At the Sign of the Eagle Meet the Ancestors

Under a car park, on the edge of a city,

an ancient burial ground has been discovered.

A magnificent lead coffin is about to reveal its strange secrets.

Those burials are in Winchester. I don't know how old they are.

This Roman road may give me a clue.

It's heading straight for them!

'At the site, I met Paul McCulloch, the archaeologist in charge.'

-How you doing?

-I see you've started the machining.

Yes, we've had the machine going all morning so we're progressing.

Developers plan to build flats on the site, which was part of a Roman cemetery.

But before any foundations are laid, all human remains must be removed.

-How long have you got to do it?

-A month.

Is that long enough? There's going to be a lot of graves in there.

I reckon 25 to 30 graves. We've got four or five people on the job.

Weather permitting, and hoping there aren't too many problems, I'm sure we'll do it.

Since I'm here, Paul's invited me to help.

I've been given a grave of my own to dig.

The cemetery dates from the late 4th century, the end of the Roman period.

The graves are aligned east-west, so they're probably Christian.

But there's something odd going on.

The graves are aligned, but there is no consistent burial pattern.

This is the grave of a child who's been buried face down.

That's the back of the skull and that's the jaw,

and here the teeth,

so we know the face is down.

And here are the backbone and the arm bones,

but that's the shoulder blade.

Here are the ribs underneath the shoulder blade,

so that's the child's back.

Further along is the burial of a man,

lying on his back, in a very shallow grave.

This'll be a pain.

Here's a man whose head was cut off,

and buried down by his knees.

Right. OK. That's number six.

'As my grave got deeper, I wondered what I would find.

'Iron nails - the evidence of a wooden coffin.

'This was nothing compared to what emerged elsewhere on the site.'

-< Oh, wow!

-You've not!

A lead coffin!

Oh, you're joking!

HE LAUGHS EXCITEDLY

Oh!

Just uncovering...what appears to be a lead coffin.

Just removing...

some of the stained chalk from around the edges.

-Does this mean you're working over the weekend?!

-Guess so!

This is a really great discovery, so I'm excited about it, yeah!

In a very deep grave, Malcolm has found a lead coffin,

the second to have been found in Roman Winchester.

Lead was a valuable metal. It must have belonged to a wealthy Roman.

-Did this make digging this hole worthwhile?!

-Yeah, I think so.

I think it's one of the few things that makes it worth it.

-What if you'd got to the bottom...

-And...nothing?! I'd have been sick!

'But what condition will the coffin be in?

'Has it been flattened by the chalk?'

..get down to the shoulder blades.

This was the worst possible time for the weather to turn against us.

All the other graves had to be finished before we could dig

the huge hole needed to get the lead coffin out.

I'm knackered!

It's the worst barrow run I've ever pushed a barrow up.

As I removed the bones from my grave,

I wondered if we really were going to finish in time.

Unless we get completely covered in snow or rained off every single day,

I'm sure we'll finish.

But despite the weather, eventually we made it.

All the empty graves had to be filled with gravel,

and the site levelled before a JCB was brought in to expose the coffin.

The machine's dug a huge hole to get down to the coffin.

They stopped six inches short of it.

The rest's got to be dug by hand.

We're all dying to see it exposed.

'It makes all this effort really worthwhile.'

At this end there's a... there's a hole in it.

Which answers one question, which was whether or not it was sealed up.

Because if it had been completely sealed,

then there could have been all sorts of unsavoury things inside it.

Basically, bones floating around in a sort of soup.

But we're not going to find anything as unpleasant as that, which is in some ways quite a relief.

As the shape of the coffin lid began to emerge,

Malcolm made an important discovery.

Just a small nail.

Rather small for a coffin nail, but it may be one.

It means that the lead coffin was encased within a timber coffin.

-So there was a timber outer shell.

-There's another one here.

From the fragments of wood corroded on the nail

we hoped to identify the type of coffin.

After two days of digging, the whole coffin could be seen.

To our relief, it wasn't squashed flat.

Unlike the other burials, it lay north-south.

It was the burial of a pagan.

The next day we had a peep through the coffin lid.

And there, in the gloom, was the rounded shape of a skull.

'This might look like a scene from Quatermass. In fact it's Health and Safety at work.

'The white suits protect us from the lead dust on the coffin.'

It feels strange, a bit restricted,

but with that amount of lead down there, it's a good idea.

