Original subtitles

(dramatic music)

NARRATOR: In the shadow of Hadrian's Wall in the north of Britain,

archaeologists are digging through the ruined rubble of a massive Roman mystery.

FRANK: This building, was it built for something special?

Totally unexpected. Really excited.

NARRATOR: They're uncovering buried ancient treasures

that haven't seen the light of day for nearly 2,000 years.

FRANK: Is that an edge? Because if it's not wall, what is it?

This is just bizarre, isn't it?

NARRATOR: Unlocking the secrets of a forgotten world

on Rome's wildest and most northern frontier.

MAN: Dog's came along and placed its paw on there.

MAN 2: It is absolutely amazing.

MAN: That's phenomenal. That's just a moment in time.

(theme music playing)

(sweeping music)

NARRATOR: Hadrian's Wall, the biggest structure the Romans ever built.

Constructed in 122 AD,

it defined the most northern edge of the greatest empire the world had ever seen.

This was the final frontier,

where Rome's empire ended and barbarian territory began.

ROB: Hadrian's Wall is fascinating. When you look at a Roman frontier,

it's not just about big walls creating a border.

It's actually about a dynamic culture, dynamic landscape.

NARRATOR: Over 1,000 miles away in Rome,

spectacular monuments are lasting testament

to the glory of this ancient civilization.

But now, teams of archaeologists are investigating the margins

of Rome's mighty empire to unlock the secrets of their most distant outposts.

ANDREW: The majority of information is yet to come

and that's extremely exciting.

NARRATOR: They're on a mission to find out

how the Romans maintained their far flung borders

and discover what life was like for those at the very wildest edges of the empire.

ANDREAS: Just by getting their remains,

you really can get in touch with the people

which were living thousands of years ago.

It's like diving into history and it's really great.

NARRATOR: On a search for answers,

archaeologist Andrew Birley has enlisted an army of volunteers

to excavate a massive frontier fort.

Known as Vindolanda, it lies just one mile south of Hadrian's Wall.

Oh, hang on a second.

- PAUL: There we go. - ANDREW: Very crumbly.

What you've got there is probably a little silver denarius, a Roman coin.

That's going to be really helpful to date the fill that you working in right now.

NARRATOR: Andrew is leading the excavation,

and has lived and breathed this incredible site for his entire life.

ANDREW: I'm the third generation of archaeologists on this site

and my family's been involved with Vindolanda,

one way or another, since 1929.

NARRATOR: Through nearly 100 years of digging this fort,

Andrew and his ancestors have made it their mission

to pick this site apart stone by stone.

ANDREW: When you look at stones like this around about me,

they look like dusty old Roman ruins.

But you got to remember they're populated and built and inhabited by real people.

NARRATOR: Vindolanda Fort is the perfect place to unlock

the secrets of life in this wild frontier.

It was built by Roman soldiers sent to conquer this region

50 years before Hadrian's Wall.

As the Romans drove north across Britain following their invasion,

they'd face battles every step of the way.

(dramatic music)

In 60 AD a southern tribal leader, Boudica,

rebelled against the Roman invasion.

She burnt down their cities but, finally, the Roman army prevailed.

Further north, another fierce female leader, Cartimandua,

also resisted, but eventually surrendered,

handing over rebels in exchange for wealth and protection.

But the tribes furthest north would not yield to the invaders.

They constantly raided Roman camps and posed a terrifying threat.

The Romans needed a solution to the problem.

Vindolanda, a huge power base,

was the Roman's attempt to quell the barbarian north.

It was garrison for over 300 years until the end of the Roman empire.

ANDREW: Vindolanda is an incredible time capsule preserved in this landscape.

It was the home of thousands and thousands of people.

An excavation like this can give us a lot more detail

about how those people lived their lives

and it’s an opportunity that we just can't miss.

NARRATOR: Every stone they lift may reveal another clue

to the story of those people who lived on this frontier.

Andrew and his team of volunteers

are now focused on the southwest corner of the site.

ANDREW: Right, let's just lift that out,

see if there's anything surviving in that mud. It may or may not.

