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The Colosseum. The most notorious building in the Roman Empire. | 0:00:04 | 0:00:09 | |
From 80AD, it was home to the bloodiest spectacles ever devised | 0:00:10 | 0:00:14 | |
as entertainment for the masses... | 0:00:14 | 0:00:18 | |
displays of warlike courage as men fought to the death | 0:00:22 | 0:00:27 | |
and executions with criminals burned, crucified or exposed to ferocious beasts. | 0:00:27 | 0:00:33 | |
This was what the Roman people demanded of their emperors in return for their loyalty. | 0:00:35 | 0:00:41 | |
But not just in Rome. | 0:00:43 | 0:00:45 | |
Wherever the Romans conquered, they built amphitheatres. | 0:00:45 | 0:00:49 | |
From North Africa's searing deserts | 0:00:49 | 0:00:52 | |
to the freezing hills of Wales. | 0:00:52 | 0:00:54 | |
One of the key locations in Roman Britain was Chester. | 0:00:57 | 0:01:02 | |
Here, buried in the modern city lie the remains of the most elaborate amphitheatre in the country. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:09 | |
Did Emperor Vespasian, the man who built the Colosseum, leave us this legacy? | 0:01:09 | 0:01:15 | |
This is the story of a massive archaeological project to bring the Chester amphitheatre to life. | 0:01:19 | 0:01:25 | |
The two men in charge face hard graft... | 0:01:25 | 0:01:28 | |
..and painstaking analysis. | 0:01:29 | 0:01:32 | |
We've sieved every bloody atom! | 0:01:32 | 0:01:34 | |
There will be highs... | 0:01:35 | 0:01:39 | |
Who's gonna pay for his burial? | 0:01:39 | 0:01:41 | |
..and there will be lows. | 0:01:41 | 0:01:43 | |
-It's raining! -..George, bring it in! | 0:01:43 | 0:01:46 | |
Over a long season of urban archaeology, they're determined to discover what happened here, | 0:01:48 | 0:01:55 | |
when the amphitheatre was built and what exactly it looked like. | 0:01:55 | 0:01:59 | |
The secrets of Britain's lost colosseum. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:03 | |
The excavation begins in mid-June. | 0:02:23 | 0:02:27 | |
There are 20 skilled archaeologists. | 0:02:29 | 0:02:33 | |
Surveying the site grid... | 0:02:33 | 0:02:35 | |
There are surveyors... | 0:02:35 | 0:02:37 | |
..Two south! | 0:02:37 | 0:02:39 | |
..builders... | 0:02:39 | 0:02:41 | |
geophysicists and archivists... | 0:02:41 | 0:02:45 | |
Romanists...and medievalists. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:48 | |
The first rota I'll call "white"... | 0:02:48 | 0:02:51 | |
They're led by two experts on Roman archaeology - Tony Wilmott from English Heritage | 0:02:51 | 0:02:58 | |
and Dan Garner from Chester City Council. | 0:02:58 | 0:03:02 | |
The team Tony and Dan have gathered together will be working 7 days a week for 15 weeks | 0:03:07 | 0:03:14 | |
in the middle of the city centre. | 0:03:14 | 0:03:16 | |
And it's all on view to the public. | 0:03:16 | 0:03:20 | |
It's going to be hard manual labour, | 0:03:23 | 0:03:26 | |
digging down until they reach Roman level | 0:03:26 | 0:03:28 | |
to reveal the buried amphitheatre. | 0:03:28 | 0:03:30 | |
The layers and structures that we've got on site, we peel off in reverse chronological order. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:38 | |
Obviously, uppermost is the latest. | 0:03:38 | 0:03:40 | |
So 19th-century pottery in the top layer, that's a 19th-century layer. | 0:03:40 | 0:03:44 | |
As we go down, we'll get early material in the deeper layers, | 0:03:44 | 0:03:48 | |
that will give us the dating levels for those layers, and the relationships | 0:03:48 | 0:03:52 | |
between the layers gives us a nice dated sequence through the layer cake | 0:03:52 | 0:03:56 | |
that we have on the site. | 0:03:56 | 0:03:58 | |
Chester prides itself on its Roman heritage. | 0:04:03 | 0:04:06 | |
Its amphitheatre is a showpiece. | 0:04:06 | 0:04:09 | |
In Roman Britain, it must have been an awesome sight. | 0:04:09 | 0:04:13 | |
It was the largest amphitheatre in the country, | 0:04:13 | 0:04:16 | |
a grand stone structure built to serve the largest fortress in Britain. | 0:04:16 | 0:04:21 | |
It seems that Chester was destined for great things. | 0:04:21 | 0:04:26 | |
EQUIPMENT CLANKS AND RATTLES | 0:04:32 | 0:04:34 | |
In 43 AD, the vast Roman Empire was still expanding | 0:04:36 | 0:04:41 | |
and Britain was an irresistible prize at the edge of the known world. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:45 | |
Julius Caesar had failed to capture Britain a century before, | 0:04:47 | 0:04:51 | |
and now Emperor Claudius wanted its gold and its grain. | 0:04:51 | 0:04:55 | |
He landed four legions, 20,000 men, at Richborough | 0:05:01 | 0:05:05 | |
on the south east coast. | 0:05:05 | 0:05:06 | |
They marched and fought their way west and north, | 0:05:06 | 0:05:10 | |
capturing territory from British warrior kings and queens. | 0:05:10 | 0:05:13 | |
For three decades, many of the British resisted the Romans, | 0:05:13 | 0:05:18 | |
and for Roman soldiers, it was a notorious posting. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:23 | |
Britain's seen as the armpit of the Roman Empire. | 0:05:23 | 0:05:26 | |
It's wet, it's cold, it's barbaric, | 0:05:26 | 0:05:29 | |
it has one of the largest... | 0:05:29 | 0:05:32 | |
it NEEDS one of the largest standing garrisons | 0:05:32 | 0:05:36 | |
because it's full of trouble and rebellion. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:38 | |
It's the tough place where you go to wear trousers, | 0:05:42 | 0:05:45 | |
and not have bare legs, | 0:05:45 | 0:05:48 | |
where the wine would be awful cos it's travelled a long way, | 0:05:48 | 0:05:52 | |
and where the natives are pretty appalling. | 0:05:52 | 0:05:57 | |
The Roman frontier advanced regardless, | 0:05:59 | 0:06:03 | |
and by the 70s, most of present-day England was settled and peaceful. | 0:06:03 | 0:06:08 | |
To guard the north and west frontiers, | 0:06:10 | 0:06:12 | |
legionary fortresses were built at Chester, York and Caerleon. | 0:06:12 | 0:06:18 | |
But there were plans afoot to go further, | 0:06:18 | 0:06:21 | |
and Chester lay at the heart of them. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:23 | |
Chester's fortress was built on the river Dee. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:26 | |
It was a perfect sea-port, with deep-river access to the north-west coast. | 0:06:26 | 0:06:31 | |
It could be the launch-pad for expansion not only into Scotland | 0:06:31 | 0:06:35 | |
but also Ireland. | 0:06:35 | 0:06:37 | |
