I wonder if part of our passion for the ancient past is that in many ways it was so simple. Currently I'm finding current affairs so appalling I'm finding that past quite calming! I'm not saying archaeology is simple, but life without social media certainly was.
Bonjour Rose. You are quite right about the calming effect of searching in the past. I love the smell of old books, that always take me back to my gd-parents. Another thing, I wish I studied archeology but I became a gardener instead. I now have a "treasure"... Last but not least : do you know why gardeners look cool ? The is a bacteria vacca, in the soil that kind of trigger happyness hormones... Nothing compared to that on an early spring day.
Paraphrasing: More archaeological work and raw data was produced by Time Team on that site in three days than in the three years before and the twenty years since. Followed on by Helen's comment about the massive resources (comparatively) that TT could bring to bear 13 times a year on sites that wouldn't get a look-in from the standard sources. *SIGH* This is the Team's most important legacy, not just the interest shown by the public and the careers inspired, but those thousands of pages of professional reports written up afterwards, available to all for future use. The stuff about bees is good too.
I like seeing how the trust went from telling them no you cant dig ... to hey can you dig here for us and tell us what is there and all that ... even how they were used to check if a sight was worth being scheduled or not .. from turkdean when they started even 18 months later going back ... and hopefully this time around going abck one more time to do the same as the first time ... it will leave a legacy of showing how much tech had changed from the start to now ... that even will be useful archeological data to give a basic timeline of how fast the tech is advancing leaving a starting point for forecasting how long to keep people off until something really special comes along to help
As a 12th century Benedictine monk in a Living History group I made my own pair of wax tablets coloured with charcoal, and I bought a bone stylus in Holland. It never ocurred to me that a stylus should be metal, since the bone works perfectly well - and it has for almost 18 years. The tablets are good for writing very quickly, something yiou can not do with a quill pen on parchment or vellum. Once the text is worked out on wax it can then be carefully transferred to the parchment at a much slower pace.
I've watched a number of these interviews with Helen and have been really surprised. I had thought I must be alone in my crushing on Helen, but not so at all ! I've always found her uber attractive, not because she's exceptionally pretty, but she's just such a great "combined" woman. Pretty, smart as hell, witty, great smile, loves a laugh, always looks so happy. Still crushing on her after all these years too !
On top of your list I would add a perfect voice and accent for television/radio or just general communication plus poise (although she may not feel that she has this last one). Totally agree with what you say and have the same feelings for her.
she is the full package ... a hottie ... articulate and smart as can be ... her only flaw is she is NOT single ... ;) sexiest bit is her mind IMHO ... but the rest is PURE bonus too ;)
@Robert Shaffer - agreed - I feel the same way! She has those lovely fresh-faced "girl next door" looks! Very down-to-earth - the kind of woman I would just *love* to sit next to and snuggle with on a sofa!
I would have thought that saying to Helen it’s not your loose change would have been an endearing experience of how you don’t tease someone you don’t like. I think she is knowledgeable and a breath of fresh air.
Love hearing from Helen in general, but this was great. I'd always wondered how Time Team was seen by existing archaeologists working near or in some cases on a site they visited. It's such a shame that it still takes a TV show in some cases for a site to get the evaluation it needs.
Helen is absolutely my favorite member of Time Team! She seems like that happy, thoughtful person she was back then. Thank you for posting this interview with her.
As a child we had magic writing tablets. You wrote with a wooden stylus on a kind of sturdy parchment paper with dark wax under it. Where you had written, the wax stuck to the parchment and you could read it. The tablet was in a frame with a thread built in between the parchment and the wax layer. You could pull the tablet out of the frame like a drawer and that separated parchment and wax again and your writing had magically erased. Maybe this invention was a further development of the old wax tablet.
Helen needs her own podcast and I really don’t care what the topic is. If she’s passionate about the topic it will be great. Also if bee archaeology isn’t a thing it needs to be. 🐝
to paraphrase David Mitchell: if i knew how i knew to do what i do, i'd only be able to do half as much because my brain would be so crammed with how i know how i do something, that i'd only be able to do half of what i do.