So...down we go!

The idea is to build a cradle around the coffin

with scaffold tubes,

support the underside with wooden wedges,

and hopefully lift it all clear with a crane.

After 1,600 years, it seems a shame to disturb the coffin.

But it would have been destroyed by the new building.

-Look at that scaffolding!

-It's a work of art!

The lorry had become an improvised hearse

that took the coffin to the archaeologists' warehouse on the outskirts of Winchester.

This is the moment of truth.

We peeked through the lid so we know there are SOME bones.

We still don't know if there's a whole skeleton. We'll find out!

-OK. You ready?

-ALL: Ready! I've got it! >

Oh, bloody hell! >

SOMEONE LAUGHS Flippin' heck! >

PLASTIC RUSTLES

-That's somebody pretty tall!

-Yeah!

-You were saying how far...

the feet are away from the end of the coffin.

Actually, they almost reach it!

We were amazed at what appeared when the lid was lifted.

The skeleton of a well-built male,

so tall he almost filled the coffin!

-Shall we go for it?

-Yeah.

The skull couldn't have been in better condition.

This was good for the facial reconstruction.

As we started to lift the remainder of the bones,

we noticed that some of them had rather strange attachments.

This here, I'm not quite sure what it is.

It's obviously within the, the rib cage.

Um, but you know it's just a question of taking

a sample of this and trying to find out what it might be.

Strange, isn't it?

It is occurring very much around the end of the ribs where you

would expect an attachment, wouldn't you?

-Yeah.

-Some sort of ligament or something.

Moving down to the foot of the coffin,

we found something not quite as gruesome, but just as interesting.

I can't really believe it, but it looks like cloth.

It may be part of a shroud of cloth, but you can see the weave in there.

What puzzles me is what it's preserved in!

And then, in the same place, yet more strange discoveries.

-That thing there?

-Yeah. I don't know...

-..what that is.

-It's very, very strange, isn't it?

-It's...

Actually, I wonder, it feels...

It's not heavy enough to be lead, I don't think. What do you reckon?

Is it?

-No, it's not, is it? No, never seen anything like that before!

-No.

By the end of the day, when all the bones were removed and the coffin was being swept clean,

we found it had just one more surprise for us.

'Halfway down, where the Roman's hand had lain, was a coin -

'a pagan's payment for the journey into the afterlife.'

Take off the soil from the edges and hopefully we'll identify it.

What a relief to get out of that suit,

but how amazing the contents of the coffin have been!

Not only are there things preserved which we hadn't expected

but to cap it all, Paul found that coin.

Hopefully, it'll date the whole burial! It's brilliant!

Several days later, we showed the remains

to human bones specialist Margaret Cox.

It's a robust male with all the characteristics of a male skeleton.

And apart from that, it's large.

-Yeah.

-A wonderful set of teeth! SHE LAUGHS

'Margaret felt the Roman was a man of about 30 when he died,

'with no signs of disease or injury, apart from a damaged leg.'

What appears to have happened here, Julian, is that you've had some trauma to the lower leg,

and there was some damage...that caused a response in the soft tissue.

What you see here is bony growth,

coming away from the normal shape of the fibula

going towards the tibia,

which shows the same responses to what was clearly a trauma.

The effect you get is that the bones end up joined...

by new re-modelling.

Have a look at these vertebrae.

What's...that?

-Good God.

-It's sort of round there.

I've never seen anything like it before.

Oh, well I'm glad that you haven't, cos...

-It's weird.

-It...

But is it any way that it could be some sort of soft tissue,

that has, through some freak of preservation, survived?

I just wonder, actually, if this isn't...

Again, this is purely speculation, but if this was lying in gunk,

and that's the tidemark of the gunk,

and if it's some sort of accretion that was on the top

that was solidifying and solidified around the bones?

We could perhaps do some chemical analysis. See if we can identify it.

Because I can't think of anything, in terms of soft tissue, that it could be.

I was also curious to know what Margaret would make of those odd little cones.

-Goodness, gracious.

-Stalagmites.

-Strange. Yeah.

-They sat...they sat like that on the...

-On the bottom of the coffin?

We could almost see a build-up of layers, can't you?

We could put that under the scanning electron microscope

and see that sequence of build-up quite nicely.

And see exactly what's going on. Absolutely fascinating, aren't they?

Never seen anything like it.

My next stop was the Winchester Conservation Laboratory.