There's evidence from manuscripts which say that perhaps one legion | 0:06:37 | 0:06:41 | |
would be enough to conquer Ireland, | 0:06:41 | 0:06:44 | |
and the Romans were in touch with Irish chieftains. | 0:06:44 | 0:06:48 | |
And there's plenty of evidence of trade. | 0:06:48 | 0:06:52 | |
Vespasian was emperor in the 70s AD. | 0:06:54 | 0:06:56 | |
He'd been with Claudius at the invasion of Britain, | 0:06:56 | 0:06:59 | |
and now he wanted fresh conquests. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:02 | |
Vespasian is not aristocratic, | 0:07:02 | 0:07:06 | |
he's a bluff, good soldier, | 0:07:06 | 0:07:09 | |
and he's wanting to make victories and make waves. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:13 | |
He builds the Colosseum to restore Roman values, | 0:07:13 | 0:07:18 | |
he wants conquest to show he likes Caesar, | 0:07:18 | 0:07:21 | |
and Claudius IS an emperor, | 0:07:21 | 0:07:25 | |
however lowly, who can actually deliver glory to Rome. | 0:07:25 | 0:07:29 | |
We know that at some stage, there was talk | 0:07:32 | 0:07:37 | |
in the Roman world, of invading Ireland. | 0:07:37 | 0:07:40 | |
And it makes sense - | 0:07:40 | 0:07:42 | |
you'd have a nice province consisting of Great Britain and Ireland. | 0:07:42 | 0:07:45 | |
"The British Isles". | 0:07:45 | 0:07:48 | |
Chester is the obvious base from which to launch the invasion. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:52 | |
For reasons that are no longer particularly clear, | 0:07:52 | 0:07:55 | |
that invasion never happens. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:58 | |
The theory runs that Chester was not only a perfect invasion base, | 0:07:58 | 0:08:03 | |
but the perfect capital of the new, expanded Britannia. | 0:08:03 | 0:08:08 | |
It would be ideally placed, it's more or less central | 0:08:08 | 0:08:13 | |
to that imagined province. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:15 | |
And it would explain some of the peculiarities about the fortress. | 0:08:15 | 0:08:20 | |
There are buildings inside the fortress | 0:08:20 | 0:08:23 | |
that have no parallels anywhere else in Roman military archaeology. | 0:08:23 | 0:08:28 | |
The magnificent buildings are now hidden under streets | 0:08:30 | 0:08:34 | |
that follow the original Roman plan. | 0:08:34 | 0:08:37 | |
Chester's fortress was 20% bigger than any other in Britain. | 0:08:37 | 0:08:41 | |
Some of its monumental walls still stand, | 0:08:41 | 0:08:44 | |
as grand as those of any Roman capital. | 0:08:44 | 0:08:47 | |
Londinium, London, doesn't really exist at this stage. | 0:08:47 | 0:08:51 | |
It's just a rather muddy place by the Thames, | 0:08:51 | 0:08:56 | |
and Chester could well have been intended as the capital | 0:08:56 | 0:09:01 | |
of the new provinces. | 0:09:01 | 0:09:03 | |
A capital of the new provinces would deserves a fine amphitheatre. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:12 | |
Emperor Vespasian built the Colosseum in Rome, | 0:09:12 | 0:09:14 | |
did he build an amphitheatre here in Chester? | 0:09:14 | 0:09:18 | |
Or was it built much later, under a different emperor altogether? | 0:09:18 | 0:09:23 | |
Tony and Dan have to work that out during their excavation. | 0:09:23 | 0:09:28 | |
The amphitheatre was discovered in 1929. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:34 | |
But it was excavated partially in the 1960s by the late Hugh Thompson, | 0:09:34 | 0:09:39 | |
then curator of Chester's museum. | 0:09:39 | 0:09:42 | |
The Thompson Report revealed a magnificent stone building | 0:09:42 | 0:09:47 | |
with 72 buttresses. | 0:09:47 | 0:09:49 | |
It would have held 7,000 - 8,000 spectators. | 0:09:49 | 0:09:53 | |
It had 12 entrances, | 0:09:53 | 0:09:55 | |
and its arena wall was painted bright red. | 0:09:55 | 0:09:58 | |
He also found that before the stone amphitheatre existed, | 0:09:58 | 0:10:02 | |
there was a smaller amphitheatre on the same site, | 0:10:02 | 0:10:05 | |
built entirely of timber. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:08 | |
In the last few years, the Thompson theory has been severely questioned, | 0:10:08 | 0:10:12 | |
that's why the new excavation is taking place. | 0:10:12 | 0:10:16 | |
It's up to Tony and Dan to uncover the truth. | 0:10:20 | 0:10:23 | |
I think we approach the existing report with an open mind. | 0:10:23 | 0:10:27 | |
We're digging for the story. | 0:10:27 | 0:10:29 | |
We're digging for the story, and when we've got it, | 0:10:29 | 0:10:32 | |
we wanna tell people the story. It's what archaeology REALLY is all about. | 0:10:32 | 0:10:36 | |
Tony and Dan have decided to dig two areas of the site - | 0:10:36 | 0:10:40 | |
a curved section of seating bank, trench A, | 0:10:40 | 0:10:44 | |
which Thompson dug in the 1960s... | 0:10:44 | 0:10:47 | |
The second area is a wedge of seating bank and arena, trench B, | 0:10:47 | 0:10:52 | |
which is virgin ground. | 0:10:52 | 0:10:54 | |
The diggers have their work cut out if they're to find answers | 0:10:56 | 0:11:00 | |
in the next 15 weeks. | 0:11:00 | 0:11:02 | |
It's only day 2 of the dig, | 0:11:02 | 0:11:04 | |
but already, they're onto something exciting in trench A. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:08 | |
-< WOMAN: -They picked it up on the metal detectors | 0:11:12 | 0:11:15 | |
and put a metal tag in for it. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:18 | |
We normally don't find one coin in a whole excavation site. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:22 | |
it's great. | 0:11:22 | 0:11:23 | |
You can tell a little about it from its size. | 0:11:23 | 0:11:26 | |
It's likely to be earlier rather than later. | 0:11:26 | 0:11:29 | |
It's going to be 1st or 2nd century rather than 3rd or 4th. | 0:11:29 | 0:11:33 | |
But we'll see. | 0:11:33 | 0:11:36 | |
But it's not so great to realise | 0:11:36 | 0:11:37 | |
Thompson's team must've put the Roman coin back by mistake when they refilled the site in the 1960s. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:44 | |
In those days, archaeology was less professional than today. | 0:11:44 | 0:11:50 | |
Unskilled labourers did much of the digging, and even... | 0:11:50 | 0:11:53 | |
schoolboys. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:55 | |
One of them was Dai Morgan Evans. | 0:11:55 | 0:11:57 | |
I think I was a bit blase about it, I'm afraid! | 0:11:57 | 0:12:00 | |
A ghastly 16-year-old, rather cocky and full of himself. | 0:12:00 | 0:12:06 | |
