Back in the days of Queen Victoria, an amateur archaeologist made
an intriguing discovery underneath these Somerset fields
- two Roman mosaics.
Have a look at this drawing. See the detail in that rose pattern there?
Classic evidence of a Roman villa.
But that's not all,
experts think there could be even better mosaics still down there,
although there's a very good reason why they haven't tried to look.
For the last hundred years,
this whole area has been an army firing range.
So, for three days, the guns are going to fall silent,
allowing us to finish a job that started 150 years ago.
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This week we're in Somerset and it's Time Team to the rescue.
150 years ago, archaeologists stumbled across two mosaics
in fields near High Ham,
which they assumed were the remains of a Roman villa.
But a lot's happened since then, and when these fields aren't being used
for ploughing, they're now the fall out zone for an army firing range.
So the Ministry of Defence have called us in
to see if the mosaics have survived.
Mind you, someone might have to put a gun to Mick Aston's head
to get him fired up about Roman archaeology!
Mick, these aren't bad are they?
They're not bad but they're... not as good as they could be.
But when I said, "not bad", that was supposed to be English understatement.
They're really very good, aren't they?
They're not like others that have turned up
in Somerset in recent years.
Hmm.
I think these are an indication that there's something far more
spectacular on this site and this is just the tip of the iceberg really.
Martin, you're the archaeologist for the MoD, you're the landowner,
as it were, do we know that these are still down there?
No.
We know that these were found
in the 19th century near Sam's Cross,
which is where we are, but because some other things were found
in this field after it was ploughed a few years ago,
we did some rather nice geophysical surveying,
and got these really rather nice and strong results here,
which look a little bit like the signature you get
for a Roman building, a villa.
So, yes, there's something here. Yes, it might be Roman.
That might be where these are.
So it's pretty promising, isn't it?
It is but we need a bit more clarity than this, so, you know,
we need to do some more geophysics on here, see if we can pick out
walls a bit more clearly and then put some trenches in,
see what condition it's in
and, indeed, whether these things are still there in the ground.
Well, by the end of today, we should know if they're still there.
You can look forward to that!
Although our primary mission is to rescue the mosaics,
we'll also explore the rest of the villa.
Well, all villa really means in Latin is house.
'Helping us will be Roman expert, Neil Holbrook.
'What he doesn't know about villas isn't worth knowing.'
It actually encompasses an awful lot of different things
ranging from very humble houses
up to almost quite palatial, lavish structures.
Which is just as well because larger villas can be a daunting challenge
to unravel, with a jumble of rooms,
bath houses and under-floor heating systems.
And the Victorian plan and the MoD survey hint at exactly that.
So, despite the cold weather, we're keen to get stuck in straight away.
But fussy old geophys need to do their own radar survey first.
It takes you two thousand years to do the survey!
And that hasn't gone down well with one archaeologist
straining to be let off the leash.
Why don't we just dig a hole?
Any idea who?
How much more you got to do?
Well, if you stop talking to me, I'll be done in about five minutes.
0h, come on, it's hardly rocket science, pushing that thing
up and down a grass field, is it?
I make it look easy.
Look, you're holding up the other piece of equipment.
Another one! I'll put another probe on the end, right.
Eh?
Better.
0h.
0h, he really doesn't get technology, does he?!
Fortunately, the geophys is worth the wait.
What we've done is we've resurveyed a small area and, I mean,
the results are just so clearly... it just has to be villa building.
All the wall lines, corridors, rooms, whole mass of responses.
How deep down do you reckon this stuff is?
Pretty shallow,
probably not more than, you know,
half a metre.
The geophys hints at dozens of rooms any of which could hold
the mosaics, but one spot in the corner looks particularly promising.
So in goes trench one.
And, oh, look, someone's happy.
Bless!
And almost immediately, Phil and Nei find something rather special.
0oh, now then, what do you think of that?
0oh. Well, even you know what that is, Phil.
Yeah, I do, er, that's part of a mosaic floor.
That was quick!
Tiny bits of stone like these are called tesserae,
the building blocks of a mosaic.
Let's hope that's a good omen of things to come.
0h.
0oh.
Well, it's not bad for the first...
