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Britain's Secret Treasures

British documentary on ITV

Summary

British documentary on ITV

Field	Value
image	Ralph Jackson and Bettany Hughes.jpg
caption	Ralph Jackson (Curator of Romano-British Collections at the British Museum) and Bettany Hughes during filming at the British Museum
genre	Documentary
creator	Michael Kelpie and Ed Taylor
presenter	{{Plainlist
country	United Kingdom
language	English
num_series	2
num_episodes	14
executive_producer	Michael Kelpie, Ed Taylor
runtime	30–60 mins
company	ITV Studios
network	ITV
first_aired
last_aired

Michael Buerk
Bettany Hughes Britain's Secret Treasures is a British documentary shown on ITV hosted by Michael Buerk and Bettany Hughes. The programme features fifty archaeological discoveries that have been made in England, Wales and Scotland by members of the public. With the exception of a single find made in Scotland, all the objects featured were recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS). Since the PAS was set up in 1997, some 800,000 objects have been registered with the scheme, many of them discovered by amateur metal detectorists.

The fifty finds have been selected by Hughes and a panel of experts from the British Museum (Roger Bland, Michael Lewis, Sally Worrell and Ian Richardson) and the Council for British Archaeology (Mike Heyworth) from among the nearly one million finds reported to the PAS on the basis of their historical and cultural significance, as well as on their aesthetic merit. The six episodes of Britain's Secret Treasures present the fifty objects in reverse order according to their importance as judged by the panel, in a countdown format, with the ten most important objects revealed during the sixth and final episode.

Taking the top slot in the countdown, as the most important object according to the panel, is a Lower Paleolithic flint handaxe made more than half a million years ago that was found on a beach in Happisburgh, Norfolk, in 2000 by a man taking his dog for a walk.

Episodes

Series 1

Episode	Air Date	Contributors
1	16 July 2012	John McCarthy
Saul David	45–50
2	17 July 2012	Michael Portillo
Nicky Clarke
Mary Ann Ochota
Claire Barratt	38–44
3	18 July 2012	Michael Portillo
John McCarthy
John Sergeant	27–37
4	19 July 2012	Dave Crisp (finder of the Frome Hoard)
Brian Blessed
Mary Ann Ochota
Gethin Jones	19–26
5	20 July 2012	Dan Lobb
Mary Ann Ochota
Anita Rani
Jon Culshaw	11–18
6	22 July 2012	William Roache
Michael Portillo	1–10

Series 2

Episode	Air Date	Contributors
1	17 October 2013	Mary Ann Ochota
James Purefoy
2	24 October 2013	Jim Moir
Tom Holland
Tanni Grey-Thompson
3	31 October 2013	Russell Grant
Tony Baker
Thomas Littleton
Suzannah Lipscomb
4	7 November 2013
5	14 November 2013	John Prescott
Mary Ann Ochota
Suzannah Lipscomb
6	21 November 2013	Mariella Frostrup
Ekow Eshun
Suzannah Lipscomb
7	28 November 2013
8	5 December 2013	Katherine Jenkins
Mary Ann Ochota

List of objects

Number		Image		Object		Date		Where Found		When Found		PAS Record
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Objects submitted by viewers

Sculpture of a winged lion with an open book showing the words ''Pax tibi, Marce, Evangelista meus'' on a Venetian building

At the beginning of the series viewers were invited to submit photographs of objects that they had found in England or Wales, so that experts from the British Museum could select the most interesting object, to be announced during the final episode.

The viewer-submitted object chosen as the most interesting by the panel was a small medieval bronze ornament in the form of an open book that was found in a field by the Pilgrims' Way at Bentley, Hampshire in 1997 (PAS record: HAMP527). The open pages of the book are engraved with the Latin inscription Pax tibi, Marce, Evangelista meus meaning "Peace to you, Mark, my evangelist". The traditional symbol of the Republic of Venice and the city of Venice is a winged lion (symbol of Mark the Evangelist), which is often depicted with one of its paws on an open book showing this same inscription, which suggests that the bronze book may have been a pilgrim's souvenir from Venice.

File:Medieval_bronze_book_A.jpg|Front of medieval bronze book File:Medieval_bronze_book_B.jpg|Back of medieval bronze book

References

Waters, Florence. (16 July 2012). "Bettany Hughes on Britain's Secret Treasures". The Telegraph.
"Britain's Secret Treasures". [[ITV plc.
(26 March 2012). "ITV and the British Museum to reveal the 50 greatest treasures discovered by the British public". [[Portable Antiquities Scheme]].
Roya, Nikkhah. (15 July 2012). "50 greatest national treasures revealed". The Telegraph.
"The selection panel for the top 50 finds". Portable Antiquities Scheme.
Akbar, Arifa. (17 July 2012). "Last night's viewing - Usain Bolt: the Fastest Man Alive, BBC1; Britain's Secret Treasures, ITV1". The Independent.
Roya, Nikkhah. (22 July 2012). "Prehistoric axe is Britain's top treasure". The Daily Telegraph.
"Britain's Secret Treasures Episode One". Portable Antiquities Scheme.
"Britain's Secret Treasures Episode Two". Portable Antiquities Scheme.
"Britain's Secret Treasures Episode Three". Portable Antiquities Scheme.
"Britain's Secret Treasures Episode Four". Portable Antiquities Scheme.
"Britain's Secret Treasures Episode Five". Portable Antiquities Scheme.
"Britain's Secret Treasures Episode Six". Portable Antiquities Scheme.
"Britain's Secret Treasures Episode 1".
"Send in your discoveries". Portable Antiquities Scheme.
(February 2017). "The bronze booklet with the amazing story".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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