and Colin Renfrew (Tempus, 2000) hardback/paperback £17.99/£12.99 ISBN: 0752414046/752414720
A modern Beowulf-like real-life saga of archaeological detection, leading
to a unique prehistoric hoard. The Salisbury Hoard is the most remarkable
hoard of prehistoric metalwork ever found in Britain, but knowledge of
it was almost lost with artefacts scattered by metal-detectorists, dealers,
auction houses and collectors. Thanks, however, to the dogged persistence
of Dr Stead well over half the hoard has now been recovered and acquired
by the British Museum, where it will be displayed as one of the most important
finds of the century.
The Anglo-Saxons edited by James Campbell, Eric John and
Patrick Wormald (Penguin, 1991) paperback £16
Three experts have collaborated to produce this complete, illustrated
guide to the Anglo-Saxons, from their arrival in England to their conversion
to Christianity and defence of Britain against Viking attacks.
An Archaeology of the Early Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms by C J Arnold (Routledge, new edition 1997) paperback £17.99
The key introduction to Anglo-Saxon studies and the polemics spurring
research in this field. The book deals with the major questions concerning
how Christian medieval England emerged from the chaotic and pagan Dark
Ages.
Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest by H R Loyn (Addison Wesley Longman Higher Education, 1991) paperback £20.99
More than 30 years since its first edition, this book still remains a
standard text on the social and economic development of Anglo-Saxon England
from the first settlements in the fifth and sixth centuries AD to the
immediate aftermath of the Norman Conquest. It draws on surviving legal
and literary sources, as well as the latest findings of archaeologists,
numismatists and art historians.
The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England edited by Catherine E Karkoy (Garland Publishing, 1999) hardback £50
This volume offers comprehensive coverage of the archaeology of Anglo-Saxon
England, bringing together essays on specific fields, sites and objects,
and offering the reader a representative range of both traditional and
modern methodologies and interdisciplinary approaches to the subject.
Individual sections deal with settlement archaeology, the archaeology
of church and monastery, death and burial and women and the material record.
The Anglo-Saxon World by Kevin Crossley-Holland (Oxford University Press, 1999) paperback £6.99
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle translated and edited by Michael Swanton (Dent, 1996) paperback £12.99
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is the first continuous national history
of any Western people in their own language. This translation is the most
complete and faithful yet published, with extensive notes referring the
entries to current knowledge as well as to maps and genealogical tables.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle translated and edited by Michael Swanton (Exeter University Press, 1999) £5.99
A basic translation without the notes, maps and tables that accompany
the above.
Kings and Kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England by Barbara Yorke (Routledge, 1990, new edition 1997) £18.99 ISBN: 041516639X
Wessex in the Early Middle Ages by Barbara Yorke (Leicester University Press, 1995) £25 ISBN: 071851856X
The Anglo-Saxons by Barbara Yorke (Sutton Publishing, 1999) £5.99 ISBN: 0750922206
Barbara Yorke's work in assembling the evidence for a Jutish kingdom in south Hampshire featured in a running debate between Time Team's Robin Bush and Anglo-Saxon cemetery expert Helen Geake during Live 2001. The first two of her books listed here cover this subject in depth, while The Anglo-Saxons reviews the main events of the period 400 to 1066 and the legacy left by the Anglo-Saxons.
Other websites
This website contains links to other websites which are not under the control of and are not maintained by Channel 4 Television. Channel 4 Television is not responsible for the content of these sites and does not necessarily endorse the material on them.
Anglo Saxon England: A guide to online resources
http://orb.rhodes.edu/encyclop/
early/pre1000/ASindex.html
Part of the ORB Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies, this website
has perhaps the best set of web links covering everything from original
Anglo-Saxon texts to bibliographies, maps and teaching resources.
Anglo-Saxon England
www.anthro.mankato.msus.edu/vi/angsaxe.htm
Includes, among much else, a map of Anglo-Saxon Britain and a detailed
bibliography.
Angelcynn Anglo-Saxon Living History 400–900 AD
www.angelcynn.org.uk
Excellent website run by the Angelcynn Anglo-Saxon re-enactment society.
Contains material on the history, warfare, weapons, armour, clothing and
appearance of pagan and Christian Anglo-Saxons, with details on their
culture, myths and religion, information on various finds, useful links
and an invaluable Anglo-Saxon glossary.
Anglo-Saxon cemeteries
http://www.gla.ac.uk/Acad/Archaeology/
resources/Anglo-Saxon/cemeteries/index.html
This website contains pointers to a series of resources relating to early
Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. Jeremy Huggett, who maintains the site, carried
out PhD research involving an analysis of social aspects of burial. As
part of this work an early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries database was assembled,
consisting primarily of cemeteries from central and central southern England.
The database is available on the site, together with a distribution map
of the major cemeteries included and discussions on various aspects of
early Anglo-Saxon burials. This, for example, introduces Huggett’s
discussion on sexing and ageing burials:
‘Burials have been traditionally sexed on the basis of associated
grave goods – brooches and beads with females, weapons with males.
The fact that it can be demonstrated that males may also be accompanied
by brooches and beads has not detracted from this method. The sex and
age of a skeleton are important in social terms as primary burial attributes,
and consequently it is necessary to know how the assignments were achieved
in order to avoid problems of circularity (brooches are found with females,
burial A is accompanied by brooch B, burial A is therefore female, brooch
B is associated with a female burial, brooches are associated with female
burials). Skeletal attributes may be used to age and sex skeletal evidence
independently of any associated artefacts, but it has been found that
there may be differences in the attribution of sex according to skeletal
methods and by associated grave goods.’
Sutton Hoo Society
www.suttonhoo.org/
As the other location from which a Byzantine 'bucket' has been found, Time Teamsters might like to know that they can find reference to the Sutton Hoo example (the 'Bromeswell Bucket') in the journal Antiquity (No 63, 1989 pp 295-311). A photograph of the (much-damaged) bucket is included in Saxon No 32, the Sutton Hoo Society's newsletter; Saxon No 33 includes an account of the second Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Sutton Hoo, uncovered last summer. To obtain copies (£1 each plus postage) e-mail publications@suttonhoo.org.
Further details about visiting the Sutton Hoo burial site are available on the society's website, which offers an online interactive tour of the site. Details of how to join the Society are also on the website. The lavish grave goods found at Sutton Hoo, England's premier Anglo-Saxon burial site, are on display at the British Museum.
Current Archaeology: Taplow Saxon burial
www.archaeology.co.uk/issues/ca175/
taplow/taplow.htm
Taplow is one of the magical names in Anglo-Saxon archaeology. Here in 1883 a great treasure was discovered: within the churchyard at Taplow lay a great mound and when this was opened, a magnificent Anglo-Saxon burial was uncovered at the centre. It was the most spectacular Saxon burial hitherto known in Britain, and remained so until the discovery of Sutton Hoo in 1939. This edited version of an article in the September 2001 issue of Current Archaeology looks at the background to this Anglo-Saxon burial place – presumably the 'low' (barrow) of Tappa? The Current Archaeology website (www.archaeology.co.uk) also has information on the Sutton Hoo burial as well as acting as a gateway to the world of British archaeology.
Regia Anglorum
www.regia.org/
Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Norman reconstruction society, used by Time Team on the Live 2001.