My respect to the man who found a treasure and went to the proper authorities instead of Ebay. Also, bury me face down on a bed of pizzas just to puzzle future archeologists.
I could watch Prof Alice all day along. I am fascinated by the history of Britain. It is quite amazing that so many different cultures have all intersected in this one area. It is so amazing seeing all the fabulous things there are out there.
Fascinating archaeology! So glad they had opportunity to excavate before it was lost forever. I lived in England 1967- 1972 and it was archaeology heaven. Every step you took was historically important.
My major was in Anthropology, and several sources I read said that it was common Roman practice to only raise a few children, and only one or two girls. The father of the family had the right to examine the baby after birth and regect any that were "imperfect" or "unwanted". The wife had no say. It was considered shameful to sell them as slaves, so these unwanted babies were "disposed of". In other words, killed right after birth, before the parents became attached. This is a very good explanation for me in a Roman populated area.
lol you are gunna wanna read the Greek. No they didn’t. The Roman’s killed Christians because they were a csa and drug cult. Why was Jesus in the garden with a naked boy at 3 am? Why was the boy putting a “ medicated bandage on his genitals “ as they came upon him? did he exclaim” I am not a child trafficker” and then why was he crucified next to two other child traffickers? Because that’s what Christianity started out as. That’s why they still protect r4pist priests. Don’t bother reading the oldest texts. Just the new ones that have been bastardized to hide what they really are:
I must give Alice Robets a lot of credit. She does not gloss over difficult subjects. In this episode she did an excellent and detailed inquiry into the deaths of the babies. excavated circa.1912 from a Roman villa.
There was a later UK TV programme that did further research and (if memory serves) they realised because of a statuette that was a protector of pregnant women and babies, as well as another artefact (a protecting amulet) that it was unlikely to be a brothel, but probably a centre for women and difficult births and likely that the infant remains were stillborn.
@@mattmatt6572Would they wait until full gestation to abort? Is it worth going through all the risks of aborting when they could have waited for the birth and committed infanticide? I know childbirth was far more dangerous than today, but it has to be safer than the other option.
JUST BE AWARE THE MELODIOUS ALICE GOT HER FEET WELL UNDER THE TABLE WITH TORY GOV HS2 (FRAUD). SO, IN EFECT HER FEES HAVE BEEN TAKEN FROM YOUR NHS CASH NEXT TIME YOU CALL FOR DOCTOR OR YOUR AUNT OR UNCLE: I'M AFRAID ALL IS NOT QUITE WHAT IT SEEMS NOW ON BBC TV.
I suppose the coin hoard was equivalent to people today tossing a coin in a fountain to make a wish. After 40 years of people doing that you're going to have a pretty sizable mass of coins.
Or an offering or giving thanks to the fertility of the field. It is amazing that it could have been cropped for so long and still have barley growing in it.
I’m a heathen/ pagan & a lot of us still leave some kind of offering in thanks, not necessarily coins (although I do know of people who do), but some sort of token of appreciation.
It looked to me like he was tossed in the rubbish heap? Like that was the pit where animal parts were thrown after butchering and he received an ignominious burial with them for some reason? 🤷🏻♀️ Considering that was sort of the headline of the video they spent the least amount of time on it, would love to know more. But I love these videos!! Excellent work, thank you for sharing them. 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
Quick sidebar question about hypocaust systems, did they need to be swept and cleaned like modern chimneys? Did soot and resin build up till they ignited or did they send slaves under the floor to clean it out?
Probably be a young slaves job to clean the hypocaust in the summer when it wasn't used. Assuming any soot wouldn't make it up the wall vents. So they'd stay relatively clean.
This is what I like about Britain.There is a lot off History,Vikings,Romans,Celts,Etc.And till now you still finds somtings news.And the Forts Castels,etc.👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾
25:07 I know this coin. My stepdad had found one in his garden, in Andard, near Angers. The horsewoman is called "cavalière aux seins nus". I could read PIC, and guessed it came from the Pictes, south of the Loire to Poitiers...
It would be interesting to see the breakdown of date ranges per coin strata. If each strata had similar dates but diff from above or below the idea of ritual deposits I could see. If the dates are similar from the top most coins to the bottom most I'd argue it was a single deposit and I would say given the size not ritual. 4 years salary is a sizeable amount for a ritualistic burial. I wonder if it had a more utilitarian purpose as a bank. Being partially covered it is unlikely someone could steal it easily, and with a small opening one could reach in pull out coins in small amounts, like a paymaster for example, or the community wealth. In times of trouble it can be completely covered making it difficult for raiders again the thinnest of the pot would keep a raiders from running off with it. I think the key lies in the breakdown of the coins. In my scenario though dates would be largely homogeneous, there still would be older coins at the bottom as the stores were emptied the last coins would remain towards the bottom and as coins were deposited they would bury the older coins, but the newer coins would be the first withdrawn. Unless someone liked sticking their arm down there and staring them up which , would be something I'd do if I were in charge of taking care of the coins
Such a large number in one place and all about the same age, plus the fact the very large villa was in close proximity to a large military camp really does seem to point to a brothel. The Romans didn’t have any problems with prostitution in their society and as the narrator points out we’re not averse to committing infanticide. The brothel owner isn’t going to make any money from pregnant prostitutes, and certainly isn’t going to want to care for a large number of “bastardized” children. It’s cold blooded, but the women were most likely slaves (aka property) so they were probably not given any choice in their profession or their pregnancies. Just goes to show for all their advances the Romans were also still quite barbaric in some ways.
