Time Team Day 13 - The Taxman's Tavern

Good morning, we are continuing with Thirty-One Days of the Time Team and we are heading to series thirteen and looking at a Roman mansion.  The episode is called The Taxman’s Tavern and the run time for this episode is 47:30.

This time the Time Team is heading on over to Alfodean, Sussex to uncover a mansion that was a Roman coaching inn.  It was located on Stane Street and this area was the first part of Britain to be Romanized.  The site is over one kilometer long and has 300 years of Roman occupation.  There This mansion was the center of a large community and is a rare opportunity to shed light on Roman life in Britain.  Nobody really knows how this mansion fits into Roman life.  The Time Team will have their work cut out for them as they look at a large area.  Will they learn anything in Three Days?

When one first walks on the site, archelogy and artifacts are found hinting that there was something going on. The field is littered with roof tile and high-status pottery found on site.  Over the last years, the site has been field walked and written about.  The site was dug only one time and this excavation hinted at a variety of buildings on the site.  Was this a mansion or a fort?  A fort would have been a place for soldiers.  A mansion would be a resting place for travelers, much like a hotel.

Geophysics works on the site, and the results show there is something going on.  In fact, the Time Team has been given too many targets to explore.  Trench one goes in to relocate the dig that took place in the 1920s.  As trench one goes in, Phil picks up a piece of tile.  While trench one goes in, Neil and John look at the ditches that were around the property.  The ditches would hint at something that needed to be protected.  Trench two goes in over the ditch.  Why would someone make a ditch for a hotel?

Phil works in the first trench and thinks he discovered the mansion.  There seems to be a wall and demolition work in Phil’s trench.  Was this a wall?  Only time and more digging will solve the mystery.    Mike Lee was an archeologist who explored the site before and he is taking part in the Time Team dig.  Tony catches up with Mike to learn why Mike kept coming back to the site.  Mike would like to see if Time Team could come up with a plan for the site.  More and more geophysics work is done on the site.

Trench two continues to be dug and the enclosure ditches have been located.  The problem is that geophysics suggests that the ditches were massive.  The Romans really focused on this area.  Helen Geake and Stuart Ainsworth head up in a helicopter to survey the site from the air.  It is Helen’s first time in a helicopter.  Stuart discusses why the Romans would pick this site for a mansion. 

More and more archeology is being found in Trench Once including brick and plaster.  Phil finds painted wall plaster on the site.  The painted wall plaster hints that the mansion had posh rooms.  Perhaps the people that used these mansions were on official government business.  These government officials would have expected the best accommodation.  Helen wonders why the ditches were so big.  She suggests that the tax man would have been unpopular with the natives and the ditches would have protected them.

Trench two in the meantime has undergone a massive expansion.  Tony sees that there were two massive ditches in the trench.  It seems that the Romans put in a huge effort to dig these ditches.  What else will the Time Team find?  Have they bitten off more than they can chew with this dig?  Could this dig spill into a second episode?  Tune into the rest of this Time Team to find out!

This was an excellent episode of the Time Team.  There was so much archeology on the site, it forced them to make choices.  I would hope that they would go back in the future to explore this site once again.  This would be a good episode to show to a history class because of the archeology that was found on the site.