The problem wasn't only untrained diggers. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:10 | |
In the 1960s, bulldozers were used to save time. | 0:12:10 | 0:12:14 | |
Today, small hand-tools are used to sift through every inch of earth. | 0:12:14 | 0:12:19 | |
It's slow, painstaking work. It's vital that every metre is methodically recorded | 0:12:23 | 0:12:29 | |
for the archive. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:31 | |
Archaeology is "an unrepeatable experiment". | 0:12:34 | 0:12:36 | |
When you've removed it, it's GONE. You know, it's archaeological stratigraphy NOW... | 0:12:36 | 0:12:41 | |
It'll be hauled off in skips in due course, or some of it will. | 0:12:41 | 0:12:45 | |
The objects they find in the debris are taken to the finds room in a nearby visitor centre. | 0:12:51 | 0:12:57 | |
Here, they are cleaned, catalogued and studied by a team of experts. | 0:12:57 | 0:13:02 | |
-We were staggered when these started coming out, actually. -Yeah! | 0:13:02 | 0:13:07 | |
Because they came out of one of the pits which Thompson excavated then back-filled. | 0:13:07 | 0:13:13 | |
Samian-ware with scenes of wild-beast hunts or gladiatorial scenes were sold as souvenirs | 0:13:13 | 0:13:20 | |
around amphitheatres. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:23 | |
Though important finds were missed in the 1960s, | 0:13:23 | 0:13:27 | |
Tony and Dan's team have retrieved them because Thompson refilled the site with the earth he'd taken out. | 0:13:27 | 0:13:32 | |
There's surprise on the quantity and the quality of what we've recovered. | 0:13:32 | 0:13:36 | |
We knew Thompson had removed a lot of the top of the excavation area with a bulldozer in the '60s. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:43 | |
Then, presumably, all that stuff got shoved back in as backfill. We suspected he would've missed things. | 0:13:43 | 0:13:47 | |
That certainly seems to be the case. | 0:13:47 | 0:13:49 | |
We've got some really good quality Roman artefacts | 0:13:49 | 0:13:53 | |
including this really great southern Gaulish Samian-ware pottery. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:56 | |
It's highly decorated. There's a recurring scene of a lion, probably part of a wild-beast hunt here, | 0:13:56 | 0:14:03 | |
which we know was popularly re-enacted in amphitheatres. So that might be relevant. | 0:14:03 | 0:14:07 | |
Glass beads off a necklace. | 0:14:07 | 0:14:10 | |
They've come up from various parts of the site, | 0:14:10 | 0:14:14 | |
so I don't think they're off the same necklace. We've presumably got several represented. | 0:14:14 | 0:14:19 | |
Then, moving forward in time, we've got Medieval pottery, | 0:14:19 | 0:14:22 | |
a 17th-century clay tobacco pipe, | 0:14:22 | 0:14:24 | |
18th-century drinking glass... | 0:14:24 | 0:14:26 | |
18th or 19th-century paint pot... | 0:14:28 | 0:14:30 | |
um, then going almost to the ridiculous, we've got... | 0:14:30 | 0:14:35 | |
1960s' artefacts, | 0:14:35 | 0:14:37 | |
including a milk-bottle, | 0:14:37 | 0:14:40 | |
possibly one of Thompson's men's shovels, | 0:14:40 | 0:14:42 | |
and a KP Nut packet. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:45 | |
This is obviously stuff that was being consumed or used by the excavators in the 1960s. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:51 | |
We know where they got their milk, | 0:14:51 | 0:14:53 | |
we know somebody have a penchant for peanuts | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
and this was the sort of shovel they were using! | 0:14:56 | 0:14:59 | |
It's early July, and the excavation is going well. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:09 | |
The team has emptied the area close to the arena | 0:15:09 | 0:15:13 | |
where Thompson dug in the 1960s. | 0:15:13 | 0:15:15 | |
Further out towards the road lie the stone foundations | 0:15:15 | 0:15:18 | |
of two great amphitheatre walls. | 0:15:18 | 0:15:21 | |
But they're not easy to get at | 0:15:21 | 0:15:23 | |
because they lie beneath a sewage system from recent housing. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:27 | |
There's just pipes going EVERYWHERE, actually. | 0:15:36 | 0:15:40 | |
Obviously the houses on the site needed their services, but... | 0:15:40 | 0:15:44 | |
Well, this is a main sewer, then you've got offshoots to individual properties going in all directions... | 0:15:44 | 0:15:50 | |
There's been a lot of destruction to the fabric of the amphitheatre. | 0:15:50 | 0:15:55 | |
That's urban archaeology, though. That's the way it goes. | 0:15:55 | 0:15:58 | |
The order is, destroy it. I've seen enough of them. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:03 | |
I don't want to see them any more! HE LAUGHS | 0:16:03 | 0:16:06 | |
There's little hope of digging down methodically, layer by layer. | 0:16:17 | 0:16:21 | |
Apart from the sewer pipes, | 0:16:21 | 0:16:23 | |
there are also vast pits to be dug out - | 0:16:23 | 0:16:26 | |
Medieval cesspits which filled up with rubbish over the centuries. | 0:16:26 | 0:16:31 | |
I don't think... I think it MAY be the continuation of the buttress foundation... | 0:16:31 | 0:16:37 | |
Interpreting this pockmarked site | 0:16:37 | 0:16:40 | |
is like playing three-dimensional chess. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:44 | |
And it's increasingly difficult to work on. | 0:16:44 | 0:16:47 | |
A month into the dig, there are some significant finds. | 0:16:58 | 0:17:02 | |
This is really good, actually. | 0:17:04 | 0:17:06 | |
Fantastic. It's bone... | 0:17:06 | 0:17:09 | |
It's got these little ridges on it. | 0:17:09 | 0:17:12 | |
And what it is, it's part of the actual grip of a Roman gladius, | 0:17:12 | 0:17:17 | |
a sword handle. | 0:17:17 | 0:17:19 | |
Nothing else in the Roman world, made of bone, looks like that. | 0:17:19 | 0:17:23 | |
The grip, the ridges are specially made so you can get your fingers into it. I can just about get mine in... | 0:17:23 | 0:17:28 | |
to the exact places. | 0:17:28 | 0:17:30 | |
I have a replica here. | 0:17:30 | 0:17:31 | |
It's based on an archaeological find from another site. | 0:17:31 | 0:17:35 | |
-That's gladius the handle... -And there's the fragment. | 0:17:35 | 0:17:39 | |
Almost identical. | 0:17:39 | 0:17:41 | |
This is based on COMPLETE examples which have been found, not just fragmentary ones like this. | 0:17:41 | 0:17:47 | |
So we do know that that is exactly what this is. | 0:17:47 | 0:17:50 | |