Increadible. I live on the Isle of Thanet and had no idea of this find until now (5/7/24) It also shows the grwat shame that takes place with modern civil engineering destroying ancient sites for such a thing as progress. Perhaps in future there will be an automatic preservation order for the sites and replanning a modern development would be the result instead of total loss.
The dramatics. You’re such a good one. It’s so nice to see you traveling around the world, pointing the camera at yourself. Can you give us a recommendation on deodorant, please
@30 surely these pits were just dug for food storage? First used for grain storage and then later for other food items. Why assert a ritual when it is far simpler to consider simple storage requirements?
Why on earth was that lady using a metal bladed trowel to remove the coin hoard 🤦🏻♂️ plastic trowel would be the sensible option to avoid causing unnecessary damage.
I have the same problem with crime shows, where they pull a bullet out of wood with metal pliers. Like.. What are you doing? That would ruin the ballistics...
@@sneeringimperialist6667 absolutely if you do a documentary/show you have to be accurate with how you portray techniques and procedures that are used in these fields. all credibility is lost when they do inaccurate things.
Regarding the infant burials perhaps just seeing the sheer number of more or less discarded bodies Disturbed him greatly. Perhaps it was just all too much for him to bear and the only thing he could think to do was just to quickly and neatly pack them away in a box and make very little mention of them.
Was this from the Digging for Britain BBC Series (apologies, confirmation just popped up at 20’00”, if not at the beginning of that Kent “New Road to link to the Chunnel”, an obvious dating point) as it certainly wasn’t filmed in 2024. No matter, it’s another wonderfully made piece featuring Alice, who is without doubt, a deserved National Treasure. I loved the not too recent series The Detectorists and their adulation of the Prof, taken to it’s extreme where she walked past them on the stops of the British Museum and they completely missed her.
Fairy treasure.....I'm surprised they survived unscathed messing with it. The old folks say a Barghest (black dog) will be left by the Sidhe to watch over treasure like this.
The hord makes me wonder how the coins are ordered in the pot. If they are chronologically with the oldest at the bottom and the newest at the top, the coins might've gone in there one by one over a lifetime. If they're all mixed, they might've gone in at one time.
As a lifelong avid archaeology fan, I was heartsick when my parents flatly refused to even EMOTIONALLY support me if I studied archaeology at University. They wouldn't even allow me to live at home while I worked for my Degree if I studied archaeology. So I went after my second greatest lifelong love: Veterinary Medicine. But I DID have the satisfaction of informing my EXTREMELY rigid Christian parents that BRITAIN was my idea of Heaven. So, of course THAT'S where my soul will fly when all is said and done. Meanwhile, I shall watch programmes such as this one.
Many options including brothel but another is some sort of hospital for women to give birth. It is known that many babies died at birth during the past. Then if it was some sort of women's hospital it could be true?
so did the position of the bones of the meat pit imply that the animals were whole and not just bones discarded after eating? if so that seems very wasteful to just bury it all... oh unless they were were all diseased maybe and not fit to eat?
fits the story, but as you hinting its only based on similar finding, but where similar finding, true too? could a sort Chinese whisper's, the context is still there but none on the substance ? its still guess,
The mid wife would go to the mother giving birth and midwife would not be taking the stillborn home with her to bury. All these births would not be happening in one place.
The mystery surrounding the infanticide suggested around time stamp 13:45 is no mystery as it indicates how ancient prostitutes dealt with unwanted pregnancies. Through testing it might be possible to tell how many of these newborns were related to one another via mitochondrial DNA.
Why would all the infants have been killed at parturition? It’s strange to me that there were no remains from spontaneously (or otherwise) terminated pregnancies before term. Out of 97 there were no pre-term deliveries where the fetus was not viable? That seems very strange.
I'll propose an alternative theory to the "baby killing villa." That's both shocking and attention-grabbibg, but it's also absolutely nonsensical, along the lines of the religious fundamentals screeching about "abortion up to birth!" today. (Hint: it didn't happen then, and it doesn't happen now.) I propose that the place we call Yewden today was, at that time, a place where women could go to have their babies, whether for religious reasons or local safety or because someone knowledgeable about childbirth was known to live there. And that 97 infant skeletons, all aged about 40 weeks, were stillbirths, not murders. We know that death was viewed very differently then as compared to now, with nearly a thousand years of Christianity throwing judgment and sin and "eternal punishment unless you're buried in consecrated ground" on top of everything. We also know that childbirth was a very dangerous process for women then, and if someone had a reputation for helping others through it safely, their services would have made the place a local mecca during their lifetime. But even the best midwives of the day lost patients, both mothers and infants. Infants would have been buried onsite - women who didn't make it would have likely been taken home to their origin places if they hadn't come far. And of course, we would have no record of the numbers of women who departed the place with their babies, alive and healthy.
It’s certainly possible. But I don’t think there is any evidence of such birthing centers in the time period. Another possibility is that it was an orphanage where women (mostly unwed) paid for their children to be kept. Such institutions were much more profitable if the infants were terminally neglected or even actively killed.
Best episode title and, re: coin hoards as votive offering, I'm not sold. What evidence is there of similar caches of pre roman artifacts to base a continuing cultural practice on? I've heard scant to none. Like one stone does not make a castle, one hoard does not make a significant cultural practice. I'm moved to it being a stash of metal for future excavation and repurposing. Look to existing artifacts and see if there is evidence, as with the vikings, that coins were reforged into jewelry. This seems far more practical and enduring of occasional razor I'd reckon.