I think what you've got there is the copper alloy disease,

the bronze disease, and the artifact has basically rotted its way into the soil.

That's so frustrating.

So, you've got a tiny little bit of a broach and the rest of it's gone.

But it's a good start. I'll go and get a bag for that.

NARRATOR: Under Andrew's watchful eye,

the volunteers are beginning to reveal floors and walls across the site.

ANDREW: Can I just have a little peek over here.

(sharp scraping sound)

I don't know, that just sort of...

- WOMAN: Tinny. - ANDREW: Tinny sound, yeah.

(scraping sound)

I think you're very close to it there. That's really tight.

That's as good as a surface you were working on over there.

NARRATOR: The emerging walls are evidence of substantial buildings.

- ANDREW: That's a beast, isn't it? - WOMAN: Yeah.

NARRATOR: More and more walls begin to appear.

Because that wall definitely goes underneath where your hand shovel is.

And you've got no sign of the wall where you're kneeling, have you? No.

Pop those out and see if we've got an edge of a corner.

NARRATOR: This looks like a complete maze of overlapping walls,

but to Andrew's expert eye it reveals different layers of occupation.

ANDREW: We're dealing with hundreds of years of people living on this site.

Building after building popped on top of one another.

New demolition, new construction.

NARRATOR: The evidence of Vindolanda suggests

that throughout their occupation of this frontier,

even before Hadrian's Wall was built,

the Roman's constantly had to react and adapt to new challenges.

The massive scale of one building is especially intriguing.

ANDREW: Where I'm standing, I'm in quite an exciting space.

I'm inside a cavalry barrack in one of the rooms,

and all of this rubble is the collapsed walls fallen inside the rooms.

NARRATOR: The presence of cavalry shows the strength of the forces stationed here.

(dramatic music)

The Roman army was made up of legions of foot soldiers.

But its cavalry regiments were its most powerful fighting force.

The most elite horsemen were highly trained soldiers called the alae.

Posted to Britain’s frontier, it's clear that Rome had deployed

its toughest troops against the northern tribes.

Some of the best riders from across the whole empire

were selected to join this elite unit.

With a daily range of up to 50 miles, they could offer rapid response

wherever and whenever a threat arose in Rome's wild frontiers.

(dramatic music)

Andrew's excavations at Vindolanda

reveal the true level of military force that the Roman's needed

to gain and then maintain its most northern frontier.

ROB: Roman frontiers are some of the most exciting spaces in history.

It's a contact zone where anything can happen.

NARRATOR: Originally from New York state,

archaeologist Rob Collins has made Rome's northern frontier

his home and his passion for the last 20 years.

Rob is now investigating the terrain around Vindolanda for more evidence

of how the Romans protected themselves at the edge of empire.

ROB: Looking at this groove through the ground, this is not natural.

This is man-made.

There's a real stark V shape cut to it, and it runs east and west.

NARRATOR: This ditch stretches into the distance

and runs in exactly the same direction as Hadrian’s Wall.

Its V shape suggests its military

and there are other signs it could be defensive.

ROB: This is incredible. You can see all these lumps and bumps,

turves of cut grass that have been taken from the surrounding landscape,

that have been stacked up and actually build a nice big mound behind that ditch.

NARRATOR: The mound is evidence that this was once a massive turf wall.

ROB: The fact that they chose to build here in turf might suggest

that there was a need for speed for the Romans.

Everything they need to build the turf wall is right here in the local landscape.

NARRATOR: This was a quick-fix solution to create a border defense.

The mighty forces at Vindolanda Fort

were clearly not enough to hold back the enemy.

ROB: This is a danger zone. There is warfare, there is raiding.

The Romans are in an active landscape that they are securing.

NARRATOR: This turf wall and ditch were a crucial step

in the Romans’ struggle to gain this frontier.

It was the start of the greatest construction project in Roman history.

(dramatic music)

The Romans built Hadrian's Wall after 40 years of intense hostility.

It was 73 miles long, up to 15 feet high and ten feet thick.

It was heavily guarded with small forts at regular intervals,

and watch towers in between manned by soldiers day and night.

Running parallel to the wall along its north side,

they dug a defensive ditch.

