Dan Snow's Rome's Lost Empire.

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pc063

Did anyone watch this programme about Ancient Rome, and if you did what did you think about it?

Well I thought it a load of rubbish, and what it must have cost to produce, but then their is no limit to what can be spent by the BBC.

We witnessed him travel from Rome to Transylvania and then onto Tunisia, his transport being aeroplane, boat and hot-air balloon and under water gear.

And what did he discover a few foundations of an ancient mile long bridge across the Tiber, and in amongst a few rocks scattered about in the Tunisian desert, (you've guest it) a fragment of a piece of pottery.

And what about his two archaeology companions, one with a laptop and tablet going into raptures over a few marks on the surface of the Earth via satellite?

From these she was able to get some pretty impressive computer images of Harbours, a giant Lighthouse and settlements.

It all made Time Team almost watchable.

[boxtops]

I enjoyed it but then I like that sort of thing - and what I couldn't work out was that the woman who'd scanned the landscape was the same one who a couple of years ago did the same in Egypt along the Nile delta, but the Egyptians wouldn't let her dig to prove it.

[Mosaic]

AOG, I watched half of it, and being a fully paid-up archaeology nut, and fairly fond of looking at Dan Snow, like you I was very disappointed. I fell asleep and can only hope it improved later on. I was disappointed by the lack of pace, the obvious creation of 'jeopardy' ('oh no she can't find the lighthouse - we'll have to go to Transylvania').
The location and size of the Danube Bridge has been known for years. The German prof was being asked ridiculous questions - 'we've just spotted this new set of earthworks - how old are they? which Romans made them?' - stuff you can't know without excavation and wider research.
I'd have thought was an ideal opportunity to undertake serious Lidar surveys of areas like Portus. I'll have to watch the second half on catch-up and see what went on.
But yes, all told a rather over-blown offering.

[Mosaic]

Boxie - yes, she's the one. And who'd have thought anyone would feel uneasy about military satellite photography of their country?

[boxtops]

I guess it depends on the knowledge of the viewer - for those of us who are fascinated but don't have the academic or technical knowhow, it was something to think about.

[boxtops]

Thanks mosaic, I thought it was too much of a coincidence otherwise! I remember the person who barred her work was Zaki Hawass (or so I was led to believe)

[quizzywig]

I must admit to being a big fan of Dan Snow but Mr Q and I were very disappointed with Rome's Lost Empire. Not impressed by his co-presenter either.

[jno]

the bridge was over the Danube, not the Tiber, though he didn't bother to say where it was. I thought the archaeology was interesting but the format was heavily overdramatised.

You might like this review

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2012/dec/09/tv-review-romes-lost-empire

[jno]

boxy, as I remember, the pharaonic Hawass did let her have a dig at the end - and she didn't find anything. Hawass has lost his job now but still has his designer clothing line

http://www.artzulu.com/project/zahi-hawass

[Mosaic]

Now hang on, we'll not have this thread turned into a Zahi Hawass kicking session. Mr Hawass was protective of Egypt's archaeological heritage in reaction to years of the rest of the wealthy world helping themselves to it. He had a thankless task when all's said and done. Let's see how much archaeology 'disappears' under his successors.

[Mrsspagnoli57]

Dan Snow=pretentious pr#t to me. Succeeded in making the Roman Empire one huge bore fest. There is currently a series on BBC4 with Simon Sebag Montefiore about Rome and Prof Mary Beard did a fantastic series earlier this year so the need for Mr Snow to make yet another programme seems a mystery to me.

[quizzywig]

It's because he's very easy on the eye! he also doesn't have a strange middle name like Sebag.

[simon_gardner]

It would be good if these programmes were presented by archaeologists. Trite Team is now, thankfully, dead, but still historians and art historians think they can talk about archaeology. Both Mary Beard and Dan Snow are historians (admittedly, she is better-known as a historian than he is), and thus cannot understand anything that is not written down for them. They gloss over the fact that texts are frequently incomplete, biased and dull (many are lists or tax returns), and completely fail to see how archaeology can use a whole range of evidence (not just texts). Mary Beard's recent series was cringeworthy, and narrow in its obsessions: is a Roman dentist's surgery really "one of the major archaeological discoveries"?...

[jno]

was there a programme made about Egyptian archaeology in the last 10 years or so in which Mr Hawass did not put in a personal appearance? That's what I meant by pharaonic: like Ramses II he puts his own face everywhere.

No matter, the clothes are still out there

http://www.egyptastic.co.uk/_54.html