It tells us there's still good stuff to be found here, in finds terms. | 0:17:50 | 0:17:54 | |
And stuff that relates directly to the use of the amphitheatre. | 0:17:54 | 0:17:58 | |
The next job is to open up trench B. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:04 | |
It seems to have been a garden, perhaps belonging to the neighbouring church. | 0:18:07 | 0:18:12 | |
Before long, a small skeleton emerges from the mud. | 0:18:18 | 0:18:22 | |
Too small to be anything like a sheep. Um... | 0:18:22 | 0:18:26 | |
It's a bit big for a rabbit. I suppose it COULD be rabbit, but... | 0:18:26 | 0:18:30 | |
Analysis proves it to be a Victorian cat. | 0:18:30 | 0:18:34 | |
Over in trench A, They're still not at Roman level. | 0:18:36 | 0:18:42 | |
It's not what Dan and Tony expected. | 0:18:42 | 0:18:43 | |
It's full of slate... | 0:18:45 | 0:18:47 | |
brick, rubbish, scrap-iron. | 0:18:47 | 0:18:50 | |
The first five weeks have been tough... HE SIGHS | 0:18:50 | 0:18:54 | |
..just because there's been so much 20th-century archaeology to get rid of. All the excavation trenches | 0:18:54 | 0:19:02 | |
and the sewer-trench fills and things like that. But now we're getting into the real thing, it's gonna cheer up. | 0:19:02 | 0:19:08 | |
Today, there's a buzz at the arena. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:33 | |
It's National Archaeology Day, | 0:19:33 | 0:19:35 | |
with public events all over Britain | 0:19:35 | 0:19:38 | |
and gladiators here for the first time in nearly 2,000 years. | 0:19:38 | 0:19:43 | |
METAL RINGS OUT | 0:19:46 | 0:19:48 | |
CROWD: Oh...! | 0:19:52 | 0:19:54 | |
There's still bloodlust at Chester. | 0:19:54 | 0:19:56 | |
-Think he should kill him? -Yeah. -Yeah. | 0:19:58 | 0:20:01 | |
-Iugula! IUGULA! -IUGULA! | 0:20:01 | 0:20:03 | |
CHANT CONTINUES | 0:20:03 | 0:20:07 | |
-Oh, blood everywhere! -CHEERS AND JEERS | 0:20:10 | 0:20:13 | |
Who's gonna pay for his burial(?) | 0:20:13 | 0:20:16 | |
'In the Roman world,' | 0:20:16 | 0:20:18 | |
the watching of these spectacles is meant to instil good Roman virtues | 0:20:18 | 0:20:24 | |
in the spectator. | 0:20:24 | 0:20:26 | |
The gladiators who fight in the afternoons are dressed as barbarians. | 0:20:26 | 0:20:30 | |
These are the "other", | 0:20:30 | 0:20:33 | |
the people we don't like... the people we've conquered! | 0:20:33 | 0:20:36 | |
And they're dangerous | 0:20:36 | 0:20:38 | |
and they're nasty, | 0:20:38 | 0:20:40 | |
and we CONTAIN them. | 0:20:40 | 0:20:42 | |
In Britain, there are 25 amphitheatre sites | 0:20:42 | 0:20:45 | |
built from the 60s AD onwards. | 0:20:45 | 0:20:48 | |
Most British amphitheatres are very different from the monumental Colosseum. | 0:20:48 | 0:20:53 | |
They're simple earthworks like this one at Dorchester, | 0:20:53 | 0:20:57 | |
a dugout arena surrounded by turf-covered banks. | 0:20:57 | 0:21:02 | |
Only two have stone outer walls, Caerleon in south Wales | 0:21:02 | 0:21:06 | |
and Chester itself. | 0:21:06 | 0:21:08 | |
With no historical records to tell us what went on in British amphitheatres, | 0:21:08 | 0:21:13 | |
the archaeological evidence is all the more precious. | 0:21:13 | 0:21:18 | |
The amphitheatre in London has produced evidence to suggest there might've been wild-beast hunts, | 0:21:18 | 0:21:24 | |
certainly involving wolves and probably wild boar. | 0:21:24 | 0:21:29 | |
Um...and in Chester, we have a plaque | 0:21:29 | 0:21:32 | |
that was found very close to the amphitheatre site, | 0:21:32 | 0:21:36 | |
depicting two gladiators. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:37 | |
So people knew what gladiators were | 0:21:37 | 0:21:40 | |
and had, presumably, seen them fighting in the amphitheatre at Chester. | 0:21:40 | 0:21:44 | |
Back at the dig on National Archaeology day, | 0:21:44 | 0:21:49 | |
the team has unearthed something useful to wounded Gladiators. | 0:21:49 | 0:21:53 | |
-A miniature spear...? -No, it's a medical probe. | 0:21:53 | 0:21:57 | |
-A medical probe?! -Yeah. To pull out the broken bits | 0:21:57 | 0:22:01 | |
When you've got a bit of metal lodged in you... | 0:22:01 | 0:22:05 | |
-That's amazing! -..pull it out. | 0:22:05 | 0:22:08 | |
This just came out the ground ten minutes ago. | 0:22:08 | 0:22:11 | |
The evidence is now starting to BEGIN to stack up, you know... | 0:22:11 | 0:22:15 | |
We know it's an amphitheatre, so we know there's gonna be gladiatorial combat. But we've got Samian-ware | 0:22:15 | 0:22:21 | |
with images of gladiators and lions - more than perhaps we might expect. We've got the bone sword handle | 0:22:21 | 0:22:27 | |
and now we've medical instruments. | 0:22:27 | 0:22:29 | |
Evidence for the sort of thing going on in the arena. I didn't expect to find stuff like this at all! | 0:22:29 | 0:22:36 | |
If you come back this afternoon, we'll probably put it to good use. | 0:22:36 | 0:22:40 | |
Don't damage yourself. I need you tomorrow, to work. | 0:22:43 | 0:22:47 | |
Temperatures have been over 70 degrees for a week. | 0:22:50 | 0:22:54 | |
Digging is much harder and slower. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:57 | |
We've got a sandwich today. This site is really baked solid. We could do with a really good downpour. | 0:22:59 | 0:23:05 | |
A good overnight downpour, wet it down, | 0:23:05 | 0:23:08 | |
lay the dust and just bring up the colour so we can see what we're doing. | 0:23:08 | 0:23:13 | |
This is just completely baked out. | 0:23:13 | 0:23:15 | |
It's now late July. | 0:23:16 | 0:23:19 | |
But answers to Tony and Dan's major questions are not emerging. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:24 | |
In fact, the dig is getting more confusing. | 0:23:24 | 0:23:27 | |
Bizarre features turn up, | 0:23:27 | 0:23:29 | |
like a 1920s car-inspection pit. | 0:23:29 | 0:23:32 | |
Who knows if the early motorist realised he was digging through a Roman Amphitheatre? | 0:23:32 | 0:23:37 | |
The excavation is enormously complex. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:41 | |
And one of the biggest questions is whether Hugh Thompson was right | 0:23:41 | 0:23:45 | |
in thinking there were two amphitheatres. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:49 | |
He envisaged his magnificent stone building as the second amphitheatre on the site. | 0:23:49 | 0:23:55 | |
He found evidence for a small timber amphitheatre built 30 years earlier. | 0:23:55 | 0:24:00 | |