And on the south side strategically placed garrisons held hundreds of soldiers.

It's clear that this wild territory was so dangerous

it could only be won with a massive wall and a huge military presence.

It would take some 15,000 men six years to build.

Nearly 2,000 years later,

its survival is testament to the quality of their workmanship.

Rob heads along the wall, scrutinizing every inch of its surface.

ROB: This is a fairly normal facing stone for Hadrian's Wall.

But what the soldier that carved the stone also did was carve this phallus in relief.

It's fascinating.

In the Roman period,

the phallus is a symbol which is used for good luck, for protection.

It's the sort of thing that can ward off the evil eye.

And so, the inclusion of a phallic symbol is a way to

activate that sense of protection.

NARRATOR: It's a rare glimpse into the Roman mind set,

and a very human reminder of the fear felt by the soldiers

as they built the wall and tried to conquer this wild frontier.

460 miles away in Kalkriese in Germany

on another of Rome's remote frontiers.

STEFAN: Get the small hand saw.

You have to remove the sand bags.

NARRATOR: A team of archaeologists

is also hunting for clues to life on the front line.

The Romans marched through this wilderness intent on conquest.

Archaeologist Stefan Burmeister is on a quest to find out exactly what happened.

STEFAN: We want to find out what we actually have on this site.

Could it have been a Roman camp site? And we hope to find out this summer.

NARRATOR: This site covers around 60 acres

and finding a camp is like finding a needle in a haystack.

MAN: Nothing. (laughs)

STEFAN: Problems of identifying a Roman campsite is

that it just is a very short event in time.

Just installation for one night perhaps. It's not a very strong installation.

Just very quickly built and not really big, firm walls.

And this is difficult to detect after about 2,000 years.

NARRATOR: Centuries of forest growth

makes uncovering a lost marching camp a huge challenge.

But scanning the ground, it's clear that clues are still buried within the soil,

and the team is determined to uncover them.

(electromagnetic whines)

NARRATOR: In the forests of northern Germany.

It's a metal object.

NARRATOR: The team of archaeologists is beginning to find what they hope

might be the first tantalizing clues of a lost Roman camp.

STEFAN: We have here this brownish soil going down here in this V shaped bottom.

Fits very well into the idea of a Roman campsite.

NARRATOR: The V shaped ditch is a fast and effective defense.

Marking it out with poles,

Stefan and his team have followed the line of the ditch

and it seems to surround the area where they are digging.

They believe it's strong evidence of a marching camp.

In their on-site lab,

they analyze hundreds more small metal fragments discovered in the soil.

REBEKKA: There are a lot of bronze fittings,

little attachments like copper alloy buckles.

It's a little bit like a big puzzle.

We have at least 300 fragments that we need to put together.

NARRATOR: Conservator Rebekka Kuiter

painstakingly cleans every single fragment by hand.

REBEKKA: I'm just selectively, under the microscope, cleaning bit by bit.

That's quite time consuming but it's necessary,

to not damage the objects any further.

NARRATOR: As Rebekka removes 2,000 years of dirt and corrosion,

the fragments begin to reveal their secrets.

We have a breast plate here and it has some small decorations

like a decorative washer, which is worked, into a decorative shape.

This is the oldest plate armor that is found in such a complete fashion.

NARRATOR: The breast plate is an incredibly rare find.

Once Rebekka has cleaned the armor up, it promises an equally rare glimpse

into the life and death of a soldier on Rome's wild frontiers.

Just one mile south of Hadrian's Wall, at Vindolanda Fort.

ANDREW: That's similar if not the same.

Yeah, I think it's the same vessel, I think you're right.

Boy, you've got a good sort of mix of stuff coming through.

WOMAN: Yeah.

NARRATOR: Andrew and his team continue to strip away the rubble,

searching for valuable clues about the life of Romans

who established themselves on Britain's wild frontier.

ANDREW: Can I just give you that, there we go. It's good stuff.

- MARTA: How sweet. - ANDREW: It's a good start.

Right, we'll get that logged in, Amy. Thank you very much.

NARRATOR: Marta Alberti is second in command of the dig.

