10th May 2005, 05:32 PM
Having once done an episode of the TT I have some clue as to how good/bad it is. As a t.v. programme it is somewhat understandable that it has drifted into digging better and better sites, frequently SAM's. Hence episodes where they end up digging in the middle of an abbey or a castle and pretend to be amazed when they find stone walls and lots of nice finds. I know that I am at least a bit jealous of this as my job frequently seems to have had all hope of finding interesting archaeology mitigated out of it. I think that their excavation is generally not too bad but my main problem is with the recording and publishing. The site I was on sounds very like Beardstroker's with only one person alotted to record the trenches (on a SAM natch)and that was several years ago. As the TT's jobs are essentially evaluations and many of them are on important sites that us mere mortals don't seem to be allowed near then surely they should actually get around to writing up their work. I don't believe I've seen anything resembling a series by series set of excavation publications. I would guess that if they were to do this then we wouldn't have such good grounds to complain.
Ayway, what's the most shocking site they were allowed to work on that you can think of? My vote goes to that Viking boat burial in the Shetlands. Ha ha, in 3 days.
Ayway, what's the most shocking site they were allowed to work on that you can think of? My vote goes to that Viking boat burial in the Shetlands. Ha ha, in 3 days.