-..I just can't see them. -Cos on this side, they're all pretty regular. -Yeah, they are. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:07 | |
Thompson's excavation plan shows the foundation of the timber amphitheatre like a red train-track | 0:24:07 | 0:24:12 | |
running around the arena. | 0:24:12 | 0:24:14 | |
That same foundation is now emerging on the ground. | 0:24:16 | 0:24:20 | |
In Roman times, the long, narrow slots held timber beams. | 0:24:21 | 0:24:26 | |
The first person to find these slots in 1960 was Dai Morgan Evans. | 0:24:26 | 0:24:33 | |
The trowel he used is still a prized possession. | 0:24:33 | 0:24:37 | |
This is the trowel, yes. Yes... | 0:24:37 | 0:24:39 | |
I mean, it WAS larger. You can't actually say that was the edge | 0:24:39 | 0:24:43 | |
that found the timber amphitheatre. Cos the edge was out about there | 0:24:43 | 0:24:48 | |
at the time. So it has shrunk through hard troweling. | 0:24:48 | 0:24:52 | |
Like Thompson, Dai believes the timber foundation was laid down in the 70s AD, | 0:24:53 | 0:24:58 | |
under Emperor Vespasian, | 0:24:58 | 0:25:00 | |
as a framework for a wholly timber amphitheatre. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:04 | |
Keith Matthews disagrees. | 0:25:06 | 0:25:09 | |
The former Chester archaeologist has doubts about the timber beam-slots, or "grillage". | 0:25:09 | 0:25:15 | |
The difficulty, really with the timber grillage is understanding | 0:25:15 | 0:25:20 | |
whether it's a separate structure in its own right | 0:25:20 | 0:25:24 | |
or whether it's simply part of the stone structure. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:29 | |
And there are various ways | 0:25:29 | 0:25:31 | |
in which archaeologists could go out and test this idea | 0:25:31 | 0:25:34 | |
that WEREN'T tested in the 1960s. | 0:25:34 | 0:25:37 | |
Keith believes there was no timber amphitheatre. | 0:25:39 | 0:25:43 | |
He thinks the timber foundation supported a seating bank | 0:25:43 | 0:25:47 | |
for the large stone amphitheatre built in 100AD, | 0:25:47 | 0:25:50 | |
20 years AFTER Vespasian. | 0:25:50 | 0:25:52 | |
There's only one way to sort it out - | 0:25:52 | 0:25:56 | |
a gladiatorial debate. | 0:25:56 | 0:25:59 | |
-Right...! -OK. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:05 | |
44 years ago, I found the first timber amphitheatre at Chester. | 0:26:05 | 0:26:10 | |
And it's one of the things I've really kept with me for the whole of my archaeological career. | 0:26:10 | 0:26:15 | |
-You're trying to take it from me. -You DID discover a timber framework. I have no argument with that. | 0:26:15 | 0:26:21 | |
It is an argument about the relationship between the timber... | 0:26:21 | 0:26:25 | |
-Yes. -..and the stone. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:27 | |
I think the timbers have to go in AFTER these walls. | 0:26:27 | 0:26:32 | |
Hmm... | 0:26:32 | 0:26:34 | |
The arguments are complicated, going for an hour around the intricacies of amphitheatre construction. | 0:26:34 | 0:26:40 | |
-..I don't agree. -It does seem to be a cack-handed way of doing it, build your arena wall up to that height, | 0:26:40 | 0:26:46 | |
put your timber structure in, then throw the stuff over. Why don't they start off by throwing the stuff over | 0:26:46 | 0:26:52 | |
-THEN build a wall, THEN put...? -Well, it seems even MORE cack-handed to me to leave an earlier structure | 0:26:52 | 0:26:58 | |
-in place... -Ah. -..while you build the stone structure. -OK, so... | 0:26:58 | 0:27:03 | |
The clincher, for Dai, is historical common sense. | 0:27:03 | 0:27:07 | |
In the 70s AD, amphitheatres were being built all over the empire | 0:27:07 | 0:27:11 | |
by Vespasian, the man who built the Colosseum. | 0:27:11 | 0:27:13 | |
-Vespasian's really into amphitheatres, isn't he? -Absolutely. | 0:27:13 | 0:27:18 | |
I'm disputing his influence on the amphitheatre at Chester... | 0:27:18 | 0:27:23 | |
An amphitheatre-building dynasty, | 0:27:23 | 0:27:25 | |
the odds are that when they come to build this extra-special fortress at Chester | 0:27:25 | 0:27:30 | |
that's 20% larger than anything else in the country, they're gonna put an amphitheatre in. The probability. | 0:27:30 | 0:27:36 | |
-Possibly, yes. -No, not "possible"- probable. Come on! | 0:27:36 | 0:27:39 | |
Both are bloodied but unbowed. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
They'll have to wait for this year's excavation results for the answer. | 0:27:42 | 0:27:46 | |
..Not so much an argument in its favour, but it is an argument about the relationship... | 0:27:46 | 0:27:52 | |
It's still going slowly. | 0:27:55 | 0:27:57 | |
The much-needed rain has arrived, but that brings its own problems. | 0:27:57 | 0:28:02 | |
Keep all the spoil, yeah. | 0:28:02 | 0:28:04 | |
It's raining! | 0:28:06 | 0:28:07 | |
GEORGE - BRING IT IN! | 0:28:08 | 0:28:10 | |
They would like to give an answer to Dai and Keith about the timber amphitheatre, | 0:28:10 | 0:28:16 | |
but it's difficult. | 0:28:16 | 0:28:18 | |
We can't go either way yet, because the information that we need to look at, the evidence we need to look at, | 0:28:18 | 0:28:24 | |
is still...buried. | 0:28:24 | 0:28:27 | |
-And where not going to uncover it until the last week. -Mmm. Absolutely. | 0:28:27 | 0:28:34 | |
Um, but there is also the potential | 0:28:34 | 0:28:36 | |
that NEITHER of them are actually fully right, and that the truth lies somewhere in between their ideas. | 0:28:36 | 0:28:42 | |
Now, I think the idea that there are two phases of amphitheatre... | 0:28:42 | 0:28:47 | |
is looking good. The idea that one of them is wholly timber and the other is wholly stone is... | 0:28:47 | 0:28:53 | |
-is NOT going to be the case. -Mmm. | 0:28:53 | 0:28:56 | |
Rain has stopped play altogether. | 0:28:59 | 0:29:02 | |
It's the wettest August on record. | 0:29:02 | 0:29:05 | |
The weather in the last couple of days has been LOUSY. | 0:29:07 | 0:29:11 | |
And at this point in the excavation, it's the last thing we need, | 0:29:11 | 0:29:16 | |
because the site's resolving itself into a lot of deep holes. | 0:29:16 | 0:29:20 | |
If it rains HARD - like the thunderstorms we've just been having - if it really rains hard, | 0:29:20 | 0:29:25 | |
it wrecks the site! | 0:29:25 | 0:29:27 | |
They had imagined they would find a lot of amphitheatre walls and foundations. | 0:29:27 | 0:29:33 | |
But there is very little stonework left. | 0:29:33 | 0:29:35 | |
That's because over the years, it has been removed by stone-robbers | 0:29:35 | 0:29:40 | |