MARTA: One of our volunteers has just found this really nice kitchen knife.

And it's quite exciting. It's in really lovely condition.

It's really nice to go back in time and think about every day life

of these people and how they sat down to have their dinner or,

you know, lie down as Romans do.

NARRATOR: Soon another surprising find

reveals more of every day Roman life on this frontier.

MARTA: Gorgeous example.

This is a lovely neck of a bottle. You can see the rim right there.

The body would have perhaps been globular or kind of a slight pear shape

and this could have been used for either pouring very fancy drinks,

or more likely, as a kind of container of perfumes and other beauty products.

Happy times.

NARRATOR: It's an intriguing find. Perfume was worn by men and women,

but probably not by soldiers while battling to defend the border.

The team hunts for further evidence that could reveal

why such a luxury item was left here in the frontline fort.

Back at the Kalkriese dig site, the team is carefully excavating

a new find in their Roman marching camp.

MARC: We found here parts of an animal.

We can see these tooth and they looked like horse.

Out of this context and the rest of the photographic profiles

I can say it's 90% Roman.

NARRATOR: This jaw bone is evidence of an animal that could have carried supplies,

or even a cavalry officer.

With a dead horse buried here and Roman armor lying not far away,

the story of this marching camp is becoming increasingly intriguing.

Stefan joins Rebekka in the lab to analyze the armor in more detail.

REBEKKA: And this one is very bent.

STEFAN: Any idea why it's so sharply bent?

REBEKKA: This one is the one which is bent like down.

So, it must have been a blow or something like that?

REBEKKA: Yeah.

NARRATOR: The wearer of this armor had clearly been in battle

and recent chemical analysis reveals another more sinister clue to his fate.

STEFAN: We had some phosphate analysis

and they clearly give us the evidence that there must have been a body inside.

NARRATOR: The forest soil is acidic.

So, over 2,000 years the flesh and skeleton rotted away,

leaving only chemical traces.

It's proof that the soldier who wore this armor died in it,

and was still wearing it when he was buried in the ground.

The team believes there is even more to this macabre story.

REBEKKA: Right next to the armor we also found a pair of handcuffs,

the one that shackles your hands and your neck.

And that's very interesting that we find it in direct neighborhood to the armor.

And we think that a soldier might have been shackled there.

STEFAN: This gives us the impression that we have here

a shackled legionary in his body armor and a display by the victors.

NARRATOR: The shocking find suggests that a Roman soldier in full battle armor

was shackled, killed, and left to rot in the ground.

It's not the image of the invincible Roman soldier that we are used to.

But it does align with ancient written accounts of

a catastrophic event that happened here 2,000 years ago.

(dramatic music)

In nine AD a German chief and former Roman soldier, Arminius,

rose up against the Romans.

He spread a rumor of a revolt in the forested north

and tricked the Romans into sending three legions to suppress it.

Arminius knew the Roman legions needed open spaces

to organize into battle formation.

So, he lured them into the Teutoburg forest

where they had to march single file.

Arminius's men attacked and massacred 20,000 Romans.

One of the biggest military disasters in Roman history.

STEFAN: If the Romans wouldn't have lost this battle here in Kalkriese

we could suggest that history would have taken a complete different course.

NARRATOR: Success or failure on Rome's frontiers

was clearly key to the empire's fortunes.

STEFAN: The Romans aimed to conquer the whole world.

After the battle, in the end they stopped their expansion over the next generations.

NARRATOR: The Romans were forced to retreat

and draw up their German borders further south.

(sweeping music)

NARRATOR: In Mogglingen in southern Germany,

a team of archaeologists is investigating another Roman frontier site,

over 200 miles south of the catastrophic defeat at Teutoburg,

this became the Romans new Germanic frontier.

ANDREAS: You don’t have to clean that anymore. You can start.

NARRATOR: The dig is led by Andreas Schaflitzl.

ANDREAS: I'm most interested in

the way the people are living here far away from Rome.

The living, which is not mentioned in the text everybody learnt at school.

That's something which is really, really interesting to see and to get it.

Show me your rubbish and I can tell you who you are.

