Time Team - Island Fortress of an Ancient King

Good morning!  We are doing a throwback for today’s Time Team.  Today the Time Team are exploring a manmade island in the middle of a lake.  This episode is older and from an early season.  They are still working out the kinks.  Tony Robinson has hair in this episode!

A king wanted to demonstrate his power and he built an island in the middle of the lake.  Then he put a palace on the island.  The Time Team puts together a game plan to explore the island.  The island had been excavated before and so the team has a good head start on the excavation.  The Time Team will also be creating a replica of a log boat that was found.

This island was the first of its type discovered outside of Scotland and Ireland.  One of the locals wrote a letter to Time Team wanting to know more about the island.  The island and the surrounding area are going to be examined by geophysics.  Tony and Robin talk about the island and wonder who would have made the island.  Robin explains that these types of manmade islands are typical to Ireland, but not to Wales.  Robin further explains more about the island as well as what it was used for.

The Time Team starts with a small trench near the riding school.  Mick and Tony go up in a helicopter to examine the landscape from the air.  Mick discusses what they are looking at it and why it would be a good place to examine it.  Tony questions him about what they would find.  Mick replies answers they would be looking for defense structures and if they are lucky they will find structures.

Mick and Tony then fly over the island.  Tony was surprised to see that it was so small.  Mick suggests that the island was bigger.  He also talks about different scales would be too different people.  Where right now, the Island seems small, but back in the Dark Ages the island would have been impressive.  Phil and a team of recreators start working on a boat.  They use a large log to recreate the boat.  The team will work together in shifts to finish the boat in time.  They are using modern tools to help speed up the process.

Victor Ambrus, the illustrator uses the remains of the palisades to create an illustration of what the palisades would have looked like.  The timber is well preserved.  The Time Team will have to do a silt search around the island.  The field the geophysics team examined is showing no evidence of settlement.  It is not a very good start for Time Team.  They will then examine the other field.  Mick had seen some interesting crop marks in the field.

Tony kicks off the next day discussing the Dark Ages.  He talks about the history of the island why there is nothing the remains of the palisade.  One version says it all hinges on the assassination of an abbot.  Alfred the Great’s daughter sent troops to avenge the death.  Other versions say that Alfred the Great’s daughter wanted to dominate the Welsh Kingdom and sent in troops anyway.  The Time Team then goes and examines the land around the lake.  The Lake was bigger in the past. 

Mick and Carenza walk the field and pick up artifacts to examine.  They find one piece of flint.  It shows evidence of activity and settlement in the region.  Will the Time Team find additional evidence of settlement?  Will the boat that they made float?  Or will is it sink like the Titanic?  You can continue to learn more by watching this episode on YouTube.

This episode would be a good episode to show an independent study student.