for use in other buildings. | 0:29:40 | 0:29:42 | |
Hundreds of tons of stone have been removed from this shattered monument. | 0:29:44 | 0:29:49 | |
In its place, hundreds of tons of earth to dig out. | 0:29:49 | 0:29:53 | |
And thousands of finds. | 0:29:56 | 0:29:58 | |
Back in week 5, Tony was thrilled with a Roman medical probe. | 0:29:58 | 0:30:03 | |
I was checking through some books | 0:30:05 | 0:30:08 | |
to check a reference on another find that we had, | 0:30:08 | 0:30:11 | |
and there was a picture exactly - almost exactly - | 0:30:11 | 0:30:14 | |
looking like this. | 0:30:14 | 0:30:16 | |
And they called it a Medieval pen really than a Roman surgical instrument. | 0:30:16 | 0:30:21 | |
So it was really exciting to come across something that was a PEN... | 0:30:21 | 0:30:25 | |
but I had to go and tell people that it actually wasn't Roman and... | 0:30:25 | 0:30:29 | |
wasn't a surgical instrument! | 0:30:29 | 0:30:32 | |
You know, in the heat of the moment, you get a bit excited and... | 0:30:32 | 0:30:35 | |
a bit carried away. | 0:30:35 | 0:30:37 | |
Um...it was a reasonable hypothesis at the time! | 0:30:37 | 0:30:42 | |
But it just happened to be wrong(!) | 0:30:42 | 0:30:44 | |
And the weather doesn't improve. | 0:30:49 | 0:30:51 | |
We really, really, really don't need this. | 0:30:54 | 0:30:58 | |
It makes life very difficult. | 0:30:58 | 0:31:00 | |
And the problem is that walking on this means people are going to be bringing half the archaeology back | 0:31:03 | 0:31:09 | |
on their boots. | 0:31:09 | 0:31:12 | |
And I don't want to have to lose another day. | 0:31:12 | 0:31:15 | |
And here it comes again. | 0:31:15 | 0:31:18 | |
I suggest we go in. | 0:31:19 | 0:31:21 | |
They need a break. | 0:31:31 | 0:31:33 | |
LIVELY TUNE | 0:31:35 | 0:31:37 | |
Arles in the south of France, | 0:31:41 | 0:31:43 | |
a chance for Tony and Dan to get some sun and entertainment in a standing Roman amphitheatre. | 0:31:43 | 0:31:50 | |
I think it's the closest thing you're going to get to experiencing entertainment in an amphitheatre | 0:31:54 | 0:32:01 | |
as a citizen of Rome no matter where you were in the empire, be it Rome or Chester. | 0:32:01 | 0:32:06 | |
The amphitheatre at Arles is larger than Chester's but its architectural layout is very similar. | 0:32:08 | 0:32:14 | |
TRUMPET FANFARE | 0:32:21 | 0:32:23 | |
In Roman times, the spectacles were free to the public, funded by emperor or leading citizens. | 0:32:23 | 0:32:30 | |
Seats were allocated by wealthy patrons - | 0:32:30 | 0:32:33 | |
well-connected toffs at the ringside, | 0:32:33 | 0:32:36 | |
slaves and women up at the top. | 0:32:36 | 0:32:38 | |
Everybody would know exactly where they were going in the arena, | 0:32:40 | 0:32:44 | |
everyone knows just where to got to find their seats, the correct gateway to go in, the correct passage to use. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:51 | |
I think it's very interesting, the way everybody came up the one flight of stairs | 0:32:52 | 0:32:57 | |
and then dispersed around the circuit of the amphitheatre and went up their individual, designated entrances. | 0:32:57 | 0:33:02 | |
Great design. It acts as crowd-control, it disperses people so you don't get a huge crush. | 0:33:02 | 0:33:08 | |
It's only single-entrance. | 0:33:08 | 0:33:09 | |
Well, I think the spectators came for a number of things. To see and be seen. And to meet friends... | 0:33:09 | 0:33:17 | |
Family there... | 0:33:17 | 0:33:19 | |
FANFARES | 0:33:19 | 0:33:21 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:33:32 | 0:33:34 | |
I'm SURE that's what it would've been like in Roman times. People applauding...swordsmanship | 0:33:40 | 0:33:46 | |
or whatever facility with weapons that the gladiators had. | 0:33:46 | 0:33:51 | |
There must've been moments of drama, moments of hush, | 0:33:51 | 0:33:56 | |
people wondering what's gonna happen. | 0:33:56 | 0:33:59 | |
That whole mix of sort of... entertainment, | 0:34:04 | 0:34:09 | |
people really getting into it, cheering on the bullfighters... | 0:34:09 | 0:34:13 | |
and that whole aspect of the fact that what you're actually seeing is something being put to death. | 0:34:13 | 0:34:18 | |
I... It's very powerful images. | 0:34:18 | 0:34:21 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:34:21 | 0:34:22 | |
Tony and Dan find it too hard to stomach, and leave. | 0:34:24 | 0:34:28 | |
I-It's really not for me. I couldn't... I couldn't... | 0:34:32 | 0:34:34 | |
I couldn't watch that poor beast being done to death out there. | 0:34:34 | 0:34:38 | |
I mean, I'm obviously not the material of an ancient Roman, am I? | 0:34:38 | 0:34:43 | |
But no, that was... too rich for me, I'm afraid. | 0:34:43 | 0:34:46 | |
It's an echo of a past age. | 0:34:52 | 0:34:54 | |
To a British audience, it may be considered to be a somewhat bizarre blend. | 0:34:58 | 0:35:04 | |
That's what this building was built for, essentially, and exactly what people have been coming to watch | 0:35:04 | 0:35:10 | |
-for 2,000 years. So... -< APPLAUSE INCREASES | 0:35:10 | 0:35:13 | |
if you want to see what Chester's amphitheatre was used for 2,000 years ago, this is it. Pretty good. | 0:35:13 | 0:35:19 | |
Back in Chester, things are looking up. | 0:35:25 | 0:35:27 | |
We've got four weeks left, including this week. | 0:35:29 | 0:35:32 | |
The weather has improved considerably, so we may get our Indian summer, which is very good. | 0:35:32 | 0:35:37 | |
Site's drying out very quickly. People down in holes... | 0:35:37 | 0:35:42 | |
We're doing well. We're doing well, I think. | 0:35:42 | 0:35:45 | |
After weeks of hard slog, | 0:35:47 | 0:35:49 | |
the Chester amphitheatre is beginning to yield up its secrets. | 0:35:49 | 0:35:53 | |
The two stone walls of Thompson's "second" amphitheatre have emerged as curves of rubble. | 0:35:53 | 0:36:01 | |
What exactly it looked like, | 0:36:01 | 0:36:03 | |
and whether there was an earlier timber amphitheatre is not yet clear. | 0:36:03 | 0:36:09 | |
Tony and Dan are very close to a new interpretation. | 0:36:10 | 0:36:14 | |
And it starts with some exciting finds. | 0:36:14 | 0:36:18 | |
We've got a very high proportion... of these. These are ribs. | 0:36:21 | 0:36:26 | |
They're beef ribs. And they look like the remains of any barbecue | 0:36:26 | 0:36:31 | |
that I might have in my back garden. | 0:36:31 | 0:36:33 | |
Um...you can't help but wonder | 0:36:33 | 0:36:35 | |