NARRATOR: The team is finding lots of Roman stone work beneath the fields.

It looks like a mass of buried rubble, but for expert Andreas,

one section has the very distinctive form of a defensive ditch.

Just like the one in Kalkriese.

ANDREAS: We have this typical V shape. Let’s look how deep it is.

So, we have one meter 40 and we are seeing erosion takes around half a meter.

So, we think we will have a ditch deep up to two meters in Roman times.

That's pretty impressive. Two meters ditch is for fortification and defense.

So, it's very likely that it would be in some kind of military use.

NARRATOR: A six and a half foot ditch

could be evidence of a previously unknown Roman fort.

And a sign that the Romans had to put up heavy defenses

in the years following their catastrophic defeat.

Andreas heads into the surrounding forest to find out

how far the Roman frontier defenses stretched.

ANDREAS: Here these are stones between the roots.

Here is what we are searching for. These are the stones lying in one line.

It is the outside of the wall which directs here next to this tree

and comes under this pathway.

NARRATOR: To Andreas's expert eye,

a leafy covered bank is evidence of a buried ruined structure.

ANDREAS: Here on the slope we have overgrown section of

a very good preserved remains of the wall.

If we count the slopes here and the debris and

count them together how high we would get, it was a wall,

it was approximately three meters high.

NARRATOR: To investigate the true scale of the wall,

Andreas examines high tech digital surveys of the region.

ANDREAS: If you go up in the air and using the LIDAR technique,

then you can scan the terrain, removing all the trees,

and then you will see how this wall is straight going through the forest.

NARRATOR: It's clear that this once formed part of a massive frontier defense,

just like Hadrian's Wall in Britain.

Known as the Limes Germanicus, the Romans built this massive border defense

in the century following their defeat in the Teutoburg forest in nine AD.

It would eventually stretch 350 miles,

include 60 forts and over 900 watch towers.

The Limes Germanicus suggests the beginnings of a new imperial policy.

The Romans realized that before they could expand their empire,

they first needed to consolidate and defend their borders.

100 years later, Hadrian's Wall became the ultimate symbol of this strategy.

Andreas and his team continue their dig to hunt for evidence

of what life was like after the Romans heavily defended this border.

South of the Roman’s wall across Britain, at Vindolanda Fort...

PAUL: I think I've found a coin Marta.

- NARRATOR: The finds keep on coming. - MARTA: Oh, there you go.

PAUL: Ah, you can actually see the silver on it, can't you?

MARTA: That's lovely. - PAUL: Nice

MARTA: He's got a beard. Almost resembles Paul.

- (laughs) Thank you. - Turn around, give me a profile.

- No, no, no, it's the Roman nose. - Perfect.

NARRATOR: The treasures the team is unearthing at Vindolanda

are not just military artifacts.

They suggest that this fort has a more complex story.

MARTA: We have the largest collection of leather objects

anywhere in the Roman empire.

And that equates to 7,000 leather artifacts, of which 5,000 are shoes.

NARRATOR: Organic material like clothing normally decays

and is lost to the archaeological record.

But these items are incredibly well preserved.

Things have been buried so far down and covered

with so much debris and so much clay

that oxygen from the outside world does not penetrate those deeper layers.

This means that objects made of leather survive really well.

NARRATOR: These objects offer fascinating insights

into the lives of the fort's inhabitants.

MARTA: This is a very elaborate gentleman's shoe and

it's got lovely cut-out leather uppers.

If we turn this shoe around we can see a pattern of hob nails.

Hob nails are very useful in muddy places like Vindolanda

because they allow for a better grip.

NARRATOR: This is an amazing glimpse of a shoe

actually worn by one of Rome's frontline soldiers.

But it's not the only type of footwear here.

MARTA: So, if we look at this shoe, it's much smaller.

And we think it's a lady's shoe. If this is indeed a lady's shoe,

then we've got contemporary occupation of the fort by both soldiers and women.

NARRATOR: And the collection reveals something even more extraordinary.

MARTA: We've got interesting evidence right here of children's shoes.

Very, very, nicely decorated upper, some nice lattice work.

