Friends, Romans or Countrymen? Meet the Ancestors

On this building site, near Bristol, they've found a huge stone coffin.

It's been in the earth for centuries.

What's it doing in the middle of nowhere?

And who was inside it?

Lifting it out will be very hard, but it's what's under the lid that will really astonish the experts.

This unusual burial has brought me to the West Country.

Everywhere you look around Bristol, it seems houses are being built.

They're not the first to live here - something has come up locally

which shows that people lived here since the Roman times.

The find's been made at Mangotsfield School.

I assume it's closed down - or the kids have a lot to answer for!

The burial's under what used to be the playing field.

I've come to help solve the mystery, with a team of archaeologists -

led by an old colleague and friend of mine, Andy Young.

-Hello, Andy.

-Hi.

-What have you found this time?

-It's a Roman sarcophagus, we think.

-Did you know that, at first?

No, it could have been a piece of masonry, part of a building.

Not until we cleaned it up, did we realise what we had.

'So, it is Roman and a sarcophagus. Mark Corney is a Roman expert.'

Can he say when this person was buried?

-For now, all I can say is that this kind of burial is third or fourth century - later Roman.

-Right.

Can we get any idea whether it's a Pagan or a Christian burial?

It's aligned north-east/south-west, so it's likely to be Pagan.

Even Christians of the late Roman period tended to be buried east/west.

The chances are this person believed in the gods rather than a god.

The developers are eager to start sinking foundations.

The sarcophagus and its contents will have to be moved soon.

It's a job for a civil engineer.

Put beams - one down each of the sides - underneath, along the length.

A couple of rail tracks, effectively. Clamp the ends of these beams.

Then bring in a crane to lift it out in one piece.

You can't get a steel cradle for a sarcophagus off-the-shelf. So, one's had to be made specially.

It's four big bits of steel, bolted together, with lifting eyes on.

It's an interesting thought that, about 1,500 years ago,

there was another group of people digging the original hole

to put the sarcophagus in.

I wonder whether they were looking forward to their lunch break, too!

We're digging out the natural rock, underneath the sarcophagus,

so that we can get the steel cradle underneath it, to lift it.

But it's got to go under quite a long way. Which means undermining it, which is not very easy.

'And also potentially risky.'

A bloody great crack in the corner!

I'm afraid it's emergency surgery until I think of how to...

-You haven't got any rope on site?

-Yeah, there should be some.

If we could use the Spanish windlass method, that would hold it.

There should be some nylon rope.

I suspect that rope won't hold this anyway.

Raymond! Get the bar!

Hmm, it's moving in all sorts of directions.

< I don't see no bar in there!

There's a bar outside. It's there. I've just brought a steel bar over!

Some of the cracks, that you could see originally, are opening up.

It really looks very unstable. We've got to try to strap it all together, before we continue.

Otherwise, I think the whole thing's just going to fall apart.

Have we got another wedge?

Andy feels we can hold it together.

But the heavy stone-lid is just helping to force the cracks apart.

We'll survive.

The lid's got to come off!

This isn't as it was planned, but it's a really exciting moment.

Soon, I think we'll know whether there's anybody inside or not.

I'll take a bit of the loose off, to see if there's anything inside.

I don't think I can bear it if it's empty, after all the effort.

-Ooh, what's that?

-Good question.

-Is that a tooth?

-Yeah.

-Ah!

-It's a jaw.

-Is that the jaw?

-Hmm.

There's an eye.

Oh, so that's the... The upper jaw, there. That's right.

Well, I think that's resolved one question anyway -

it does look as if it's occupied.

We now need to think about getting the cradle underneath proper.

'Some strapping keeps the sides together. But pressure from the soil inside makes the cracks grow.

'We need the cradle in there, to provide support - and quickly!'

They're going to be heavy. Whoarr!

It can go in a bit more. Try getting that in.

Never thought it would be like this.

Yeah, we haven't got two bars.

Argh!

Right, washers!

-It's on the cradle.

-That's right, and we'll straighten it up tomorrow.