The first bit of the first trench, got tesserae and we've got a coin.
Do you know, there's only 12 coins recorded from this site so far,
from the antiquarians, so lucky 13.
So a piece of tesserae, a Roman coin and also a lot of demolition rubble.
All good signs of a villa knocking around somewhere.
Phil, how's your trench coming along?
Really well, Tony.
Is this all stuff that was excavated in 1861?
That is the really good news.
All this material looks so structured,
in other words we think it's undisturbed, we don't think
it's ever been dug before and the really nice thing is
it's got these really big stones in,
the plough will have bounced over that.
If there are floors underneath here, they should be really well preserved.
Any finds?
Absolutely, we've got our first coins,
3rd and 4th century coins. We really are on the money.
Fantastic. Well, that's the good news,
the bad news is that the weather's getting worse and the forecast
is absolutely terrible, but then it would be, this is Time Team.
Welcome back to mid-Somerset, where we're looking for two lost
Roman mosaics which were originally found here in the mid 1800s.
And, of course, we're looking for the Roman villa that would have been associated with them.
And looking at this glorious geophys, we've got walls,
corridors, possibly rooms here.
Looks like a Roman villa, doesn't it?
And if you look in this trench, you can see plenty
of what is apparently Roman stuff.
There's Roman coins to go with it.
But none of what we've got here would appear to have the mosaics
underneath it, because it's all been undisturbed.
So, Mick, when are we going to put in our second trench to find the mosaics?
Whoa. Whoa, whoa! Slow down a bit.
Slow down, slow down. There's a lot of work to be done here.
And I think, if you don't mind me saying, we shouldn't be pursuing
where the 19th century walls and mosaics were.
They're an indication of what there is in this field, but the
geophysics shows us there's a big site here which we need to look at.
We shouldn't really be pursuing what they found earlier,
we should start again with our new information.
Looking for?
Well, looking for walls, dating material, pottery, stuff like that.
Rather than a 26 foot Roman mosaic?
Yeah. We almost certainly will find more mosaics,
I'm sure they're not the only two on the site.
But we need some context and data material to go with it.
You could bear to be here for three days
without finding those mosaics at all, wouldn't you?
Absolutely. If we found 5th century pottery, that would be fantastic.
And more and better mosaics?
And more of the 5th century pottery.
And more and better mosaics!
Actually, as Mick says, we're not just chasing mosaics.
We want to build up a complete picture of this house.
What did it look like, when was it built and did it end,
along with the Roman occupation of Britain, in the 5th century?
Well, the good news is that Phil's found our first wall, the bad news...
That is not a classic wall of a Roman villa, is it?
..It ain't pretty.
It's not made out of well dressed masonry, it's actually this fairly crude herringbone.
Yeah, but you've got to think about all the other walls and what might be around it.
Because, look, I've been tidying up down here...
And it looks for all the world as though I've actually got
another wall there.
With the eye of faith,
there is an edge coming along like that.
Now, granted, that edge is at right angles to that wall,
with the gravely stuff underneath it.
So the gravely stuff is earlier and the gravely stuff is sitting on the top of this wall.
So I think that wall is later, if this is a wall, than this wall.
I know you think I go on about it all the time... Yeah, you do!
But why can't we be looking at a whole series of
late or post Roman... Exactly. ..rather shoddily built
timber patchwork stuff, you know, for late in the life in the south?
Phil's discovery has got us scratching our heads.
Do we have an early villa with a later, or even post Roman one, on top?
The answer, as always, is in the dirt and the little details.
Wow, it's a really nice brooch. Can you date it?
Yeah, it's first or second century, it's quite an early brooch.
It's what's known as a dolphin brooch.
Because of the shape of it? Yeah.
Some of the finds are helping us to date the buildings,
like this 2nd century brooch from the time of the Emperor Hadrian.
But others aren't quite so straightforward.
0h, it's a classic Roman type knife.
Is it? Yeah, quite a late one,
because it's got a little rise, just there above the tang.
But ain't it a bit unusual for the tang to be doing that,
rather than widening out to the other plate?
Which brings to mind another interpretation.
OK. It's one half of a pair of shears. Ah!
Yeah, you're right, Alan. So It's not a late classIc Roman knIfe?