The reason why shoes are so exciting to me is that

they bring you really close to the wearer.

You can imagine a child running around in this rather sophisticated footwear.

Or maybe it's raining and you want to put on a more closed boot like this one.

NARRATOR: Finds like these help archaeologists piece together

what life was like for those living at the furthest reaches of the Roman empire.

(dramatic music)

When Roman soldiers arrived here in about 85 AD,

they rapidly built a fort of earth and grassed turf.

Along the top they added a wooden parapet and watch towers.

Under constant threat from the locals, they had to strengthen its defenses,

finally opting for a stone rampart.

This formed a defensive wall completely surrounding Vindolanda.

And the finds prove it wasn't just a massive fighting force stationed here.

The soldiers’ families lived here too, in a settlement alongside the fort.

As Andrew and his team dig deeper,

they discover more surprising evidence about these communities.

ANDREW: This here is a semi-circular curve coming through.

Probably for a wattle and daub building.

NARRATOR: The curved shape means that this is no ordinary Roman house.

ANDREW: So, we've got local architecture coming in here, which is fantastic to see.

But what on earth is it doing inside a Roman fort?

(dramatic music)

NARRATOR: In Mogglingen, southern Germany,

Andreas and his team are uncovering more evidence

of the Romans who lived by the Limes Germanicus, the massive border wall.

ANDREAS: You see here mortar on the stones.

NARRATOR: As more of the buried evidence is unearthed,

Andreas discovers some unusual stone work.

ANDREAS: Here we have a structure.

And you can see here some stones, which were standing upside.

It could be a foundation for a statue.

NARRATOR: Statue bases like this are not usually found in military forts.

So, Andreas now suspects this is evidence of a very different building here.

With the other evidences we have found now,

it could be part of a sanctuary or of sacrifice space taking place here.

NARRATOR: Sanctuaries were built throughout the empire

for citizens to worship emperors and gods.

Finds like this add to our understanding of life at the fringes of empire.

They show these weren't just militarized zones.

Roman civilization and culture also took root

behind the protection of these border walls.

In Carlisle, on the western wing of Hadrian's Wall.

FRANK: Is that an edge? Because if it's not wall, what is it?

And this is just bizarre, isn't it?

NARRATOR: Archaeologist Frank Giecco is leading

an excavation to discover the extent of the Roman presence here.

FRANK: Oh, it's an incredible opportunity.

Carlisle has always had a strategic location. It controls the crossing point

between basically present day England and Scotland. It has always been a key place.

NARRATOR: Carlisle was once the site of the biggest fort on Hadrian's Wall.

But its Roman heritage is almost completely buried beneath the modern city.

FRANK: If we've seen 2% I'd be amazed.

Probably we've still got, you know, 98% of Roman Carlisle to find.

So, plenty more secrets I'm sure to be revealed on this site.

NARRATOR: After painstakingly removing the top soil,

the team is rewarded with some tantalizing glimpses of life 2,000 years ago.

MAN: That's got to be a dog, hasn't it?

That must be not quite set and a dog has come along and placed its paw on there.

It is absolutely amazing.

NARRATOR: These clay tiles were made locally,

and clearly left out in the open air to dry.

FRANK: I've just noticed this. The prints of a deer that walked on it

when it was laid out to dry before it was fired.

So, that's a little moment in time captured forever.

NARRATOR: As the team excavates, it’s finding lots of these clay tiles.

Many are neatly stacked in columns exactly as the Romans left them.

Frank thinks it's a sure fire indication of the structure they've discovered.

FRANK: These clay pillars would have supported

the underfloor heating for the bath house complex.

So, we've got fragments of floor, the walls,

the ceiling, this just massive jumble of material.

But it's incredible for us archaeologists,

because it's just a snapshot in time that is preserved there.

NARRATOR: Communal bath houses were a staple of Roman life.

Grand examples survive in Rome and Pompeii.

Soldiers also enjoyed this luxury in smaller versions inside their forts.

But a bath house of this scale in a garrison town

on Britain's frontier is surprising.

FRANK: This building is probably four times the size

of a standard military bath house.