Found Time Team about 2 years ago on TH-cam... America has nothing but garbage on its supposed 'science' or 'history' channels... TT goes to show that Television can be a powerful learning tool with the proper programming... I truly wish there were something similar here
I think you’d have a hard time gathering a group of people so dedicated to the archeology that they wouldn’t vie for TV face time. What TT had were a people that seemed selfless in the act of performing the dig they were dedicated to what was being uncovered. Also, how do you “replace” Mick? How do you find a Tony who was kind enough to ask questions we’d ask if given the opportunity. The experts like Carrenza, Helen, Phil, Rackshaw, etc. who also provided dedication to the dig over their desire for face time. The chemistry between those involved would have to suck in the audience to make us believe we have a vested interest in the discovery. I’m not sure that those people exist at this time.
This one made me laugh. We know that a monastic foundation was burned down by the locals in the 1300s, presumably from written records (made by Christian monks), but Christian authors (again one must assume monastic) would be unlikely to record that kind of detail (because they were Christian). Well, yes; but the AD 1327 riots and attacks on the Abbey at Bury St Edmunds was not because the abbey or its monks were parasitic on the local populace but because it was virtually the sole focus of wealth production and ownership in the area (and with this land ownership came the administration the high and low justice) .. yet the 'monks' were at times decidedly non-monastic, gallivanting in civvy clothing (on royal and episcopal financial business) not taking the care of souls into account (amid their secular concerns - as a useful milch cow for the monarch). www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/suff/vol2/pp56-72 Unlike most other monastic establishments St Edmund's Abbey did not have a lot of out-goings on maintaining spiritual, religious, or charitable foundations, rather it had a great array of temporal money-makers .. not least in raking in taxes, rents, and licences. So, imagine your local C of E vicar and his presbytery being also the local town hall, tax office, law court, as well as landowner, bank, and supermarket .. that would not make the parish church especially popular. Now add on the expense of Her Majesty and Her Parliament descending on the parish, and living off it, for months on end .. soaking up the local produce while increasing the tax burden for good measure and breaking the bank .. one can well understand the resentment (like the Poll Tax, Hearth Tax, Window Tax, currency crisis, banking default, and perhaps even introducing a pandemic to boot all rolled up into one fell swoop); one can only wonder why the populous was so rarely blood-thirsty, and how the Abbey managed to remain solvent let alone wealth-producing for so long.
God fearing and mostly illiterate peasants are rather easily led. This is proven again and again all over the world. Trumps election would seem to indicate nothing's changed in that regard.
@@joshschneider9766 Oooh! Politics .. I doubt too many were illiterate peasants, btw. No, not the Trump supporters, but the backbone, sinews, muscles, and heart of the early modern economy .. not least after the 'Black Death'. The labourers certainly had less to do with legal matters, tenancy, ownership, rents, dues, rights and privileges etc, but peasant farmers (free-hold or tenanted) like the skilled workers and guildsmen of the towns not only knew how many beans made five, but why that was important, and they were rarely slow to assert their knowledge (vigorously/ at times violently) .. even against monastic landowners; yet even the labouring masses then were not the economic slaves of the Industrial Revolution - the plowman could tell college priests a thing or two about their shared faith ... though he'd be less likely to bother writing it down or reading it, preferring to hear it or speak it. Not too many sons of butchers or miners today reach the heights of ecclesiastical or secular leadership, yet they were not unknown .. back then. Hmmm? ;o)
Your prodigal sons the USA, love and esteem you, your King, and the people. Thank you for your support with everything. So beautifully interesting. America is blessed to have such great friends and ally.
You will always be one my favorite historian and the prettiest❤ of them all. I know Victor as a very hard time with drawing all different times in history.His drawing are very interesting and beautiful .
I really enjoy these one on one sessions. Helen really has a joy for this work and it sounds like she really valued what Time Team was doing for British Archaeology. Her comment about all that they had learned from the Bawsey site dig on Time Team was more than they had learned in the subsequent 22 years since that dig, astounding. Time Team really was a special place for us to watch because of all these wonderful people, both in front of the screen and behind the scenes. Looking forward to what new Time Team inspired programming awaits us in the coming months and years.
LOL. I had the same thought!! I think it first came to me when she was trying to locate the bits on her desk. Somehow James May was suddenly there. :-D
They were born within miles of one another in a nation whose genetics are strictly regional. Almost certain they have ancestors in common within the last ten generations
I found not your loose change very informative .. it basically said it was change form a purchase like at christmas time when you leave a store with a load of change and a few bigger bills .. I figure it would have been like a 10pound note ... not small but not huge either ..