We've minimised the damage, and it's still worthwhile.

What a day!

'But it's not over. The sarcophagus is ready for the lift -

'but if the cracks spread, even a cradle might not stop a collapse.

'It's going to be a very nervous morning.'

This is when we find out whether your design's going to work!

-There we go.

-Well, it hasn't fallen to bits yet.

We made it.

'No collapse - despite the whole lot weighing in at over a tonne.

'Adam's cradle has kept it all in one piece.'

ADAM: Right corner first!

It's actually gone a lot better than I thought it was going to.

I thought the bottom might go - drop the burial all over the floor!

But I think Andy planned it so well, and it's all worked tremendously.

After years in rural isolation, our coffin and its occupant reach town.

It's going to be excavated in an old warehouse - with a strong floor.

It's such a relief, now that the sarcophagus is safely back here.

This is the next stage of excitement -

we start work and we find out what's inside it.

A big job. It will take some time for Andy Clarke to remove the soil.

So I'll find out more about the rest of the site.

Apart from our burial, all that's been found are Roman ditches.

But they do contain some interesting finds.

Will they give us some clues about the person in the sarcophagus?

-There's a full range of local, domestic pottery.

-Pots and things.

You've got this nice deep pie-dish.

There's an oval-shaped one here. Complete with a handle, there would have been another one the other end.

We've got pieces that give us clues as to people's diet.

This is a mortarium - a mixing bowl.

You've got these little grits set in it, for grinding your food down.

And we've even got the spout here, for pouring the liquid or pulp away.

We've also got evidence of materials coming from around the empire.

This is part of a very large storage jar, or amphora - that contained either wine or oil - from Spain.

This points to these people being quite well-off.

I mean, they've got wine and nice pottery for the table.

Yes. I think so, looking at the other material.

You've got these items. These are pieces of hollow square bricks.

This took the hot air up from the underfloor heating - a flue tile.

-Where's the building that these came from?

-Outside our area.

These fragments suggest that there's a fine building somewhere.

-You'd only find those in a posh building?

-With heating, or a bath.

And they found something else in the Roman ditches.

It's been sent to Bradford University.

I can appreciate the pottery, but this stuff?

Dr Gerry McDonnell specialises in slag - the waste products of metalworking.

He found that, at the site, they were working iron, copper and lead.

Is it unusual to find three sorts of metals, all being worked on the same site?

Of this variety, it is. On many Roman sites,

we find evidence for iron and copper working.

But there aren't many sites where we've got iron, copper alloy and leadwork.

I think that what we're seeing is an aspect of this settlement's economy.

Under a microscope, a featureless lump of lead slag from a hearth shows an amazing amount of detail.

The crystals have frozen.

To that smith, this was a waste product, which they threw away.

But what were they doing?

The lead is a puzzle - it could have been smelted for many reasons.

Under his scanning electron microscope - with a magnification of 5,000 times -

he's spotted little impurities,

specks of copper and silver.

He thinks he now has our answer.

He had a copper and silver brooch and wanted to recover the silver.

If he just melted that brooch, then the silver would just be dissolved.

But, if he was to put that material into liquid lead, melt it all together, and then blow air over it,

the lead would oxidise and take away the copper, leaving his silver.

That process leaves a residue called litharge, which is similar to this.

So it might be connected with jewellery-making?

Jewellery-making... is a strong possibility.

It's amazing what you can tell from rubbish!

But I'm going back to Bristol - there's a surprise waiting for me.

What's that doing there?

That's kind of what I thought when I found it.

-But we already had a skull.

-It IS unusual.

So, now we've got two skulls. It's more of a detective story - trying to find out what's going on.

A desirable property, this was!

Yes, only one previous owner!

Well, this really is an incredible discovery.

When Andy started digging he didn't expect to find another skull!

We all thought that it would be straightforward.

Now, we haven't got the foggiest idea what's going to be in here.

I was hoping that it would become clearer as Andy exposed more bones.

Instead, it just gets stranger!