Well, that line is just like a late Roman classic knife, I'm going to dig me heels in on that.
But I reserve the right to change my mind!
The only way to narrow down the date of our villa,
or should it be villas, is to investigate a wider area.
John thinks he's identified another set of rooms, which might also be where the Victorians dug.
My thoughts were, if we put the trench that went over that
boundary ditch and across this range of rooms here... Yeah.
..And this corridor. Because we know we've got that early plan. Yeah.
And it fits in somewhere along this line, we don't know exactly where.
So we might pick up the earlier excavation as well on this one, you think?
That's a chance. Yeah.
And why I like it is, we've got this very clearly defined corridor, with these white lines against the walls.
And it kind of stops here, almost as if the corridor is leading into a big room here.
And just imagine a larger room here, would have this fantastic southward view, wouldn't it, over the hills.
Straight over the valley down in that direction, yeah.
So our second trench goes in just a few metres away from our first,
to see if we've got a high status room in the middle of the villa with one of the mosaics in it.
And, bang on target, guess what we find?
Yeah, yeah. Other side. Whoo-hoo!
Tracey, there are excited whispers from the other trench that you've found a little bit of mosaic?
We have, Tony, yeah.
I mean, you can see we've got a little bit in here,
and a bit beyond where Raksha's working.
A little bit of a mosaic? Come on, Tony!
It's carrying on underneath here,
so I think we're going to have to extend the trench back this way.
There's a gap in the middle there, do you think you've accidentally hit it?
No, we didn't hit it. It's most probably plough damage.
If you actually look at the section,
we're not that far from the top at all.
So John's looking pretty pleased with his geophysics.
But it turns out that the mosaic
isn't quite where he thought it should be.
I don't understand, I thought geophys were saying
that this area here was outside the building?
That's right.
Well, you wouldn't have a mosaic outside a building, would you? No.
So they're wrong? Oh, yeah!
Could be a patio!
Hmm. Back to the drawing board.
Still, it is a mosaic. But is it one of the ones we're looking for?
This morning, Mick promised me that by the end of the day,
we'd have found the two long lost Roman mosaics.
Well, the threatened rain's coming in, it's time to knock off,
and we still haven't found them.
Instead, we found something much better -
our own previously undiscovered mosaic.
It seems to be part of a corridor which goes in that direction,
and a long way in that direction, into some rooms.
And what's in the rooms?
We'll find out tomorrow.
Welcome to sunny Somerset
where we're looking for two lost Roman mosaics, and the exciting news
last night was that we've discovered a third previously undiscovered one,
at least that's what some of the archaeologists are saying.
Mick, yesterday evening, you were adamant that this mosaic was
one that hadn't been seen since Roman times and it wasn't one
of the ones that were rediscovered in the 19th century.
But this is one of the two that were found by the antiquarian.
And this one is blue and white, that one is blue and white.
That one has got a lot of long blue
lines in it, this one has got a lot of long blue lines in it.
This one has got rectangles, that one has got rectangles.
Do I need to say any more?
Yeah, but the thing is the blue and white is the local geology, right?
The Lias occurs as Blue Lias or White Lias, so they're getting this
locally and my guess is that all the corridors in the villa are filled up
with this stuff because they can do this very quickly and easily.
Maybe, but that doesn't answer the question
why that one isn't this one.
Well, it's certain, Tony, cos overlying the mosaic
is this demolition material, the smashing up of the roof,
the actual taking apart of the villa.
This stuff has never been disturbed before.
Yeah, that's what intrigues me, I thought you would be really excited
by the mosaic, but it's all the rubbish, all the detritus...
0h, yes.
..on top of it that's really exercising your imaginations, why?
It's the story of the end of the villa, it's the story after
the mosaic floor was laid down, I mean, see that burning there?
It's like someone's setting a bonfire into their expensive mosaic
but, you know, 50, 100 years later, they don't bother any more.
Stop worrying about the end of the villa, chaps,
we haven't even worked out how it started yet
or what happened in-between, come to think of it.
It's time to step up a gear.
0ur first task for day two is to find
where the corridor mosaic leads to, because at the end of it
could be a room with the posh mosaics we've been asked to track down.