What always strikes me about people in the past is that they always lived in groups, interdependent upon other people in the group, so much the opposite of how people generally live today, all on our own steam, completely independent, providing all the necessities of life by ourselves. In the past people had to be liked, had to get along, had to be accepted by the group to survive. Not so now, as long as you don't get fired, you can shop and pay your rent and live alone. But I think that brain function of social acceptance is still with us.
Without groups, there is no burial and then you won't find remains after centuries or millenia. People have never been so dependend on each other as now. We may not interact with others as we used to, but we spend our lives alone looking at or communicating with each other through screens. We cannot feed, clothe or build our shelters by ourselves anymore.
wounding why there not moving the location of this new road? a bit ti the left or bit to right looks been put one most densely packed archaeology sites in the UK? looking like road is going Stonehenge, was little closer the stones, they world of just bulldozed the them out of the way?
Madam de Montespan went to a witch who performed a dark ritual to retain the King’s favor (as his mistress). The investigation thereafter, describing the sacrificial killing of an infant for each ritual, is well documented. These rituals are as old as humanity, and sadly, aren’t fully eradicated to this day. These rituals were performed every time a supplicant asked for a specific favor, and each ritual necessitated an infant. La Voisin was the witch who performed and described the ritual, if anyone would want to read more about this macabre tradition that many Elite observed. Abortions, even during the ancient times, were undertaken as soon as the monthly course had ceased. There were many herbal remedies, but also “mechanical” ways in which a pregnancy (and the infant) could be aborted. A prostitute wouldn’t wait until full-term, the last trimester would make her less appealing to her customers. This villa was the agricultural estate of a very rich Roman family who obviously had the means to coerce the locals to give up their infants
I couldn't help but wonder if all the skeletons of young babies might be due to the fact there was a doctor involved. Might these babies have died due to malnutrition because their mothers were slaves or perhaps their mothers were prostitutes? It is of importance to be able to determine over how long a period of time these babies had been buried,
9:07 -- since the location of an older archaeological dig is already known why would they opted to still leave it buried and covered over wouldn't this be a prime location to do some more archeology and learn additional information?
If you want to keep money from being stolen by burying them in a thin container that would break apart upon removal is a smart idea. You would have to spend time transferring coins to another container to transport. Longer it took more likely you would be caught!
Babies were an impediment to maintaining steady income for the women that made a living servicing the Gents that were stationed at the fort. There was no prohibition of fornication and, well, that's why you find that stuff because no problem with a baby expiring in those days.
You’re Right,Egypt was but Britain also supplied corn.But the main things from there the Roman’s wanted were it LS base and precious metals.A lot of mining there.They supplied wool and cattle also.
Assuming that the ladies were "making a living" isn't correct. Assuming there had any choices regarding the babies is also incorrect. Why? We can answer both ideas by reminding everyone that almost EVERY prostitute in the Roman Empire was in slavery. How much choice does an inslaved whore have? I think you know the answer that.
The man was very adamant the pot of coins wasn't meant to be retrieved, and intended for offerings. It's silly to me that this hoard would've been known by a community and there wasn't a rat in between them to secretly dig it back up and live large.
@@isoldam The pot is too thin to hold that amount of coins, a single person couldn't hold that many coins (Indicates multiple people emptied their pouches in the pot). The locale is not notable, the pot is plain. The pot indicates there was care put into the burial, and protection of the coins- why place them in a pot otherwise? If it was ritual, why use a plain pot? This smells of desperation, but everything around this is speculation at best. So best practice is to not assume anything until more evidence is found nearby or in the contents/on the pot, that's my critique of the man's claim ruling out the possibility it was intended for hiding.
You’d have to move some considerable distance away, since your neighbors would have a pretty good idea of your legit finances, and that would be an inconveniently heavy horde to transport for any distance. Also, since most of the individual coins were of little worth and may have been deposited over a period of time, it’s possible that no one realized how many there were all together.
Man buried with meat , possibly a Thief, buried with his loot , as a warning to others. Roman considered dead bodies sacred and to be buried with meat sends a message.
The guy found a nearly intact pot. But by the time your so-called portable archeology group got involved they actually busted open the circumference of the nearly intact pot and destroyed it. What I don't understand is why they did not opt to excavate completely around the further circumference of the pot for perhaps in case it in plaster get it lifted out, and then take it elsewhere for further study but the fact that, the man had found a nearly intact pot only to have this portable team hack away and destroy it meant little or nothing to the man's efforts to try and preserve such a significant archaeological find. It's quite disappointing if you ask me.
One of the experts has said the pot walls were so thin that they had to set down the pot then add coins to it. Also after years of water and soil collecting in out with the coins it was probably determined that the pot soils have to be dismantled into pieces to them to excavate the coins which were bound together with the soil over time from mud to solid. I am sure the pot shards were labeled and then afterwards put back together or able to be reassembled
6:04 Road not made before the coin ? That makes no sense. Why couldn't the road have been made before the coin. The road surface had to have existed before the coin was trapped in it. Severus Alexander was e emperor from AD 222 to AD 235.
If they didn’t value their history, they wouldn’t stop projects to allow archeologists to investigate. It’s a small country and there’s just about something everywhere you dig. Can’t exactly never progress because some Roman had a villa where you want to put something. 🙄
Seems he was likely tied down on top a large pile of rotting meat to torture and kill him. Probably attracted many flies and scavengers which slowly eat him. Then after he died the most horrific death. They buried the scene of the horror.