There's one complete skeleton on the bottom.

Then there's the extra skull, and yet more bones.

Is there an extra skeleton in here?

There's nothing else, apart from lots of rusty nails by the feet.

It's another job for Mark Corney!

Andy found four seperate feet down this end.

And, all round this area, there's loads of little nails.

-Are they bits of coffin?

-Ah, no. No, no, no.

-They're hobnails.

-What? Off boots?

-No, from sandals -

thick-soled, leather sandals.

If you look carefully at some of these,

it seems to be mineralised leather on the studs.

-So, quite thick-soled?

-Yeah.

And you often find them in graves like this.

Often down at the lower end, where the feet are.

The sandals have been on the feet, or just placed carefully at the end.

They're not part of a wooden lining?

-No, they're footwear.

-Footwear.

Some think that they're symbolic of the long journey to the afterworld.

-So you're equipped for the long walk.

-Special heavy-duty ones?

-Exactly.

1,600 years ago, those rusty bits of iron began as shiny hobnails.

Mark Beabey turns out hundreds of pairs of period shoes each year,

from his small workshop in Leeds.

And he's going to make a pair for us - hobnails and all.

Roman sandals were quite sophisticated - more like a shoe.

But there's no difference between his and hers, or left and right.

They're all made just the same.

OK, the glue isn't entirely correct -

but Mark wasn't prepared to boil up a load of hooves just for us.

Hammering the hobnails against the iron last turns their points over.

The nail grips the layers of leather together.

The pattern on the sole - decorative as well as practical -

is based on a complete fourth century shoe from London, now in the British Museum.

-Finished?

-Mm.

-Great.

-One pair of fourth century Roman shoes.

-It's a beautiful pattern, but...

Oh, I see. This is where the nails hit the last.

-That's right.

-Hit the last, and just curled over.

These must have played havoc with a mosaic floor.

With all the bones exposed, it's clear that what we've got is unique.

There are two burials in there.

The first time this has ever been seen in Roman Britain.

And it's also clear that the people weren't buried at the same time.

One was buried long enough to become a skeleton.

When exhumed, all the bones from the knees upwards were taken out.

A second body was put in, and the bones replaced in a very odd way.

The skull was on the legs. The thigh bones on the waist and neck.

And the arm bones by the side.

This must have had meaning to those who carried out the second burial.

Its meaning is lost to us, but the bones may have other tales to tell.

With the sarcophagus empty, the crack is now clearly visible,

and runs from one end to the other.

It's astonishing that it survived the lift.

Both skeletons have come to the Bristol Royal Infirmary,

Rheumatologist Dr Gerry Barber studies ancient skeletons

in her research into the causes and origins of disease.

First, she'll tell me about the newcomer to the sarcophagus.

This is the skeleton of a male.

In measuring the long bones, we worked out that this individual was about 5ft 9ins or 175 cm,

which is well within the normal range for a Roman population.

The average man was about 5ft 7ins. So, slightly taller than normal.

Do you know how old he was?

There are two ways to try and find that out.

One is changes in the pelvis, and the way that your teeth wear down.

But he doesn't have many teeth.

He's lost a lot during life, as you can see here.

All this - the sockets have fused up.

But the teeth he has are quite worn.

This person was at least 35 to 45 before those teeth fell out.

-So what are you going to say? He's more than 45?

-Yes, 45 or over.

Did he show other signs of disease?

Well, we do have evidence for arthritis on the spine, which does tend to happen in older people.

What about the other skeleton?

If you look at them together, the most striking difference is the size.

If I bring over the arm bone of the first skeleton and compare it to the arm bone of this skeleton.

There's quite a difference!

This individual is female and she was probably about 4ft 11ins.

-So, that's quite small then?

-Well, it's slightly smaller than average.

But it is still completely within acceptable means for these skeletons.

I thought, from looking at the bits I saw before, that she was elderly.

Because the skull is broken, we are able to use a new technique of ours.

What I've actually found is that, by looking inside the broken skull,

we can actually see little pits on the inside.