Was it built for something special? Totally unexpected. Really excited.

NARRATOR: As the team digs,

a group of strangely shaped objects are another unexpected discovery.

These formed a curved roof.

The way they worked is it has a small nozzle and that slots into there

and so you can adjust the angle of your curve on the roof.

So, these ceramic tubes are thought to have come over from North Africa,

in the early third century.

And they were an African method of making a lightweight roof.

FRANK: Just an amazing bit of the site, isn't it?

NARRATOR: The more the team digs, the more enticing this bath house becomes.

It is far bigger than expected in military territory

and there are African influences.

The team continues to hunt for more clues

to find out what it can reveal about Rome's wild frontier.

(sweeping music)

NARRATOR: At Vindolanda, Andrew and his team dig deeper around

the mysterious round shaped buildings that they've uncovered in the Roman fort.

ANDREW: Ah, okay. We've got a black stain curving around in the soil here,

and it's circular, so it's got to be a roundhouse.

You can just about make out the curve just beyond it there

of a stone wall coming through and that's the stone version

of the timber version we're looking at here where we've just got the stains.

NARRATOR: The two round houses are not expected in a Roman fort.

ANDREW: The Romans don't built round houses.

The native Britains do, but the Romans don't.

NARRATOR: As the team continues to dig across the site,

more evidence of these mysterious round houses emerges.

ANDREW: There's a curve there, isn't there?

Ooh. It's possible we have another circular hut coming through.

NARRATOR: The site is covered with a whole village of British round houses.

They seem to be contemporary with the fort.

Andrew and the team dig inside them to find out what is going on.

ANDREW: Well that is absolutely gorgeous. Beautifully made.

NARRATOR: And finally uncover a clue.

ANDREW: It just shows you the sort of preservation as part of the site. Wow.

What a lovely thing. That's definitely Roman rather than British.

It's a sort of a traditional military style quern stone. A really nice one.

NARRATOR: Quern stones are tools that the Romans used to grind cereals into flour.

It's startling evidence that Romans

and conquered Britains were living side by side.

In Carlisle, 25 miles west along Hadrian's Wall,

archaeologists investigating the massive lost bath house

analyze their finds in the dig's lab.

WOMAN: Yeah, I know that's nice, isn't it. It's even got his head on.

- ANDREW: Yeah. - WOMAN: This could be an antler.

It's like a little pick and mix.

FRANK: That's beautiful isn't it?

NARRATOR: They hope to find clues to why

such an enormous bath house was built here.

They meticulously sieve and scrutinize every bucket of earth from the excavation,

to make sure they don't miss any tiny treasures.

REBEKKA: It looks like two... yeah, two halves of plenty.

WOMAN: Is it a figure though? REBEKKA: Yeah, it is a figure.

It's a person with a hat on.

NARRATOR: Objects like this small jewel probably fell out of a ring or broach

while its owner was bathing.

Its good evidence that this was not a military bath house,

and its bathers were a little more genteel.

Frank and the team think that clues on the tiles hold the key

to why such a grand bath house was built here.

WOMAN: So, we've got the stamp, I-M-P.

So, we've got the I, we've got the M and we've got the P for imperato.

NARRATOR: In ancient Latin imperator means emperor.

These tiles have the Emperor's personal stamp.

FRANK: Just the word imperator.

It's not a legionary tile or an auxiliary tile.

This is the imperial court and that's the thing that makes this building, you know,

other than the size and where they've come from, this little stamp here, it's --

WOMAN 2: It's what makes it so special.

- FRANK: Yeah. - WOMAN: It makes it special.

NARRATOR: The inscription suggests this bath house

may have been an imperial building,

built as a personal gift to the city from an Emperor.

It's an incredibly discovery and suggests that the Emperor himself

was taking a keen interest in this frontier.

Frank believes further clues reveal the identity of this Emperor.

FRANK: We've got the inscription that's likely to be his wife,

you know, Septimus Julia Domna.

NARRATOR: Julia Domna was the wife of the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus.

Suddenly, the presence of a massive bath house with African tiles

is beginning to make sense.