5.18 metres on one axis.
Five, one, eight, yep.
So landscape investigator, Stewart Ainsworth,
is trying to align our corridor with the Victorian plans.
So if you drop that against the geophysics in the background...
A highly technical approach known as guesswork.
Just see if that fits along in-between.
I mean, that shows that range will actually fit
in the gap that we haven't dug in.
Yeah.
Right between the two trenches.
0ver in our other trench, Phil's testing his theory
that we've actually got two walls from two villas.
This wall, we're saying, is later than everything on this side.
We could confirm that it's later
than everything on that side as well, that would be very useful.
But we haven't really found any rooms yet
and the bad weather is starting to close in this morning.
Even Phil's starting to get on a bit of a downer.
Neil, what I've been digging here, I mean,
we are talking about this being a villa, aren't we?
Yeah, for sure.
Well, now, according to the checklist that I've got on villas,
I expect to find nice painted wall plaster,
nice floors, maybe underfloor central heating and all rest of it,
we haven't got any of those sorts of things on this site,
does this mean this is not a villa?
0h, it's definitely a villa, Phil, because it's got mosaic floors,
it's got stone walls but, yeah, it hasn't got painted plaster so far,
no evidence of hypercourse
or bath houses at all is there?
So I guess this is a middle range villa, not at the really top end,
the really opulent, but not in the cowshed either.
Well, let's put that into modern day speak, I mean,
the people who are going to be living here, are they going to be, like,
management, middle management, senior management, chief executive?
It ain't going to be Joe who ploughs the fields, is it?
No, it ain't going to be Joe, you know, the top 2% of the country,
Phil, think about that. 0r it's a senior manager.
So you would be living in a building like this,
I'd be living in a roundhouse.
That is exactly how it would be.
So while our villa owners weren't short of a bob or two,
it's possible they didn't have quite enough money for top of the range
mod cons like underfloor heating.
Even the local stone used in the mosaics seems a bit cut price.
I love these things, what are they?
They're actually spoon handles and they're nicely...
But if the villa was built on the cheap,
some of the possessions inside were at least meant to look expensive.
They've got this lovely metal coating on them,
so originally they'd have looked like they were silver.
They're also really nicely decorated and they've got a sharp point
at one end so you could break open an egg with them.
What's your favourite find?
Well, as I'm a coin specialist, I always like to look at the coins
and there's a really nice 4th century Roman nummus
and it depicts Romulus and Remus being fed by the she-wolf.
They were the twins who founded Rome.
Yep, the founders of Rome and the other really interesting thing
about this find is that it shows where it was made.
Just underneath Romulus and Remus, there's the mint mark
and, in this instance, it's one from Siskia which is in modern Croatia.
What do you think of this collection of finds,
is it what you'd have expected us to get?
Yeah, for me, this is a typical villa assemblage.
You've got this hint of early Roman activity but most of the finds
come from the 3rd and 4th century.
Why then?
Well, in the 4th century, there was an explosion in
the growth of villas in Britain, so this is exactly what we'd expect.
For much of the Roman empire, the 4th century was a time of turmoil,
with rampaging barbarians and rival emperors.
Across the channel, Britain was doing pretty well.
Upper middle class families on the make were earning money
and spending it on villas and mosaics.
Mid-afternoon and Stewart's finished cross-referencing the geophys
and the Victorian plans...
..and now reckons the mosaics should be right between our two trenches
at the western end of the corridor.
0h!
Well, let's hope he's right.
The cold wind is now really starting to bite,
and everybody's crossing their fingers the mosaics will turn up soon.
Whoo-hoo!
That's what you're looking for, I think you'll find!
Look at that.
Right on the money.
0h, ho-ho!
This is great news, another mosaic,
but is this one of the two we're looking for?
You've got the dogtooth pattern, which you've got there.
Then the band of interlacing with the sort of knot work
with the red tesserae picking out the strand.
So the only place we can be, the big star...
Got to be underneath there.
Is just about there.
Although it's still very muddy, this must be one of the mosaics
we've been asked to look for.
This is a smaller room here with this mosaic in.
The division between the rooms should be about here in this trench.