I hoped to hear some news about the cloth and the coin we'd found.

It's not textile, it's an impression of textile.

-On the screen...

-It looks like a weave.

-You can see the structure,

and we can see impressions of fibres as well.

What's preserved it, though?

This is a chalky deposit, remember it was surrounded by chalk,

so chalky water has dripped in,

and this has built up a chalky, almost scale-like deposit

on items in the coffin. And it seems...

-Then the material's rotted away?

-The material's rotted.

It looks like this has fallen down on the shroud that was on the body.

It's taken a fossil impression of the thread pattern of the shroud.

Can you tell what sort of weave or material it was?

Well, it's probably going to be linen or wool.

Now that, I presume...

'The coin, which had cleaned up nicely, was next.

'Paul was on hand to tell us when it was minted.'

There's a male standing figure.

You can see his legs there, moving up the torso area.

Arm coming out either side,

possibly a drape over the arm hanging down below here.

Turning the coin over now,

you can see it's worn and corroded.

There's an area which is the head,

and we can see the remains of some lettering around the top here.

You were relying on this to date the lead coffin. Has it?

-Is it identifiable?

-It's a...

-It's a coin which we can understand.

-Yeah.

At the moment, it looks to be an issue of the Emperor Constantine,

and perhaps from 313, 314...

From Winchester, it was off to another Roman city, Manchester,

and to the studios of facial reconstruction expert Richard Neave.

-It IS complete, isn't it?

-Yes.

-Isn't that nice?!

-It makes a change!

-It does rather, you bring us all sorts of busted bits!

Now, out you come, young man!

Now, that is a big, powerful skull, isn't it? My goodness!

A big mastoid process.

Quite a prominent chin.

Not particularly full lips.

Not a very deep upper lip.

Quite a big nose...

Why do you say, "Quite a big nose" and look at me?!

Richard had hinted at how the Roman might look.

It was up to medical artist Denise Smith to rebuild his face.

I'm not sure he's going to look typically Roman.

He's going to have quite a wide nose,

and...

he may have a slightly heavier brow

making his eyes look more deep set.

But...er...he's going to have quite a strong, powerful face.

Back in Winchester, I was curious to know more about the place our Roman was buried.

'At the Historic Resource Centre,

'Steve Teague has created a database which gave some clues.'

This is what we now understand about the layout of the streets.

-Can we have a more detailed look at the town?

-All right.

-So where were we digging? Around here?

-Yes, over here.

So, it's just outside one of the town gates.

-Outside the defences.

-Yes.

-Just outside the city.

-How many burials have you excavated?

-Excavated and observed,

we're talking about around 1,000 burials!

So, this is one big burial ground just outside the city

and that's the area where we were digging?

-Yes.

-That had how many burials?

-35.

35 just in that area!

So those were the first trenches you dug,

and this was the area we excavated?

-So the lead coffin was in that area?

-Yeah.

'Most of the burials lay east-west, indicating they were Christian.

'The lead coffin lay north-south, suggesting he was a pagan.

'Now I know where he was buried, by the north gate, I wanted to know what the burial scene looked like.

'Illustrator Mark Barden had some sketches ready for me.'

Is this your first go at a reconstruction of the burial?

Yes, first attempt.

What's the idea,

to show that it's just outside the walls of the town?

Yes, and the depth of the burial in relation to the ground surface.

It is deep, isn't it? I hadn't realised.

I remember it was a huge hole in the ground, trying to get it out!

It's a deep grave.

We move on to the colour version.

What's all this? This is elaborate!

Yes, again some slight speculation gone into it.

I think it would look strange if the wooden coffin box wasn't decorated.

What do these mean?

There's a lot of symbolism in Roman art.

Rosettes signify prosperity in the afterlife.

We have a few more people, a few more mourners,

as well as other elements such as the band in the background.

-A fairly meagre band!

-Did they have musicians at funerals?!

-Yes.

There are stone sarcophagi from Rome showing funeral processions with a band.

Mainly woodwind instruments,

followed by hired mourners pulling their hair out and wailing.

So how did Winchester fit into the wider Roman Empire?

At the museum, there was an important clue.

When our man in the coffin died, near the end of the Roman period,

he was sent off with just a coin.

This is a burial dating 300 years earlier.

It's very different,

because here the bones were cremated,

not just placed in the ground.

The person was sent off to the next life with an array of objects.