The man on meat depicts a ritual of transformation to reincarnate or rebirth and most likely of a so called noble or a sacrificed victim on behalf of nobility for their wellbeing. The hesitant theory that the 97 babies were sacrificed victims from a "royal" brothel may be correct. In my free online chapter, Akashic Records and Holy Grail, I discuss some Hindu rituals around "holy royal" postitution of children and even where ground from a brothel was considered holy. The numbers 40 (weeks), 9 and 7 bear significance in ancient cosmological gematria.
Egypt didn't raise enough grain to support the Roman Empire. They barely raised enough for their own use (occasionally having to buy outside grain in bad years). The access to more fertile regions was a primary reason for Roman expansion. The steady rainfall in Britain and western France was essential for the well-being of Rome.
If I found it - it's mine. Hammer any gold and silver I find into an unrecognisable lump, flatten it out and cut it up and sell it. Why should the crown have it when it done not belong to them? They could have the rest. I'd trust them to give me a fair price as much as |'d trust a second-hand car salesman to offer me a fair and proper price for my car. Professor Alice Roberts is lovely, and her Bristol accent is stunning.
Are we sure those coins aren’t some criminals buried loot that he was hiding until the heat died down and he just never got to recover it cause he got caught?
My respect to the man who found a treasure and went to the proper authorities instead of Ebay.
Also, bury me face down on a bed of pizzas just to puzzle future archeologists.
with this digital footprint? good luck
junk
I say he’s stupid
I could watch Prof Alice all day along. I am fascinated by the history of Britain. It is quite amazing that so many different cultures have all intersected in this one area. It is so amazing seeing all the fabulous things there are out there.
.......and the poor people HS2 took the homes off. You are a shallow bunch. lol
Fascinating archaeology! So glad they had opportunity to excavate before it was lost forever. I lived in England 1967- 1972 and it was archaeology heaven. Every step you took was historically important.
Odyssey, your channel is a real discovery for me!! Thank you for content. 🙏
Love the digging for britain series,and alice roberts as the narrator
My major was in Anthropology, and several sources I read said that it was common Roman practice to only raise a few children, and only one or two girls. The father of the family had the right to examine the baby after birth and regect any that were "imperfect" or "unwanted". The wife had no say. It was considered shameful to sell them as slaves, so these unwanted babies were "disposed of". In other words, killed right after birth, before the parents became attached. This is a very good explanation for me in a Roman populated area.
The Christians in Rome saved many of those children.
@@deniseadkins2901 Not true they DID THE KILLING all in the name of your man god
I'm a parent. And I can testify that I was attached to my son before he was born.
@@deniseadkins2901
And they have offspring who are sitting on the streets and highways.
And throwing tomatosoup at van Gogh painting and such…
lol you are gunna wanna read the Greek. No they didn’t. The Roman’s killed Christians because they were a csa and drug cult. Why was Jesus in the garden with a naked boy at 3 am? Why was the boy putting a “ medicated bandage on his genitals “ as they came upon him? did he exclaim” I am not a child trafficker” and then why was he crucified next to two other child traffickers? Because that’s what Christianity started out as. That’s why they still protect r4pist priests.
Don’t bother reading the oldest texts. Just the new ones that have been bastardized to hide what they really are:
All the things thats still not been found in the UK your virtually walking over history not knowing whats under your feet.. Awesome
If it was all dug up, there'd be no room for the current population!
What I find most amazing is when something is found it tends to be slightly studied put in a box and out of sight and the site is reburied
I wonder if metal detecting is a popular hobby there. It is in America, along with magnet fishing
He was buried with the meat because he spoke incessantly to everyone about being a vegan!
Bruh 😂😂
Yes but was he binary or non binary?
Probably non trinary!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Maybe he never got a last meal.
I must give Alice Robets a lot of credit. She does not gloss over difficult subjects. In this episode she did an excellent and detailed inquiry into the deaths of the babies. excavated circa.1912 from a Roman villa.
There was a later UK TV programme that did further research and (if memory serves) they realised because of a statuette that was a protector of pregnant women and babies, as well as another artefact (a protecting amulet) that it was unlikely to be a brothel, but probably a centre for women and difficult births and likely that the infant remains were stillborn.
Abortion clinic the Roman's were big on abortion
@@mattmatt6572Would they wait until full gestation to abort? Is it worth going through all the risks of aborting when they could have waited for the birth and committed infanticide? I know childbirth was far more dangerous than today, but it has to be safer than the other option.
YOu might not if the Self SErvative Gov had taken your property for a bean. Know what nda is?
JUST BE AWARE THE MELODIOUS ALICE GOT HER FEET WELL UNDER THE TABLE WITH TORY GOV HS2 (FRAUD).
SO, IN EFECT HER FEES HAVE BEEN TAKEN FROM YOUR NHS CASH NEXT TIME YOU CALL FOR DOCTOR OR YOUR AUNT OR UNCLE: I'M AFRAID ALL IS NOT QUITE WHAT IT SEEMS NOW ON BBC TV.
Fascinating selection of finds, thank you. The amount of explanation provided was perfect for me.
Excellent presentation, please keep providing more Historical vídeos!
I suppose the coin hoard was equivalent to people today tossing a coin in a fountain to make a wish. After 40 years of people doing that you're going to have a pretty sizable mass of coins.