whether these aren't the residue | 0:36:35 | 0:36:39 | |
of fast food that spectators at arena events are eating, | 0:36:39 | 0:36:44 | |
whether, um... | 0:36:44 | 0:36:47 | |
the people watching the amphitheatre spectacles are licking the barbecue sauce of the ribs they've just bought | 0:36:47 | 0:36:54 | |
from the concession stalls just outside! | 0:36:54 | 0:36:57 | |
The concessions may be selling... | 0:36:57 | 0:37:00 | |
..souvenirs. This bowl I found yesterday... | 0:37:02 | 0:37:06 | |
Unfortunately, I hit it with a mattock, but you can still fit it together and see that it shows... | 0:37:06 | 0:37:11 | |
scenes of gladiatorial combat. | 0:37:11 | 0:37:13 | |
You can see the heavy helmet with a bit of a plume going out behind it. | 0:37:13 | 0:37:18 | |
A square shield in front of the gladiator. | 0:37:18 | 0:37:21 | |
The arm-guard, the segmented arm-guard down here | 0:37:21 | 0:37:25 | |
wit a sword running off | 0:37:25 | 0:37:27 | |
against the side of the shield. | 0:37:27 | 0:37:30 | |
The legs, including the armoured front leg. | 0:37:30 | 0:37:33 | |
So It's a reasonable bet that that's the kind of thing that's going on. | 0:37:33 | 0:37:37 | |
The spare ribs and gladiator pottery came from the space | 0:37:37 | 0:37:42 | |
between the two stone walls. | 0:37:42 | 0:37:45 | |
THAT suggests that the inner wall once stood alone, | 0:37:45 | 0:37:49 | |
with the debris piling up around it. | 0:37:49 | 0:37:52 | |
If the two stone walls were built at different times, | 0:37:52 | 0:37:56 | |
that would be highly significant. | 0:37:56 | 0:37:59 | |
Peter Hill, an expert on ancient masonry, has been called in to examine the site, | 0:38:00 | 0:38:07 | |
starting on the inner wall. | 0:38:07 | 0:38:09 | |
The stones are less well squared. I mean, you get tapering, almost, | 0:38:09 | 0:38:14 | |
down there. | 0:38:14 | 0:38:15 | |
That one there tapers from oh, 100mm that end to 150 at the other end. | 0:38:15 | 0:38:21 | |
-Yeah. -It's a different design. -Right. | 0:38:21 | 0:38:23 | |
It... It looks like a quicker job. | 0:38:23 | 0:38:26 | |
-It look as though they wanted to get this up. -So there's not the same concern for appearance? -No. | 0:38:26 | 0:38:33 | |
-Well, I really WANTED there to be a difference! -You've certainly got one. | 0:38:33 | 0:38:37 | |
You've got a difference here, very definitely. | 0:38:37 | 0:38:39 | |
The difference in quality between the inner and outer walls | 0:38:39 | 0:38:44 | |
confirms Tony and Dan's growing belief that there were TWO stone amphitheatres on the site, | 0:38:44 | 0:38:49 | |
built at different times and by different people. | 0:38:49 | 0:38:53 | |
They now have their own interpretation of Chester's Roman amphitheatre, | 0:38:53 | 0:39:00 | |
different from Hugh Thompson's. | 0:39:00 | 0:39:02 | |
In the last week, we've become... | 0:39:03 | 0:39:05 | |
absolutely convinced now that we can forget all the stories of a timber amphitheatre followed by a stone one. | 0:39:05 | 0:39:12 | |
What we've actually got are two amphitheatres basically of stone construction. | 0:39:12 | 0:39:17 | |
That is pretty unexpected. Pretty unexpected. | 0:39:17 | 0:39:20 | |
Tony and Dan's radical interpretation shows | 0:39:21 | 0:39:25 | |
that there was an early stone amphitheatre with timber seating banks. | 0:39:25 | 0:39:30 | |
Many years later, a larger amphitheatre was built | 0:39:30 | 0:39:34 | |
by adding another stone wall. | 0:39:34 | 0:39:36 | |
It may upset certain people looking at other amphitheatres in Britain at the moment, | 0:39:39 | 0:39:45 | |
who've used Chester, with its timber amphitheatre, as a model if you like. | 0:39:45 | 0:39:50 | |
Um, but that's what archaeology's all about, challenging accepted theories. | 0:39:50 | 0:39:55 | |
But how do they know this is true? | 0:39:58 | 0:40:00 | |
It's all about the first stone amphitheatre and its outer wall. | 0:40:00 | 0:40:05 | |
The evidence lies in the deposits either side of that outer wall. | 0:40:05 | 0:40:11 | |
On site, that outer wall of the first amphitheatre is no longer there, | 0:40:13 | 0:40:19 | |
because the stone has been robbed away. But it would've looked like this. | 0:40:19 | 0:40:23 | |
Where we are standing, you must imagine a wall | 0:40:23 | 0:40:28 | |
with this material piled up against this side of it. | 0:40:28 | 0:40:32 | |
And all of this is clean sand and clay... | 0:40:32 | 0:40:36 | |
which is material thrown up from the arena... | 0:40:36 | 0:40:41 | |
So the wall's constructed, this material's excavated from the arena | 0:40:41 | 0:40:48 | |
and dumped up against it. | 0:40:48 | 0:40:51 | |
and then the timber seating's installed over there. | 0:40:51 | 0:40:54 | |
But the important thing is that this material inside the wall | 0:40:54 | 0:40:58 | |
is totally different from the material OUTSIDE the wall-dam. | 0:40:58 | 0:41:02 | |
Yeah. I mean, essentially, you can see that that's all a dump of material that's probably occurred | 0:41:02 | 0:41:08 | |
over a fairly short period of time. On the outside, at the bottom of our section of soil, | 0:41:08 | 0:41:14 | |
we've got the original Roman ground surface, where Roman grass-level would've been. | 0:41:14 | 0:41:19 | |
Above that, a band of red material | 0:41:19 | 0:41:21 | |
which probably represents a fairly nice, paved surface outside amphitheatre number one. | 0:41:21 | 0:41:27 | |
And then we've got these deposits of soil and sand... | 0:41:27 | 0:41:31 | |
which represent occupation on the back wall of the amphitheatre | 0:41:31 | 0:41:35 | |
in its first phase of use. | 0:41:35 | 0:41:37 | |
Um, so this chunk of archaeology is really exciting, cos it might actually give us answers | 0:41:37 | 0:41:43 | |
as to what the amphitheatre, in its first phase, is actually being used for, | 0:41:43 | 0:41:47 | |
and the sorts of activities that are going on immediately outside it, | 0:41:47 | 0:41:51 | |
sort of market stalls, maybe, selling Roman fast-food or souvenirs | 0:41:51 | 0:41:56 | |
and that sort of thing. | 0:41:56 | 0:41:58 | |
..I wonder if... | 0:41:58 | 0:42:00 | |
So what will Dai and Keith the gladiatorial archaeologists make of it? | 0:42:00 | 0:42:04 | |
-In a sense, neither of them are right, so...! -And both are right as well. -Yeah. -It depends, really. | 0:42:04 | 0:42:11 | |
Yes, Dai and Keith will be VERY excited about this, very excited, cos they're both people with open minds. | 0:42:11 | 0:42:17 | |