And, like buses, you wait for ages in the cold for one mosaic...
Whoa!
..and two come along at once.
Let's have a look. What have you got down there?
Well, you've got this kind of
brickwork pattern then a grey band coming along and turning a corner.
Well, that looks pretty much like this here, see this,
that's where you were in the other one down there
and you should be just coming into that area there.
And coming across at that angle.
Well, look, here it is, Stewart,
you've got one grey block here,
and then we've got white,
then another band of grey where Tracey is.
The whole thing looks to be intact as if it's
not been eaten into at all.
So at last, we've got our two mosaics sitting next to each other,
but how much has actually survived?
Another hour's digging brings some worrying news.
There's a bit missing, all this bit here.
Yeah, we seem to have lost this end since, you know, 150 years ago.
It looks remarkably neat doesn't it, that line?
Just this cut here...
It does look a bit suspicious.
Almost as if some monk actually took it up
and took it home and put it on his mantelpiece.
It's still a beautiful thing though.
Imagine all the hundreds of posh-sandaled feet that must have walked over that.
Yeah, and not just the posh guys
because there's this whole army of slaves and servants
that were needed to keep a house of this style and status running,
bringing all those essential functions
that we kind of take for granted today.
And would the slaves have been English people
or would they have been shipped here from abroad?
0h, I think almost certainly locals really because, you know,
people were born into slavery, it is hereditary, it's not their choice.
There's still always that, essentially, "You are the slave
"and I am the master." In the end, you have the choice of life
and death over them. That is quite a brutalising relationship really.
In order to demonstrate just how vital a part Roman slaves would have
played in the economy around here, we're going to do an experiment.
We are creating our own slave who, for 24 hours, will do what we tell
him to do, we've got a volunteer.
Can you come out, volunteer?
Matt, thank you for saying you'll do this.
Here are your clothes.
You're smiling now
but, actually, we're going to take this very seriously,
in fact we're going to be quite tough slave masters as a lot of them were.
You are not allowed to speak to any of us unless we speak to you, 0K?
And that goes for everyone?
Everyone. Anybody asks you to do anything, you just do it. All right?
0K.
0ff you go. He's still laughing, bless him. Not for much longer.
Very good, very good indeed. Not quite sure about the boots
and the socks but well, that's it really, off you go.
I've got a couple of questions actually before we start.
What did I say? What did I say?
You don't speak unless you're spoken to.
Permission to you to speak to me, sir.
No! Permission denied, off you go.
I could quite get into this!
It's likely villa slaves would have had specific functions,
some to work in the house, some out in the cold on the farm.
But we've only got one, so he's going to have to do everything.
His first task is to wash the mud off our motorised chariot.
Before serving tea...
I've just had lunch, Aiden.
To a bunch of cold and soggy archaeologists.
They're wet.
I'm sorry, sir.
0i, slave, stop eating the cake!
I'm sure he's not meant to do that.
Back outside, geophys have now surveyed a huge area.
We've got lots of unusual features
Well, the thing that strikes me about the geophysics, Mick,
is that there's a very clearly defined rectangular block here.
And then it seems to reduce slightly
in thickness before carrying on which suggests to me that
there's more than one phase, this could be an add on.
So you think we might have an earlier building there
and then added stuff on to it.
Yes.
So we'd not only get the condition, we get some chronology into it as well.
That's right. Also, the question is, what's the status of this range?
Is this a villa with an L shape with both wings of equal status
or is this the working range?
So I think if we do do a trench, we should try and look inside
one of these rooms, to try and get evidence of chronology,
status and function.
So trench three goes in, to see if we've got
an L-shaped villa with a western range.
All villas would have had a farm and, as punishment for cake stealing,
Matt's going to be banished to work on ours.
But, as we haven't actually got a farm, we've lent him
to the next door villa owners.
Aren't we generous?
All right, get to work.
There's always someone better off than the slave isn't there, Matt?
It's now nearly the end of the day and our work
on the corridor mosaic is almost done.
How's this coming along?
We're pretty well finished with this trench now,
we've got a little bit of cleaning up to do and some drawing
and I think we back fill it.
Close it up again, our lovely mosaic?
Yeah. Well, obviously, that's got to be protected with some sand and stuff like that
but I think we've learnt all we can from it.
Have we learnt that much?
Yeah, we've shown it's actually pretty trashed in this trench.
You know, the mosaic is, you know, pretty bitty.
This wall here, you look in that section there, they've pinched
every useful bit of stone out of it.
I think we understand the story here
which is actually basically one of robbing and ploughing and collapse.
It's a shame so much of our corridor mosaic's missing,
but we've found enough to say that
it ran along the front of the northern range.
Even though the weather has been pretty dreadful and freezing cold,
it's been a good day for us, with little bits of mosaic
popping up all over the place but, as the day's gone on, our archaeologists
have become more and more interested in something which I'd hardly even
noticed on the 1861 drawing.
It's this circle here and it says on it "Well, filled up with rubbish."
And that well would be over there somewhere and, apparently,
it's Roman rubbish that's in it, and we all know what the Romans
put in the bottom of their wells - sacred objects.
So who knows what we might find tomorrow. Thirsty work, eh, Phil?
Cor, too right.
Slave!
What?
Got some for me?
And the sun's coming out again.
Yeah, I know.
What a lovely day.
Salute. Salute.
10am, Day Three, and something's not quite right.
The diggers have fallen silent and the only sign of movement
is Matt, our slave, carrying a portable heater.
With a bit of wind chill factor of almost minus ten,
we've called everything to a halt.
Thanks for all for coming down...
It's quarter past ten,
we've lost nearly two hours' digging, everyone's stopped.
As far as I can see of it, that L-shaped trench is wrecked.
As far as I can see of it, That's the only one, isn't it?
It's all very well you saying that's the only one. That's one of the big problems.
Because it is too cold to go out there.
It's too exposed, ain't it?
If I can fix a shelter, I will, if not, some form of wind break,
and at least try and stop the cold getting to you.
Until we get a wind break, we ain't digging out there.
0K, that's fair enough.
For even Phil to down tools for the first time in 18 years,
things must be bad.
It's turning out to be one of the toughest digs we've ever had.
To save our strength, we've decided not to open any more trenches, which
is just as well because there's a heck of a lot to resolve today.
We need to clean up our mosaics,
nail down whether we've got two building phases in trench one,
and see if we've got a western range.
We've also got to put up tents to protect the delicate archaeology
from the elements...
..and bring in wind breaks for the not-so-fragile digging team.
That's one hell of a parasol.
Phil, you've managed to do some digging at last.
It's quite cosy in here, Tony.
0h, this is not so bad when the wind drops, is it?
No, but it's very nice to be in the shade.
So what have we got?
Well, what we've managed to find now is this main wall here which is the
end wall of this main villa complex that's coming down here, and you can
see that it's actually made of these pitch stones, which is exactly the
same construction that we had, the slightly later wall in trench one.
So have you any idea at all what period this wall could be?
0nly very loosely.
We know that the earliest wall that we've got up there was probably 2nd
century and we know the mosaics are the 4th century, so I guess this
wall is going to be somewhere in between or maybe 4th century itself.
What's all this stuff on either side of it?
We can see one of the things we've got is a lot of burning
and we wonder whether or not these walls here are actually just
foundation walls for timber frame building. You can build perfectly
good timber frame villas that would stand up, perfectly good roof.
A lot of this is going to be probably roofing slate.
It's going to be a really substantial building.
So we've definitely got an L-shaped villa with a western range,
which looks like it was built in the 3rd or 4th century.
That's the period we think our mosaics date from...
..and we're now busy scraping and sponging away centuries of mud
to reveal the patterns underneath.
The design would have been bright,
but basic.
0n the first day, I was saying to Tony that I thought
these mosaics found in the 19th century were a bit ordinary.
I can see what you're driving at and at first glance,
they are just blue and white,
but these look like mosaics of very good, competent execution and style.
What I find fascinating is that this range is producing a large number
of mosaics and I think it says something about the wealth here.
These are people who are almost
certainly Romanised Britons living right on the edge of Empire, but...
So they're not Romans at all, really?
No, but they are consciously commissioning and displaying
for all that come,
that they are buying into this part of the Roman dream.
Someone else who's living the Roman dream is our silent slave
for 24 hours, Mattius Williamus.
He's been up early, boiling water...
..and cleaning the muddy toilet floor.
If that wasn't bad enough, by mid morning, he's quite frankly
being exploited by the more unscrupulous members of the team.
Get back!
Yeah, and back again!
That's no good, Jimmy, he's got magnetic boots on.
Get those boots off!
But what happened to the slaves and all the other people
living in the villa, after Rome abandoned Britain in the 5th century?
Nice big chunky rim sherds, aren't they?
It seems they at least tried to keep on living here.
We've got three sherds here, including a conjoining pair,
of this black burnish where,
that's been identified as the very latest product.
It dates from the 5th century, doesn't it?
Yes, this is stuff that's still being
produced in the opening decades after 400AD
so then you can see it's got decoration
just lightly burnished in one direction and it's from quite
a squat jar with a big rim, but the lovely thing is that we can now say
that we recognise Roman-type pottery
that's still continuing into the opening decades of the 5th century.
I've got a coin here which dates from right at the end of
the 4th century and it was probably in circulation into the 5th.
Yeah.
It's a nummus and it's of the Emperor Theodosius so
it's really nice to get one of the latest coins that were supplied to Britain here on this site.
That's good. Coin, pot and we're going beyond
the end of Roman Britain here into the opening years
of the 5th century, it's lovely.
The coin and the 5th century pottery suggest that life carried on
in our villa after the Roman Empire is supposed to have collapsed.
Traditionally, that's the year 410
when the Goths sacked Rome.
The news of that event would have reverberated around the empire.
"Goths sack Rome, read all about it!"
Even as far away as our villa in chilly Somerset.
What do you think the effect would have been on all the people who lived in the villas in Somerset
and Gloucester when they realised that the Romans weren't coming back?
I think at one level it would have been quite
a psychological blow, but I think, in this part of the world, they
would still view themselves as part of the Latin world, the Roman world.
They may even have thought "This is only a temporary break
"and soon there will be a new set of Roman administrators."
So you'd have had these people desperately trying to keep up
Roman appearances, even though the very Roman stuff that supported them
was gradually dribbling away?
Yeah, all those skills that went with it that you could support,
mosaicists and things like that, people are going to be looking more
and more at subsistence, really,
surviving and getting through, but still with this echo of
a Roman heritage, probably lasting for another 100, 150 years.
It's wonderful to think that people in our villa might have been
clinging on to the Roman way of life against the odds.
Just like Matt, our experimental slave, whose final official task
is to prepare the dining room for lunch.
Serviette, madam?
Thank you.
Sir?
Whilst you're at it, can you comb my hair? It's in a state.
And the boots will want cleaning. See to it.
Very good, sir.
Go on, get on with it, I've got work to do! Bit more like it.
Right, boy, I want you to sort this mop out, please.
You start from the bottom up.
0w! (LAUGHS)
I've got no hair left!
Lunch and a good boot wash have given Phil the time to mull things over.
This part of the trench is crucially important to the whole story in here
because we've actually got two walls
of two different dates.
We've got that wall down there, the earliest wall.
This is the one with the square corner.
Crucially, we've got some pottery from that and it's 2nd century.
Crikey, so that's well early onI
Absolutely.
But what I think I can say is that maybe this wall may well go
with this cobbled surface, because this yard surface
goes underneath this wall there but what, like I say, what is
crucial is that it does stretch the life of the villa by some way.
Yeah, and that's not uncommon round here that you start
with a smaller villa building, simpler, and then bolt other stuff
onto it to make a big complex.
Phil's confirmed that we've got a 2nd century house, which was remodelled
and expanded into an L-shaped villa in the 4th century.
All along, we've assumed that the northern building came first
and that the early wall in trench one belonged to it.
But then Phil makes a surprising discovery in the western range.
Cor, what you got there, Alan?
Well, it's face of a wall.
That's good. Yeah.
Those facing stones are flat again and that's exactly the same,
it's a building technique that we had up there in the first trench.
I'm convinced that if you got these flat slabs, it's the early wall,
and if it's pitched, it's the later one.