Or an offering or giving thanks to the fertility of the field. It is amazing that it could have been cropped for so long and still have barley growing in it.
I’m a heathen/ pagan & a lot of us still leave some kind of offering in thanks, not necessarily coins (although I do know of people who do), but some sort of token of appreciation.
@@heidijay5902 or a Peter North splatitude to the gods, baby.
Looks like someone dumped a body in the offal pit just before covering it up.
No need to worry about anyone noticing the smell.
It looked to me like he was tossed in the rubbish heap? Like that was the pit where animal parts were thrown after butchering and he received an ignominious burial with them for some reason? 🤷🏻♀️ Considering that was sort of the headline of the video they spent the least amount of time on it, would love to know more. But I love these videos!! Excellent work, thank you for sharing them. 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
how great is alice ? more please
The repetitive flag waving gets a bit nauseous tbh
Hmmm, dig a little and you might discover differently.
"It's seven or eight meters below where we're standing." I'm blown away by how deeply much history gets buried.
Quick sidebar question about hypocaust systems, did they need to be swept and cleaned like modern chimneys? Did soot and resin build up till they ignited or did they send slaves under the floor to clean it out?
Probably be a young slaves job to clean the hypocaust in the summer when it wasn't used. Assuming any soot wouldn't make it up the wall vents. So they'd stay relatively clean.
The tend to be quite large area wise so I imagine small slaves or children were probably used to keep them clean.
They were very prone to fires, I believe.
This is what I like about Britain.There is a lot off History,Vikings,Romans,Celts,Etc.And till now you still finds somtings news.And the Forts Castels,etc.👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾
What a great video. Thank you! Definitely subscribing. And I'm in love with Alice. 😚
We all are 😂❤
@3:45 ~ reminded of Monty Python about the man who built his castle on a swamp...
Love this program and the host is excellent.
25:07 I know this coin. My stepdad had found one in his garden, in Andard, near Angers. The horsewoman is called "cavalière aux seins nus". I could read PIC, and guessed it came from the Pictes, south of the Loire to Poitiers...
Yeah I've got a couple as well i go metal detecting all over the UK and found some amazing stuff..
Brilliant channel, excellent presenter.
World class production. Bravo!!
Actually Ron Swanson has the meat funeral in his will.
Vindolanda is a fascinating place - I’ve been regularly visiting for over 60 years
It would be interesting to see the breakdown of date ranges per coin strata. If each strata had similar dates but diff from above or below the idea of ritual deposits I could see. If the dates are similar from the top most coins to the bottom most I'd argue it was a single deposit and I would say given the size not ritual. 4 years salary is a sizeable amount for a ritualistic burial. I wonder if it had a more utilitarian purpose as a bank. Being partially covered it is unlikely someone could steal it easily, and with a small opening one could reach in pull out coins in small amounts, like a paymaster for example, or the community wealth. In times of trouble it can be completely covered making it difficult for raiders again the thinnest of the pot would keep a raiders from running off with it. I think the key lies in the breakdown of the coins. In my scenario though dates would be largely homogeneous, there still would be older coins at the bottom as the stores were emptied the last coins would remain towards the bottom and as coins were deposited they would bury the older coins, but the newer coins would be the first withdrawn. Unless someone liked sticking their arm down there and staring them up which , would be something I'd do if I were in charge of taking care of the coins
The man buried face down could have been a sacrifice or an executed criminal. As for the 97 babies, an ancient abortion clinic?
seems a little odd that prostitutes would allow getting to full term before killing ?
Such a large number in one place and all about the same age, plus the fact the very large villa was in close proximity to a large military camp really does seem to point to a brothel. The Romans didn’t have any problems with prostitution in their society and as the narrator points out we’re not averse to committing infanticide. The brothel owner isn’t going to make any money from pregnant prostitutes, and certainly isn’t going to want to care for a large number of “bastardized” children. It’s cold blooded, but the women were most likely slaves (aka property) so they were probably not given any choice in their profession or their pregnancies. Just goes to show for all their advances the Romans were also still quite barbaric in some ways.
Nothing new under the sun. How little has changed
It may have been a poachers burial. Or possibly a butcher?
@@JasonSmith-q6u- Currently abortions are legal at 40 weeks in seven American states. Perhaps we haven’t advanced as much as we think?
Love the vid... Many thanks..
Beautiful. The documentary is good too.
It’s the Earl of Sandwich.
😅😅😅😅😅
Yes!
😂
The subject of the bones of 97 full term foetus' was very gently handled. So disturbing for all involved. Well done and thank you,🌹
They're babies.
My brother died at birth. Stillborn.❤
Increadible. I live on the Isle of Thanet and had no idea of this find until now (5/7/24)
It also shows the grwat shame that takes place with modern civil engineering destroying ancient sites for such a thing as progress.
Perhaps in future there will be an automatic preservation order for the sites and replanning a modern development would be the result instead of total loss.
Practically every inch of England has archaeological significance. It’s a small place and has been inhabited for millennia
7
😊😊😊😊😊😊
The dramatics. You’re such a good one. It’s so nice to see you traveling around the world, pointing the camera at yourself. Can you give us a recommendation on deodorant, please
I'm in Love with Dr. Alice
You might not be if you knew.
.......and the poor people HS2 took the homes off. You are a shallow bunch. lol
She is a Professor ❤
@@Stumpybear7640 Yes.
Dig a little deeper my friend. ;-)
See how many lives have been wrecked.
@@Stumpybear7640 Dig a little deeper my friend.
@30 surely these pits were just dug for food storage? First used for grain storage and then later for other food items. Why assert a ritual when it is far simpler to consider simple storage requirements?
The Archeology cliché has its roots in reality.
Well done!
Why on earth was that lady using a metal bladed trowel to remove the coin hoard 🤦🏻♂️ plastic trowel would be the sensible option to avoid causing unnecessary damage.
I have the same problem with crime shows, where they pull a bullet out of wood with metal pliers. Like.. What are you doing? That would ruin the ballistics...
@@sneeringimperialist6667 absolutely if you do a documentary/show you have to be accurate with how you portray techniques and procedures that are used in these fields. all credibility is lost when they do inaccurate things.
You try digging through heavy clay with a plastic trowel sometime, mate. 🤦♀️ It can be hard enough with a metal one.
@@Darkstar-se6wc they were digging into Roman coins clumped together which doesn’t require a metal bladed trowel
Who else loved the poetry of the army of weelbarrows ready for the next dicoveries?
Somebody probably had beef with him
I wonder at the significance of the man being buried face down. Did the natives or romans oractice this? X
The Celts did, and I think it was a negative thing / dishonouring the person in burial.
I can't even believe you asked this question. It was to feed the Gods!
That man was a sacrifice! Along with all that meat...
Regarding the infant burials perhaps just seeing the sheer number of more or less discarded bodies Disturbed him greatly. Perhaps it was just all too much for him to bear and the only thing he could think to do was just to quickly and neatly pack them away in a box and make very little mention of them.
Was this from the Digging for Britain BBC Series (apologies, confirmation just popped up at 20’00”, if not at the beginning of that Kent “New Road to link to the Chunnel”, an obvious dating point) as it certainly wasn’t filmed in 2024. No matter, it’s another wonderfully made piece featuring Alice, who is without doubt, a deserved National Treasure.
I loved the not too recent series The Detectorists and their adulation of the Prof, taken to it’s extreme where she walked past them on the stops of the British Museum and they completely missed her.
Fairy treasure.....I'm surprised they survived unscathed messing with it. The old folks say a Barghest (black dog) will be left by the Sidhe to watch over treasure like this.
The hord makes me wonder how the coins are ordered in the pot. If they are chronologically with the oldest at the bottom and the newest at the top, the coins might've gone in there one by one over a lifetime. If they're all mixed, they might've gone in at one time.
As a lifelong avid archaeology fan, I was heartsick when my parents flatly refused to even EMOTIONALLY support me if I studied archaeology at University. They wouldn't even allow me to live at home while I worked for my Degree if I studied archaeology. So I went after my second greatest lifelong love: Veterinary Medicine. But I DID have the satisfaction of informing my EXTREMELY rigid Christian parents that BRITAIN was my idea of Heaven. So, of course THAT'S where my soul will fly when all is said and done.
Meanwhile, I shall watch programmes such as this one.
Many options including brothel but another is some sort of hospital for women to give birth. It is known that many babies died at birth during the past. Then if it was some sort of women's hospital it could be true?
17:26 that seems like a buizzar leap in logic
so did the position of the bones of the meat pit imply that the animals were whole and not just bones discarded after eating? if so that seems very wasteful to just bury it all... oh unless they were were all diseased maybe and not fit to eat?
Why go with brothel and murdered babies instead of a midwife where many babies were born some died.
Because similar burials have been found in Europe, in history, not due to plague.
Occam’s razor.
fits the story, but as you hinting its only based on similar finding, but where similar finding, true too? could a sort Chinese whisper's, the context is still there but none on the substance ? its still guess,
The mid wife would go to the mother giving birth and midwife would not be taking the stillborn home with her to bury. All these births would not be happening in one place.
they did say beacaue the babies had 'died' all at same age (at birth) not at varying stages of pregnancy .
The mystery surrounding the infanticide suggested around time stamp 13:45 is no mystery as it indicates how ancient prostitutes dealt with unwanted pregnancies. Through testing it might be possible to tell how many of these newborns were related to one another via mitochondrial DNA.
Why would all the infants have been killed at parturition? It’s strange to me that there were no remains from spontaneously (or otherwise) terminated pregnancies before term. Out of 97 there were no pre-term deliveries where the fetus was not viable? That seems very strange.
I'll propose an alternative theory to the "baby killing villa." That's both shocking and attention-grabbibg, but it's also absolutely nonsensical, along the lines of the religious fundamentals screeching about "abortion up to birth!" today. (Hint: it didn't happen then, and it doesn't happen now.)
I propose that the place we call Yewden today was, at that time, a place where women could go to have their babies, whether for religious reasons or local safety or because someone knowledgeable about childbirth was known to live there. And that 97 infant skeletons, all aged about 40 weeks, were stillbirths, not murders.
We know that death was viewed very differently then as compared to now, with nearly a thousand years of Christianity throwing judgment and sin and "eternal punishment unless you're buried in consecrated ground" on top of everything. We also know that childbirth was a very dangerous process for women then, and if someone had a reputation for helping others through it safely, their services would have made the place a local mecca during their lifetime. But even the best midwives of the day lost patients, both mothers and infants. Infants would have been buried onsite - women who didn't make it would have likely been taken home to their origin places if they hadn't come far. And of course, we would have no record of the numbers of women who departed the place with their babies, alive and healthy.
Sure the British are special 😅
It’s certainly possible. But I don’t think there is any evidence of such birthing centers in the time period.
Another possibility is that it was an orphanage where women (mostly unwed) paid for their children to be kept. Such institutions were much more profitable if the infants were terminally neglected or even actively killed.
'Super Size Me'.. 1st century AD edition. 😄
Best episode title and, re: coin hoards as votive offering, I'm not sold. What evidence is there of similar caches of pre roman artifacts to base a continuing cultural practice on? I've heard scant to none. Like one stone does not make a castle, one hoard does not make a significant cultural practice. I'm moved to it being a stash of metal for future excavation and repurposing. Look to existing artifacts and see if there is evidence, as with the vikings, that coins were reforged into jewelry. This seems far more practical and enduring of occasional razor I'd reckon.
Occams razor, ty.
for a time, couple years ago, the most downloaded picture, was "Man with bacon"
I'm constantly shocked that bones and metal objects are handled with bare hands, without regard to DNA or acids and oils.
I'm quite sure they are aware and know what they are doing.
What always strikes me about people in the past is that they always lived in groups, interdependent upon other people in the group, so much the opposite of how people generally live today, all on our own steam, completely independent, providing all the necessities of life by ourselves. In the past people had to be liked, had to get along, had to be accepted by the group to survive. Not so now, as long as you don't get fired, you can shop and pay your rent and live alone. But I think that brain function of social acceptance is still with us.
Without groups, there is no burial and then you won't find remains after centuries or millenia. People have never been so dependend on each other as now. We may not interact with others as we used to, but we spend our lives alone looking at or communicating with each other through screens. We cannot feed, clothe or build our shelters by ourselves anymore.
@@guilhermecorrea9483 Ahhh~ You're right. Thank you for answering. I feel terribly alone today.
I'm already at 28 minutes in ... where's the beef?
wounding why there not moving the location of this new road? a bit ti the left or bit to right looks been put one most densely packed archaeology sites in the UK? looking like road is going Stonehenge, was little closer the stones, they world of just bulldozed the them out of the way?
There’s something pretty much everywhere you dig.
Madam de Montespan went to a witch who performed a dark ritual to retain the King’s favor (as his mistress).
The investigation thereafter, describing the sacrificial killing of an infant for each ritual, is well documented.
These rituals are as old as humanity, and sadly, aren’t fully eradicated to this day.
These rituals were performed every time a supplicant asked for a specific favor, and each ritual necessitated an infant.
La Voisin was the witch who performed and described the ritual, if anyone would want to read more about this macabre tradition that many Elite observed.
Abortions, even during the ancient times, were undertaken as soon as the monthly course had ceased. There were many herbal remedies, but also “mechanical” ways in which a pregnancy (and the infant) could be aborted. A prostitute wouldn’t wait until full-term, the last trimester would make her less appealing to her customers.
This villa was the agricultural estate of a very rich Roman family who obviously had the means to coerce the locals to give up their infants
I couldn't help but wonder if all the skeletons of young babies might be due to the fact there was a doctor involved. Might these babies have died due to malnutrition because their mothers were slaves or perhaps their mothers were prostitutes? It is of importance to be able to determine over how long a period of time these babies had been buried,
Could the pot in the ground be a communal cache? For emergency use.
9:07 -- since the location of an older archaeological dig is already known why would they opted to still leave it buried and covered over wouldn't this be a prime location to do some more archeology and learn additional information?
Considering the Phoenicians traded with England before Roman Empire is a piece of history that isn’t discussed but is fact.
If you want to keep money from being stolen by burying them in a thin container that would break apart upon removal is a smart idea. You would have to spend time transferring coins to another container to transport. Longer it took more likely you would be caught!
Thanks👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
He had a beef about the cost of burials.
that girl trying to hit that guy lol xd
Alice is the ultimate woman. Heavens 🥵
i live in jersey, when the camera switched and said guernsey, i thought nooooo..... don't tell me alice went there and not here !
Hey guys can i have just one Roman coin please? For souvenir only, please?! 🙏
I've got loads of them there not that rare especially here in the UK I go metal detecting around the BRITISH ISLES
It was a translation error in the burial description by the scribe.
He meat his demise.. should be.. He met his demise..
29:55 ....Well, it's not a "Roman man" buried on a pile of meat, but a Celtic man who was buried in that pit.
I would guess that he committed a crime of some sort given the manner in which he was "buried". He looks like he was just dumped into the offal pit.
Possibly a poacher?
They didn't have 'offal pits'. Nothing of a slaughtered mammal's parts, was wasted.
Babies were an impediment to maintaining steady income for the women that made a living servicing the Gents that were stationed at the fort. There was no prohibition of fornication and, well, that's why you find that stuff because no problem with a baby expiring in those days.
It's an awful situation 😢
You’re Right,Egypt was but Britain also supplied corn.But the main things from there the Roman’s wanted were it LS base and precious metals.A lot of mining there.They supplied wool and cattle also.
Assuming that the ladies were "making a living" isn't correct. Assuming there had any choices regarding the babies is also incorrect.
Why? We can answer both ideas by reminding everyone that almost EVERY prostitute in the Roman Empire was in slavery.
How much choice does an inslaved whore have? I think you know the answer that.
Dr Alice is such a legend. I real influencer
Try coming to roxitor the roman city in shrewsbury Shropshire
The man was very adamant the pot of coins wasn't meant to be retrieved, and intended for offerings. It's silly to me that this hoard would've been known by a community and there wasn't a rat in between them to secretly dig it back up and live large.
Is there some reason to think the community knew where it was buried? Maybe priests buried it in a secret place?
@@isoldam The pot is too thin to hold that amount of coins, a single person couldn't hold that many coins (Indicates multiple people emptied their pouches in the pot). The locale is not notable, the pot is plain. The pot indicates there was care put into the burial, and protection of the coins- why place them in a pot otherwise? If it was ritual, why use a plain pot? This smells of desperation, but everything around this is speculation at best. So best practice is to not assume anything until more evidence is found nearby or in the contents/on the pot, that's my critique of the man's claim ruling out the possibility it was intended for hiding.
You’d have to move some considerable distance away, since your neighbors would have a pretty good idea of your legit finances, and that would be an inconveniently heavy horde to transport for any distance. Also, since most of the individual coins were of little worth and may have been deposited over a period of time, it’s possible that no one realized how many there were all together.
If these were offerings for the Gods, then they wouldn't be stolen for fear of Gods wrath.
Man buried with meat , possibly a Thief, buried with his loot , as a warning to others. Roman considered dead bodies sacred and to be buried with meat sends a message.
Man wasnt supposed to stay in one piece and supposed to not be in the peaceful rest of death i doubt that was any sign of endearment
GREAT.
England the breadbasket of Roman Empire? optimistic! what about Sicily and Egypt? you forgot those?
The guy found a nearly intact pot. But by the time your so-called portable archeology group got involved they actually busted open the circumference of the nearly intact pot and destroyed it. What I don't understand is why they did not opt to excavate completely around the further circumference of the pot for perhaps in case it in plaster get it lifted out, and then take it elsewhere for further study but the fact that, the man had found a nearly intact pot only to have this portable team hack away and destroy it meant little or nothing to the man's efforts to try and preserve such a significant archaeological find.
It's quite disappointing if you ask me.
One of the experts has said the pot walls were so thin that they had to set down the pot then add coins to it. Also after years of water and soil collecting in out with the coins it was probably determined that the pot soils have to be dismantled into pieces to them to excavate the coins which were bound together with the soil over time from mud to solid. I am sure the pot shards were labeled and then afterwards put back together or able to be reassembled
This chick is mint❤
The first thing in my mind was that the guy really liked bacon. So much, that he wanted to take some into the afterlife.
Any information about how they were killed?
6:04 Road not made before the coin ? That makes no sense. Why couldn't the road have been made before the coin. The road surface had to have existed before the coin was trapped in it. Severus Alexander was e emperor from AD 222 to AD 235.
It was a brothel , the male babies were killed.
Good idea but makes could also be prostitutes x
If i found gold or silver i wouldn't tell anybody, finders keepers
I wonder if it was a village "bank" meant to safeguard the village due to changing rulers and chieftains?
Be aware that if you are an epileptic, there is a lot of rapid flashing of white screen in this episode.
I wonder if the babies were a certain sex. Like the girls weren't wanted, so killed when born. Or the boys... whatever.
I saw on another episode that the babes were both genders.
Could the villa have been some kind of maternity ward?
I am disgusted that the government of GB values a new roadway more that their own history.
Britain is small and over populated and completely covered by history maybe they should just abandon their country to preserve the history.
If they didn’t value their history, they wouldn’t stop projects to allow archeologists to investigate. It’s a small country and there’s just about something everywhere you dig. Can’t exactly never progress because some Roman had a villa where you want to put something. 🙄
Naw... your assumption is wrong, because "their own history" started in 1066 AD. The People have a separate History.
That has never been my impression.
Seems he was likely tied down on top a large pile of rotting meat to torture and kill him. Probably attracted many flies and scavengers which slowly eat him. Then after he died the most horrific death. They buried the scene of the horror.
The man on meat depicts a ritual of transformation to reincarnate or rebirth and most likely of a so called noble or a sacrificed victim on behalf of nobility for their wellbeing. The hesitant theory that the 97 babies were sacrificed victims from a "royal" brothel may be correct. In my free online chapter, Akashic Records and Holy Grail, I discuss some Hindu rituals around "holy royal" postitution of children and even where ground from a brothel was considered holy. The numbers 40 (weeks), 9 and 7 bear significance in ancient cosmological gematria.
I thought Egypt was the bread basket of the Roman empire not Britain.
Britain had, and still has, the rainfall and closer proximity to Europe. Egypt was too dry and too far away,
Egypt didn't raise enough grain to support the Roman Empire. They barely raised enough for their own use (occasionally having to buy outside grain in bad years). The access to more fertile regions was a primary reason for Roman expansion. The steady rainfall in Britain and western France was essential for the well-being of Rome.
Libya was
Cleopatra was black@@MONTY-YTNOM
@@Boro87 and ?
If you don't eat your meet...
It's spelled meat.
If I found it - it's mine. Hammer any gold and silver I find into an unrecognisable lump, flatten it out and cut it up and sell it. Why should the crown have it when it done not belong to them? They could have the rest. I'd trust them to give me a fair price as much as |'d trust a second-hand car salesman to offer me a fair and proper price for my car. Professor Alice Roberts is lovely, and her Bristol accent is stunning.
I often refer to my wife as an Archaeologist due to her habit of digging sh!t up from the past!
Are we sure those coins aren’t some criminals buried loot that he was hiding until the heat died down and he just never got to recover it cause he got caught?