I was wondering about the wax and the stylus. The argument against bone was, it didn't have an eraser. But why was an eraser necessary, couldn't they just have used a finger to rub something out?
I could listen to Helen talking about absolutely anything for hours and hours.
I wonder if part of our passion for the ancient past is that in many ways it was so simple. Currently I'm finding current affairs so appalling I'm finding that past quite calming! I'm not saying archaeology is simple, but life without social media certainly was.
Bonjour Rose. You are quite right about the calming effect of searching in the past. I love the smell of old books, that always take me back to my gd-parents. Another thing, I wish I studied archeology but I became a gardener instead. I now have a "treasure"... Last but not least : do you know why gardeners look cool ? The is a bacteria vacca, in the soil that kind of trigger happyness hormones... Nothing compared to that on an early spring day.
Paraphrasing: More archaeological work and raw data was produced by Time Team on that site in three days than in the three years before and the twenty years since. Followed on by Helen's comment about the massive resources (comparatively) that TT could bring to bear 13 times a year on sites that wouldn't get a look-in from the standard sources. *SIGH* This is the Team's most important legacy, not just the interest shown by the public and the careers inspired, but those thousands of pages of professional reports written up afterwards, available to all for future use.
The stuff about bees is good too.
I like seeing how the trust went from telling them no you cant dig ... to hey can you dig here for us and tell us what is there and all that ... even how they were used to check if a sight was worth being scheduled or not .. from turkdean when they started even 18 months later going back ... and hopefully this time around going abck one more time to do the same as the first time ... it will leave a legacy of showing how much tech had changed from the start to now ... that even will be useful archeological data to give a basic timeline of how fast the tech is advancing leaving a starting point for forecasting how long to keep people off until something really special comes along to help
I'm kind of surprised how many others had a " thing" for Helen. I always thought I was the only one. Still fantastic. The complete package.
I had quite a crush on Helen, she's adorable.
@@sgtrock5273
Adore Helen, She matt Rakshah and Bridget were my gateway to TT love them
I love Helen. So classy, smart, and pretty!
yes a Hottie with one flaw ... she isnt single .. lucky hubby ;)
Still have a thing about Helen lol. I love these videos and I want Helen to tell us more about the badger attack. She is right that we need it back.
Yes, she got a bit shut down on the badger attack details. I think we need to know more too.
Yes. Me too.
I used to have a crush on her back in TT days.
She hasnt lost it imo ^^
As a 12th century Benedictine monk in a Living History group I made my own pair of wax tablets coloured with charcoal, and I bought a bone stylus in Holland. It never ocurred to me that a stylus should be metal, since the bone works perfectly well - and it has for almost 18 years. The tablets are good for writing very quickly, something yiou can not do with a quill pen on parchment or vellum. Once the text is worked out on wax it can then be carefully transferred to the parchment at a much slower pace.
I absolutely love Helen, she's one of my favorites from the show!
Helen Geake was and still is amazing. She's very knowledgeable, passionate and engaging. 👍
Love Helen. She's so likeable and such a storyteller besides being knowledgeable. She seems like someone one would be happy to work with.
Yes. I have to admit that I fell in love with Helen. Unrequited obviously lol.
Helen is so cool and really funny. She explains things so well, and I always enjoy her episodes. I really feel like we'd be great friends! LOL
I feel that about many of the Team. I even felt like Mick was my dad. Was so sad when he passed.
I've watched a number of these interviews with Helen and have been really surprised. I had thought I must be alone in my crushing on Helen, but not so at all ! I've always found her uber attractive, not because she's exceptionally pretty, but she's just such a great "combined" woman. Pretty, smart as hell, witty, great smile, loves a laugh, always looks so happy. Still crushing on her after all these years too !
On top of your list I would add a perfect voice and accent for television/radio or just general communication plus poise (although she may not feel that she has this last one). Totally agree with what you say and have the same feelings for her.
she is the full package ... a hottie ... articulate and smart as can be ... her only flaw is she is NOT single ... ;)
sexiest bit is her mind IMHO ... but the rest is PURE bonus too ;)
@Robert Shaffer - agreed - I feel the same way! She has those lovely fresh-faced "girl next door" looks! Very down-to-earth - the kind of woman I would just *love* to sit next to and snuggle with on a sofa!