There's a complete meal set out here in the grave.

There's a shale tray with cutlery on it, pots...

a beautiful glass beaker,

a bronze jug that might have contained wine,

there are beads, gaming counters,

a joint of meat!

The amazing thing is the different parts of the Roman Empire

they came from. The pots are from France,

the glass from Germany, the bronze from Italy

and the beads may be Egyptian.

This is Winchester, but it's connected

with the whole wide Roman Empire!

'Wood expert Rowena Gale had examined the wood on the nails.

'Could she tell us the kind of timber used to make the coffin?'

Well, I think this is a piece of oak wood.

It's one of the easiest woods to identify.

This has got very good characters.

I'm looking at the cross-section. I can see the springwood vessels

which occur at the beginning of every growth ring.

I can also see broad rays and very thin rays, as well.

Very diagnostic of oak.

To be certain, we've got to compare this with named reference material.

You can see here...

I've got about 100 different slides of different native species,

or species that are native to Britain, so a piece of oak...

If I show you this, I hope I'll convince you.

-Now that matches very nicely! You've got the...

-Oh, yes!

-Can you see it?

-All the little voids.

-That's right.

-I'm convinced!

-SHE LAUGHS

-I'm very impressed!

So this person had an oak coffin, then!

'If the lead coffin was encased in oak, how would it have looked?

'In south London, I went to see Hughie Torrance.

'He makes coffins in a way that's hardly changed since Roman times.

'The sheet of soft lead is cut and folded into the shape of the coffin.

'The rough form is placed in a wooden coffin

'and beaten to take its precise shape.'

BLOW TORCH HISSES

'The joints are soldered, just like our Roman original.

'Finally, a lid completes the modern version of our Roman's coffin.

'Oak and lead make the same statement about wealth as 1,600 years ago!'

Meanwhile, at Bournemouth University, the bones

and stalagmites from the coffin had been undergoing some intensive analysis.

Louise has been scanning the bones in her electron microscope.

I'm just going to... ask the computer to...

..tell me what we've got there.

The computer's just going to analyse all these peaks,

and depending on their position along with energy line,

it should tell us what they are.

The computer showed very high levels of lead,

which could only mean one thing.

It's a lead carbonate.

It is formed by water seepage through the chalky soil into the coffin.

-So it really is a lead stalagmite?

-It is, yes.

But what could she tell me about the stuff on the bones?

I can tell you what it isn't, rather than what it is.

We analysed it using the same technique

that we used for the lead stalagmite.

I can tell you that it is not soft tissue deposition,

because there isn't enough carbon in the compound for it to be that.

And it isn't a lead compound, because there is no lead in here at all.

So we're not really any nearer to understanding exactly what

this strange stuff that is stuck to the bone is, are we?

Unfortunately not, because we know very little

about the decomposition processes that go on in lead coffins.

Back in Manchester, Denise was making rapid progress with the face.

All he needed now was his hair.

Cos we know what period he's from,

we need to look at what hairstyles they'd have in that period.

They look different with hair.

Have you any idea what hair you'll put on him?

I think shortish, straight hair actually, and clean-shaven.

There is SOME evidence from Roman portraits,

so at least for the first time, you can get some idea

-as to what his hairstyle would have been like.

-Yeah.

-Not like being in prehistory when...

-It's anybody's guess!

We guess at it, don't we?

In Winchester, it was time to reveal the Roman's face

to the archaeologists who'd found him.

Here we go! Here we are, Paul!

-Wow!

-Your Roman!

-Thank you very much indeed!

-Isn't he handsome?!

-He looks like he's seen a bit of action,

like a man from the army, really! Tough guy!

Yeah, he is tough.

He looks more genuinely real somehow,

you know, than faces on mosaics or wall paintings

or something like that.

It's a genuine human face,

with bumps and crevices and so on.

This was someone who really knew Roman Winchester.

He knew its streets, temples, baths and statues.

When he died,

he was buried outside its walls, as that was what Roman custom dictated.

We know his coffin was the finest available.

The buried fragments that survived over 1,600 years tell us that much.

We can only imagine his burial,

the false sorrow of the paid orator

mingling with the genuine grief

of those who had lost a relative or a friend.

But unlike many people at this time, he hadn't adopted Christianity.

Because in his right hand was this!

A single coin.

The fare to pay the ferryman to take his soul across the River Styx,

and into the next world.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd