Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 25, 2021 8:50:50 GMT -8
In season five, episode three, Time Team goes to Sanday, Orkney. The highlight it when Tony asks the questions, “Why would the Vikings come to this cold, windswept place?” A local residence takes offense. But the Orkney Island are only put on maps of Mother Earth as a courtesy. That is indeed a cold, windswept, and barely habitable place.
The small little peninsula (perhaps once an island) can be seen here. If you zoom in a little, you can see some of the mounds.
As a travel and history adventure, the show generally works. But I can’t say that they find out a heck of a lot in their digs.
Next up, the Time Team goes to Turkdean, Gloucester, where it takes no high-tech equipment to see the outlines of a major Roman Villa. Google Maps has it labeled as a scheduled monument. No doubt extensive digs and restoration could go on here for years. It appears to be one of the largest Roman Villas ever found.
In times of drought, the grass goes brown (or browner) when there are rocks fairly close beneath the surface. And at the time of this episode, you could clearly see many lines from an aerial view. But geophysics confirmed these lines and more. More info about the Turkdean Roman Villa can be found here and here, the latter link providing some maps and an aerial photo.
It would appear that this dig, in particular, was a spectacular success for the Time Team, at least in terms of giving this site some publicity due to their preliminary finds. Also of interest was a brief demonstration of making a pewter bowl which they made from lead and tin. Apparently there are various formulas for pewter, especially tin, antimony, some copper, bismuth, and sometimes silver.
The small little peninsula (perhaps once an island) can be seen here. If you zoom in a little, you can see some of the mounds.
As a travel and history adventure, the show generally works. But I can’t say that they find out a heck of a lot in their digs.
Next up, the Time Team goes to Turkdean, Gloucester, where it takes no high-tech equipment to see the outlines of a major Roman Villa. Google Maps has it labeled as a scheduled monument. No doubt extensive digs and restoration could go on here for years. It appears to be one of the largest Roman Villas ever found.
In times of drought, the grass goes brown (or browner) when there are rocks fairly close beneath the surface. And at the time of this episode, you could clearly see many lines from an aerial view. But geophysics confirmed these lines and more. More info about the Turkdean Roman Villa can be found here and here, the latter link providing some maps and an aerial photo.
It would appear that this dig, in particular, was a spectacular success for the Time Team, at least in terms of giving this site some publicity due to their preliminary finds. Also of interest was a brief demonstration of making a pewter bowl which they made from lead and tin. Apparently there are various formulas for pewter, especially tin, antimony, some copper, bismuth, and sometimes silver.