Her (seams Helen was always blushing) and Cranza, love her smile long blonde hair and her brains.
She is a special person. I love her
Count me among all these Helen-crush victims!
I would have thought that saying to Helen it’s not your loose change would have been an endearing experience of how you don’t tease someone you don’t like. I think she is knowledgeable and a breath of fresh air.
27:46 "Somebody's got to do something about it!" Hint, hint Tim.
Yes please!
The last story about saying "Well, it's not your loose change" points out the problem so many people have with saying "I don't know."
Helen speaking of monastic life invoked thoughts of Cadfael and Mick who loved his monasteries
There are few people I've seen on screen that make me as happy as Helen...she's also inspired my drive to learn more about the Saxon time period.
Love hearing from Helen in general, but this was great. I'd always wondered how Time Team was seen by existing archaeologists working near or in some cases on a site they visited. It's such a shame that it still takes a TV show in some cases for a site to get the evaluation it needs.
She's brilliant. She's personable, she has great legs. I would love to meet her.
Helen is absolutely my favorite member of Time Team! She seems like that happy, thoughtful person she was back then. Thank you for posting this interview with her.
Helen of Troy, was said to have had similar virtues as you posses in abundance, Helen.
As a child we had magic writing tablets. You wrote with a wooden stylus on a kind of sturdy parchment paper with dark wax under it. Where you had written, the wax stuck to the parchment and you could read it. The tablet was in a frame with a thread built in between the parchment and the wax layer. You could pull the tablet out of the frame like a drawer and that separated parchment and wax again and your writing had magically erased. Maybe this invention was a further development of the old wax tablet.
Wow. Helen. Looking great and such a lively and interesting speaker.
Helen is not your loose change! She’s gold!
Helen needs her own podcast and I really don’t care what the topic is. If she’s passionate about the topic it will be great.
Also if bee archaeology isn’t a thing it needs to be. 🐝
Helen explains things so well. Truly an excellent teacher. I hope she adds more to the new endeavors.
to paraphrase David Mitchell: if i knew how i knew to do what i do, i'd only be able to do half as much because my brain would be so crammed with how i know how i do something, that i'd only be able to do half of what i do.
Found Time Team about 2 years ago on TH-cam... America has nothing but garbage on its supposed 'science' or 'history' channels... TT goes to show that Television can be a powerful learning tool with the proper programming... I truly wish there were something similar here
Moi aussi. French Tv is so boringly entertaining that I've given it up a decade ago. So let's thank YT. And "Arte" too (a channel on YT).
I think you’d have a hard time gathering a group of people so dedicated to the archeology that they wouldn’t vie for TV face time. What TT had were a people that seemed selfless in the act of performing the dig they were dedicated to what was being uncovered. Also, how do you “replace” Mick? How do you find a Tony who was kind enough to ask questions we’d ask if given the opportunity. The experts like Carrenza, Helen, Phil, Rackshaw, etc. who also provided dedication to the dig over their desire for face time. The chemistry between those involved would have to suck in the audience to make us believe we have a vested interest in the discovery. I’m not sure that those people exist at this time.
You replace Mick with Helen of course. He was both her mentor and guide professionally, it makes sense.
@@joshschneider9766
As he would suggest, himself.
This one made me laugh. We know that a monastic foundation was burned down by the locals in the 1300s, presumably from written records (made by Christian monks), but Christian authors (again one must assume monastic) would be unlikely to record that kind of detail (because they were Christian). Well, yes; but the AD 1327 riots and attacks on the Abbey at Bury St Edmunds was not because the abbey or its monks were parasitic on the local populace but because it was virtually the sole focus of wealth production and ownership in the area (and with this land ownership came the administration the high and low justice) .. yet the 'monks' were at times decidedly non-monastic, gallivanting in civvy clothing (on royal and episcopal financial business) not taking the care of souls into account (amid their secular concerns - as a useful milch cow for the monarch).
www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/suff/vol2/pp56-72
Unlike most other monastic establishments St Edmund's Abbey did not have a lot of out-goings on maintaining spiritual, religious, or charitable foundations, rather it had a great array of temporal money-makers .. not least in raking in taxes, rents, and licences. So, imagine your local C of E vicar and his presbytery being also the local town hall, tax office, law court, as well as landowner, bank, and supermarket .. that would not make the parish church especially popular. Now add on the expense of Her Majesty and Her Parliament descending on the parish, and living off it, for months on end .. soaking up the local produce while increasing the tax burden for good measure and breaking the bank .. one can well understand the resentment (like the Poll Tax, Hearth Tax, Window Tax, currency crisis, banking default, and perhaps even introducing a pandemic to boot all rolled up into one fell swoop); one can only wonder why the populous was so rarely blood-thirsty, and how the Abbey managed to remain solvent let alone wealth-producing for so long.