The two 2nd century walls appear to be part of the same building
and it makes us realise that we've been looking at the villa
the wrong way round.
We now know it began life as a simple stone building,
not in the north but in the west, some time in the 2nd century.
Then, as the owners' social fortunes improved, they added a second range,
which was half timbered, to the north in the 3rd or 4th centuries
and that was the one which included the mosaics.
But the renovation seems to have been done on the cheap -
the walls were of rough pitch stone.
Even the mosaics were made from local material,
and it's possible that the plain old wing became the servants' quarters.
Talking of servants, it's time to give our slave his freedom.
You've still got your slave's costume on!
Yeah.
The 24 hours is over!
I'm free?
Yeah.
Ooph, great.
You all right?
Ah, that's better.
What was it like?
To be honest, the physical work wasn't too bad,
it was no worse than the digging I do every time we do a Time Team.
So what did get under your skin?
Um, I think what I noticed the most was a kind of loneliness.
You couldn't have a chat at lunch, you couldn't even speak
to people when they walked past, so I was silent all the time and you felt very isolated.
How did people treat you?
I was briefed on how to be a slave, but everyone else had to
act like slave owners towards me, and I think that's quite difficult.
I found it really easy to shout at you.
Yeah, I noticed! (LAUGHS)
As the day draws to an end, the sun and the colour in the mosaics
are starting to shine through.
Sadly, they've deteriorated since they were last seen 150 years ago,
probably from ploughing,
but at least we've ensured that they'll be protected in future.
Is this one room or two rooms, or what?
Yes, it's both!
It's what's called a bipartite room.
Two rooms that operate as one.
You've got, like, your entrance hall almost
with this lovely mosaic that's really sort of
vibrant with its colours now that it's been sponged down,
then you can see here that we've got this semi-circular footing.
Yeah.
What we might have here is, like, a half column actually attached to
the wall, rising up with a nice big decorative capital, in which case
we're looking at a grand double doorway through the steps into here
or it's the pedestal base for a statue.
Either way, we're looking at a very, very grand room.
What would the walls have been like?
Almost certainly richly decorated,
painted wall plaster but, of course, we haven't found much here
because this has already been cleared out in the 1860s.
And that's not all.
Curiously, we appear to have post holes driven into the mosaic floor.
This act of vandalism is, perhaps, more evidence that life
here struggled on after the end of Roman Britain.
It's been quite an odd exercise for me because we came here trying
to find a grand aristocratic villa, but what we actually discovered
was the end of a grand aristocratic villa.
Yeah. We've almost looked at the final gasp of life of this building.
What actually happens when that economy that underpins the existence
of this house starts to fail?
So you mean that when the Roman bureaucracy collapsed,
there was nothing to support it?
No, that's right. Money becomes worthless.
In the end, you can't afford to repair your house.
You haven't got a means of doing it.
What had been some great status symbol
ends up just as an albatross around your neck.
Absolutely, and so I think what also might happen is,
you can't pay your servants or keep your slaves - they might run off.
There are some Latin authors that talk about a group which
are a band of sort of runaway slaves and brigands
roaming round Britain and Gaul, ransacking and just nicking things.
So, actually, in rubble and burning,
we're seeing the last days of Rome in Britain.
Absolutely, and it's really about the end of
the Roman way of life which is funded by the Roman economy.
0ver the past three days,
we've unearthed a villa which mirrors the rise and fall of Roman Britain.
A modest house which ended up with pretensions of grandeur.
In its heyday, cheap blue and white Lias mosaic corridors would have led
into a large summer dining room,
with our two mosaic floors
and, on a fine day, views across the valley beyond.
0n the dining room table, perhaps the fake silver spoons we found.
All in all, dare we say it, just a little bit chav!
Home to a minor aristocrat, his or her family and, of course,
keeping the whole thing going in the background, servants and slaves.
But the good times weren't to last.
It struggled on into the 5th century
but the villa, along with Roman Britain, was past its sell-by date.
It is nice to think that, at the end of the Roman Empire, the local Brits
were still keeping up standards with their beautiful mosaic floors
and their reasonably well appointed villas and, of course,
that essential of Roman life, the slaves.
Mind you, by the end of the Empire,
those guys were already heading for the hills.
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