-Like that one there?

-Yeah.

These are caused by vessels in the skull growing upwards. Old people get one about every five years.

The other way - tooth attrition - we're looking at things wearing down.

This INCREASES as you get older.

So how old is she on this basis?

She would be about 50 years old.

I assume that this couple must have been related.

Man and wife? Possible, given their ages.

Or mother and son? Remember, she died first.

We may never know, but we might find out where they came from.

Then, the Roman Empire stretched from North Africa to Hadrian's Wall.

They could have come from almost anywhere.

At Sheffield University, they think that the answer lies deep in the enamel of the teeth.

Teeth contain small amounts of lead from the place where we grew up.

Thin slices are cut from the couple's teeth, and put under a high-intensity laser beam.

A section is vaporised across the slice.

Analysis reveals minute traces of lead isotopes, within the enamel.

These give the origin of the lead.

We believe that's the lead that was ingested by the person - as part of their childhood diet.

And we're hoping that the isotopic composition of this lead will tell us where it comes from,

and therefore, perhaps, where the person actually originated.

So you could tell whether this person was a Roman, or born here?

We hope so, yes.

The tests showed that neither person came from Rome or mainland Europe.

In fact, they grew up near Bristol.

Were they Romanised Britains or descendants of Roman settlers?

The man's lead levels were ten times more than the average in Britain today!

Maybe the result of all that lead smelting on the site?

We would have liked to know what both people looked like.

But only the man's skull was complete enough to provide clues.

Facial reconstruction expert, Dr Robin Richards, will rebuild his face.

-What have you done to him?!

-Well, we did some work to fill in the gaps,

so that it now looks reasonably like it did when he died,

-rather than in pieces.

-And you need to do this for the laser?

We need a reasonably accurate contour over the bony surfaces of the face.

At University College London, the contours are mapped by laser

and fed into Robin's computer.

How many points are there over it?

It's something like about 40,000.

It's like it's made of wire - almost transparent.

So the computer takes the points...

And draws a patch to make a continuous surface.

Right. What's the next stage?

To take this data across to another computer where we have an average face that will act as a reference.

Robin has produced an average face,

from a group of males of similar age, which can be warped

onto the skull in his computer.

The skull and the face are matched up, point for point,

to give an impression of what our man looked like.

It shows a man with even features, perhaps not distinctive,

but with quite a narrow face and a longish nose.

It's up to illustrator Jane Brayne

to make him really look like a man of his age and times.

A Roman face, but he's not Roman -

-he comes from the Bristol area.

-Right!

What's he going to look like, though?

Well, he would have had short hair, and I've got this which shows a man

with short, curly hair which I think would be nice.

And it shows the kind of garment he would have worn.

-Is that a toga, then?

-No. Togas were out by this time.

This kind of tunic is a dalmatic -

worn all over the Roman Empire at this date by people of this status.

-That's amazing, to be so sure about the clothes.

-It is.

Jane's portrait can be combined now with the original skull scan

to produce a 3D image.

It's a technique developed by Doctor Gus Alussi

at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital.

Gus, you're a surgeon. So why are you involved in all this?

We've been involved in computers in medicine and surgery, particularly for teaching

and in particular, using 3D reconstructed models.

In this case, we're using a soft tissue model from the skull CT scan.

So, can you take a two-dimensional image

and turn it into a real face?

Indeed, we use the artist's impression of the Roman face

and we wrap it around the model that was produced by the computer reconstruction.

He suddenly looks human! The last time I saw him

was Robin's reconstruction - it was a strange colour.

But all the flesh tones

-just make him look like a person, don't they?

-That's right.

So, here he is - the man from the sarcophagus.

We know he'd adopted a Roman lifestyle with its luxuries.

We can suggest that he was a metal worker - all that lead in his bones.

We also know that when he died, he chose to be buried with somebody - a woman.

The woman he shared the sarcophagus with.

But what the bond was between them, I think, is something that we'll never know.

Subtitles by Jane French and Judith Eacott, BBC - 1998