God fearing and mostly illiterate peasants are rather easily led. This is proven again and again all over the world. Trumps election would seem to indicate nothing's changed in that regard.
@@joshschneider9766 Oooh! Politics .. I doubt too many were illiterate peasants, btw. No, not the Trump supporters, but the backbone, sinews, muscles, and heart of the early modern economy .. not least after the 'Black Death'. The labourers certainly had less to do with legal matters, tenancy, ownership, rents, dues, rights and privileges etc, but peasant farmers (free-hold or tenanted) like the skilled workers and guildsmen of the towns not only knew how many beans made five, but why that was important, and they were rarely slow to assert their knowledge (vigorously/ at times violently) .. even against monastic landowners; yet even the labouring masses then were not the economic slaves of the Industrial Revolution - the plowman could tell college priests a thing or two about their shared faith ... though he'd be less likely to bother writing it down or reading it, preferring to hear it or speak it.
Not too many sons of butchers or miners today reach the heights of ecclesiastical or secular leadership, yet they were not unknown .. back then.
Hmmm? ;o)
I Love that Helen is back, and find her observations very interesting.
Your prodigal sons the USA, love and esteem you, your King, and the people. Thank you for your support with everything. So beautifully interesting. America is blessed to have such great friends and ally.
Very interesting! Thank you for bringing history alive and sharing your knowledge!
I'm just rewatching it at my lunchtime. I don't have any loose change though.... 😂
You will always be one my favorite historian and the prettiest❤ of them all. I know Victor as a very hard time with drawing all different times in history.His drawing are very interesting and beautiful .
I would only want Time Team back if Tony Robinson was on board, he was the glue that held all the professionals together in my opinion!
Yes, and the glue too? (lol)
He's like eighty two though. Let him enjoy his retirement in Spain lol
He was the one who asked the "what does it mean" questions that I think are missing in the new 3-part I've seen.
Ye, just realised lol
Learnt several lots of something new again. Happens almost every time I watch time team
So this is the pocket calculator of antiquity. Or an erasable tablet for students learning their ABCs.
Mmm Helen 😋
It's so nice to be able to spend even a half-hour with these folks!
I really enjoy these one on one sessions. Helen really has a joy for this work and it sounds like she really valued what Time Team was doing for British Archaeology. Her comment about all that they had learned from the Bawsey site dig on Time Team was more than they had learned in the subsequent 22 years since that dig, astounding. Time Team really was a special place for us to watch because of all these wonderful people, both in front of the screen and behind the scenes. Looking forward to what new Time Team inspired programming awaits us in the coming months and years.
@ 6:30 , they used to “bone” wooden rifle stocks to close the grain and remove surface scratches. They used a rib bone.
Experimental Archaeology rocks!
Why does Helen remind me of James May ?
LOL. I had the same thought!! I think it first came to me when she was trying to locate the bits on her desk. Somehow James May was suddenly there. :-D
@@markstephens8396 It's the way she speaks and some facial expressions are the same :)
They were born within miles of one another in a nation whose genetics are strictly regional. Almost certain they have ancestors in common within the last ten generations
"Someone has got to do something about it!" 😽🙏🖖
I wonder how many of them books in the abckground are NOT archeology related ... very few I expect ... glad your back Helen ..
I found not your loose change very informative .. it basically said it was change form a purchase like at christmas time when you leave a store with a load of change and a few bigger bills .. I figure it would have been like a 10pound note ... not small but not huge either ..
I was wondering about the wax and the stylus. The argument against bone was, it didn't have an eraser. But why was an eraser necessary, couldn't they just have used a finger to rub something out?
Depends on the shape of the bone, too...
Time team stylee 😎
// They Closed It Down Because It Was To English....Must Not Have To Many White Faces...Sad !!