(dramatic music)

In the early third century, African-born Emperor Septimius Severus

came to Britain to rule the Roman empire from York.

He strengthened Hadrian's Wall and its forts

and built granaries to supply campaigns even further to the north.

The garrisons alongside the wall were transforming from

military bases to communities and villages.

And so the Emperor constructed Carlisle's spectacular bath house

as a bold statement that this far flung frontier garrison

was now an established fully Roman town.

FRANK: By the third century,

Carlisle isn't just a frontier garrison town.

It's not the wild west.

It was part of the Roman empire.

(investigative music)

NARRATOR: On Hadrian's Wall, Rob is heading to one of the 80 small forts

which the Romans built at regular intervals along its length.

He's on the hunt to understand more about the relationship

between the Romans and the locals.

Sitting directly on the wall, these installations would have

provided one of the first points of contact between soldiers and barbarians.

ROB: Yeah, these are very nicely prepared in cut stone blocks.

You can see how they join together, how they sit on top of each other very neatly.

You can see that here and, and also here on the other side,

which has been laid to create a gate.

NARRATOR: This gate was clearly the main entrance for

the small platoon of soldiers stationed here.

Venturing further towards the far side of the mile castle,

Rob spots something intriguing.

ROB: Now, these blocks are really interesting.

They're very large, very heavy blocks. These blocks are evidence of another gate.

NARRATOR: The position of this second gate is a surprise

because it forms a break in the wall.

ROB: What this tells us is not only that mile castles

could allow soldiers in from the south,

but also there's a gate which allowed access north into barbarian lands.

If there are 80-mile castles, if there are 80 gates through Hadrian's Wall

that can be found every mile along its length, that raises questions

about just how closed a barrier the wall is intended to be.

NARRATOR: This evidence suggests that the Romans didn't close off

the frontier completely and Hadrian's Wall wasn't an impervious barrier.

With fortified breaks in the wall,

they could control who was coming into their territory,

and also had easy access points to expand their frontiers further.

At the dig site in Carlisle,

Frank and the team have expanded their excavation alongside the bath house,

and are unearthing a curious structure.

They've uncovered a beautifully preserved cobble surface

which they believe is a Roman road.

We're quite excited about this stretch of road.

It's heading towards Hadrian's Wall and the mile castle.

NARRATOR: Soldiers stationed in the mile castles would have needed supplies

but this road side is producing a surprising wealth of finds.

So, this is just some of the stuff we've found today from this area,

which is a really nice little assembly.

So, we've got animal bone, coarse pottery,

fine pottery that's been imported from France,

nails from the timber buildings, and bits of amphora from southern Spain.

So, this has just given us an idea of what was going on in this area.

So, basically people are preparing food, eating food. So we've got cooking.

These are basically just fast food restaurants.

NARRATOR: The cosmopolitan finds reveal that diners here

could enjoy the trappings of fine Roman living from around the empire.

This is more like a bustling high street than a military highway.

And with gateways in the mile castles,

it's possible that this road didn't just head to the wall, it went through it.

FRANK: This could have been quite a busy road,

with people coming north and south beyond the wall.

They could have been coming here just to have something to eat.

It would have been probably first place south of Hadrian's Wall

where you could have got a glass of wine.

NARRATOR: This latest discovery shines new light on life

on both sides of Hadrian’s Wall.

It is startling evidence that it changed dramatically in

the 300 years the wall was in use.

These new investigations are transforming our understanding of Hadrian's Wall

and life in Rome’s wildest frontiers.

These territories were once so dangerous

that they not only required a huge military presence

but monumental border walls to control them.

In the shadow of these mighty defenses, Rome began to tame the wilderness.

Families grew up alongside the soldiers garrisoned in their forts.

Their civilization began to flourish with sumptuous bath houses and sanctuaries,

and people from both sides of the wall

may have enjoyed the luxuries of Roman life.

ROB: It'd be very easy to dismiss frontiers as the edge of empire,

not something that's really important to an Emperor sitting in Rome.

But actually, it's exactly the opposite.

Frontiers are about securing the peace of the Roman empire.

Without the Roman frontiers, we would not have the Roman empire.

(dramatic music)