On a site demonstration, Dai has to face up to losing his timber amphitheatre. | 0:42:17 | 0:42:23 | |
In my heart of hearts, I don't WANT to believe it. It's terrible to confess! | 0:42:23 | 0:42:29 | |
I'd have liked to have survived with a completely timber amphitheatre, | 0:42:29 | 0:42:32 | |
and I'm not giving up without a BIT of a fight. | 0:42:32 | 0:42:35 | |
Keith has to accept there were TWO amphitheatres, | 0:42:36 | 0:42:41 | |
though he was right about the timber seating bank. | 0:42:41 | 0:42:44 | |
In the end, he never QUITE convinced me. | 0:42:44 | 0:42:48 | |
And it's very gratifying to discover that I was right to stick to my guns. | 0:42:48 | 0:42:53 | |
Do you think it's all of one build? No. Right. | 0:42:53 | 0:42:56 | |
He's been vindicated. Just wish he wouldn't look so bloody smug! | 0:42:56 | 0:43:00 | |
But I don't blame him. | 0:43:00 | 0:43:02 | |
Dan and Tony are delighted with their new interpretation. | 0:43:06 | 0:43:10 | |
the SMALL stone amphitheatre is a revelation, with evidence for external staircases. | 0:43:10 | 0:43:16 | |
These may well have been double staircases for increased access to the highest seats, | 0:43:16 | 0:43:21 | |
as on the amphitheatre at Pompeii. | 0:43:21 | 0:43:24 | |
The later, larger amphitheatre also differed from Thompson's vision. | 0:43:25 | 0:43:29 | |
Tony and Dan think the vast foundations supported decorative arches at the entrances. | 0:43:29 | 0:43:35 | |
And they found only half as many buttresses as Thompson. | 0:43:35 | 0:43:40 | |
It's the last week of the dig and there's still one burning question. | 0:43:47 | 0:43:53 | |
Was the first amphitheatre built with the fortress in the 70s AD | 0:43:53 | 0:43:58 | |
under Emperor Vespasian? | 0:43:58 | 0:44:00 | |
-CAMERA CLICKS Got it? -Yup. Thank you. -You're welcome. | 0:44:00 | 0:44:05 | |
..It's really fantastic that we've been able to prove that there are TWO stone amphitheatres at Chester. | 0:44:05 | 0:44:11 | |
What's very frustrating is the lack of dating evidence we've got. | 0:44:11 | 0:44:15 | |
We're just gonna have to keep plugging away and hoping something comes up in the last couple of days. | 0:44:15 | 0:44:20 | |
The dating evidence must lie in the space between the two outer walls, | 0:44:24 | 0:44:28 | |
where Roman builders would've dropped things. | 0:44:28 | 0:44:31 | |
It's a race against time to find anything that might help them. | 0:44:31 | 0:44:35 | |
At last, something comes to light. | 0:44:41 | 0:44:44 | |
-Is it a sieving? -Yeah. | 0:44:44 | 0:44:46 | |
ALL TALK AT ONCE | 0:44:46 | 0:44:49 | |
It would've been nice to have got a silver one(!) | 0:44:51 | 0:44:54 | |
-It's quite light for a stone, though. I dunno whether you'd have... -I don't know, I think... | 0:44:54 | 0:44:59 | |
-Not if you'd been running through the amount of sieving that we've been doing. I dunno. -What's going on? | 0:44:59 | 0:45:04 | |
-< -Something exciting? -Well... | 0:45:04 | 0:45:06 | |
We've just got...a coin come up from this sand outside amphitheatre one. | 0:45:06 | 0:45:13 | |
It's the first one we've got. Potentially, it's dating evidence for... | 0:45:13 | 0:45:18 | |
amphitheatre two. It's the only solid piece of dating evidence we've had. | 0:45:18 | 0:45:22 | |
Unfortunately, it's in bad condition. You can barely see it's a coin, apart from that little bit of green. | 0:45:22 | 0:45:28 | |
Anyway, it's absolutely crucial - absolutely CRUCIAL. | 0:45:28 | 0:45:32 | |
We've sieved every bloody atom of this stuff | 0:45:32 | 0:45:36 | |
and we've come up, finally, with one piece of dating evidence. | 0:45:36 | 0:45:40 | |
Thank God! | 0:45:40 | 0:45:41 | |
The coin is taken to the English Heritage Conservation lab | 0:45:47 | 0:45:50 | |
to be cleaned and X-rayed. It's the moment of truth. | 0:45:50 | 0:45:53 | |
Right... | 0:45:53 | 0:45:55 | |
V-E-S-P-A... And before that, possibly, | 0:45:55 | 0:45:59 | |
a V and an E. "Vespa..." | 0:45:59 | 0:46:02 | |
So it's either off the front of a scooter...(!) | 0:46:02 | 0:46:06 | |
or it's Vespasian, | 0:46:06 | 0:46:07 | |
the real thing. | 0:46:07 | 0:46:09 | |
So let's have a look at the real thing then, shall we? | 0:46:09 | 0:46:13 | |
Yep, "Vespasian..." | 0:46:14 | 0:46:16 | |
and I'd recognise that ugly mug anywhere. | 0:46:16 | 0:46:19 | |
So the face of the man who built the Colosseum has turned up | 0:46:19 | 0:46:24 | |
as dating evidence at Chester. | 0:46:24 | 0:46:26 | |
But it's not the definitely proof it might seem, | 0:46:26 | 0:46:30 | |
because coins from Vespasian's time remained in circulation for over 100 years. | 0:46:30 | 0:46:34 | |
The amphitheatres could've been built any time between the 70s and the 170s AD. | 0:46:34 | 0:46:41 | |
What's really frustrating is that we know | 0:46:41 | 0:46:45 | |
that both amphitheatres must be... you know, AD70-plus. | 0:46:45 | 0:46:51 | |
But we haven't got...we haven't got the dating that'll give us... | 0:46:51 | 0:46:56 | |
an idea about how long they are apart - you know, the lifetime of the first amphitheatre | 0:46:56 | 0:47:01 | |
and the construction date of the second - as yet. | 0:47:01 | 0:47:04 | |
It's really frustrating. It's the one most frustrating thing. We've come away from this first season with. | 0:47:04 | 0:47:10 | |
Right, that's it, clear the diggers! | 0:47:13 | 0:47:16 | |
After 15 weeks | 0:47:16 | 0:47:18 | |
and 900 tonnes of earth, the dig's over until next summer. | 0:47:18 | 0:47:23 | |
It's been tiring, but it's been huge fun. | 0:47:26 | 0:47:29 | |
You know, great team, REALLY hard-working bunch of people who have produced fantastic results. | 0:47:29 | 0:47:34 | |
They may not have construction dates, | 0:47:34 | 0:47:38 | |
but they have proved that Thompson's 1960s excavation was flawed. | 0:47:38 | 0:47:42 | |
They've got their own new vision of Chester's two amphitheatres | 0:47:42 | 0:47:46 | |
and resolved at least one fierce debate. | 0:47:46 | 0:47:49 | |
You never answer all the questions. | 0:47:49 | 0:47:51 | |
And the problem is that to a certain extent, as we go along this summer, | 0:47:51 | 0:47:55 | |
we're posing new questions that we might want to answer in future years' excavation. | 0:47:55 | 0:48:00 | |
That's more or less the attraction of archaeology, if you like. | 0:48:02 | 0:48:06 | |
The lure is the fact that, for every question you answer, | 0:48:06 | 0:48:10 | |
you create a new question. | 0:48:10 | 0:48:12 | |
So...! | 0:48:12 | 0:48:14 | |
Subtitles by BBC Broadcast - 2005 | 0:48:40 | 0:48:43 |