From Surrey Heath to Ancient Alexandria

Justin Pollard

History is a very big thing, but working in history can be a surprisingly small world … It’s always nice to bump into old friends and colleagues at unexpected times and in unusual places, and one of the things about working in the museum world which has always made the job more fun is exactly that. The number of times I’ve bumped into people I haven’t seen in years, either in work contexts or popping up on the telly, is something I never really thought about when I was getting started, but it happens now with surprising regularity. Discovering what old friends and acquaintances have been doing, where they’ve ended up, and finding out what they’ve been working on, where it’s led them, and the specialisms they’ve developed since we first met, is always a real pleasure.

Back in the early 1990s, when I was starting out in archaeology and museum work, I used to dig with the Surrey Heath Archaeological & Heritage Trust. I dug on two sites with them, first at Lightwater and then in Bagshot, under the direction of the inimitable Geoff Cole. Both were multi-period sites, but mainly Iron Age and Romano-British at Lightwater, with more Medieval and later elements predominant at Bagshot (the two most remarkable finds at Bagshot, I recall, being a tanning pit complete with paddle, c.1600-1700s, and a Roman "Chi-Rho" monogrammed finger ring made of jet). Digging at these two sites in Surrey, along with volunteering at the British Museum, was what enabled me to get a foot in the door and very likely helped to set me up for my later career in museum-work.

Digging at Lightwater, Surrey, 1992

At the time one of the regular site supervisors on these digs in Surrey was Justin Pollard, who I recall really helped fire my enthusiasm for archaeology and history. I learnt quite a bit from him, not just the basics of excavation techniques but also the rudiments of surveying and site recording; as well as an introduction to environmental archaeology, flotation tanks and the like, from Justin’s partner, Steph. The other thing I learnt was just how convivial archaeology and history can be. If half of all archaeology – a very muddy business, is conducted out in the open air, come rain or shine, the other half undoubtedly takes place in the always clement confines of the local pub! … Historians and archaeologists in particular, especially in Britain, love a decent pint of ale.

In the mid-late 1990s I moved onto digging at a Roman Villa excavation in Northamptonshire (which I’ve written about here), and so, slowly, as is the way with life, over the years I gradually lost my connection to and contact with the Surrey Heath gang of diggers. However, working at the BM I’ve helped to facilitate and supervise many filming sessions, particularly for TV crews. If you are a fan of TV history documentaries the chances are I may well have been standing just off camera on some of the programmes you may have watched. 

Justin was beginning to get involved with TV projects at the time we used to dig together in Surrey, and so it’s always been nice to see his name popping up on TV and film credits over the subsequent years. He’s forged a fantastic career as a writer and historical adviser. His name might not necessarily always be front and centre of the camera, but you will undoubtedly have come across his work. He has advised on films such as the two Cate Blanchett biopics of Queen Elizabeth I, Pirates of the Caribbean 4, and Atonement. He has also written and worked behind the scenes on a number of historical TV documentaries and series, such as Time Team, Vikings, The Tudors, and the Seven Ages of Britain – as well as the very popular, Peaky Blinders and QI. I did bump into Justin very briefly many, many years back when he was working with my colleague Nick Ashton for an episode of Time Team about a Palaeolithic site in Elveden, Suffolk, which was broadcast in early 2000 (see here). Sadly we didn’t get a chance to chat as I was rushing off somewhere in the opposite direction as he was arriving. It was such a long time ago though, that I doubt Justin would remember me if we bumped into one another now!

Interview with Justin Pollard, 2013 (Chalke Valley History Festival)

As well as TV and film work Justin has written a number of history books and articles, many of which you can find listed here on Goodreads. 

With the help of his friend, the late Terry Jones of Monty Python fame, himself a historian, Justin has also co-founded (with John Mitchinson and Dan Kiernan) a crowd-funded publishing venture, Unbound. 

You can find out more about Justin’s interesting line of work in the two short accompanying TV interviews, and read about his involvement with making QI here.

Interview with Justin Pollard, 2019 (Breaking the Ice)

Asides from shared roots in archaeology, the other thing I have in common with Justin is a deep interest in the Hellenistic city of ancient Alexandria. A cosmopolitan, scholarly, and deeply modern city, where the Old Testament was famously first translated into Ancient Greek, Alexandria was perhaps the first truly global city, which like its famed lighthouse shone as a beacon of light across the entire ancient world. In the mid-1990s I wrote my Classics A-level dissertation on the Great Library of Alexandria, thereby beginning a lifelong fascination with such learned historical figures as the mathematician and geographer, Eratosthenes – who first devised a way to accurately measure the circumference of the Earth; and the poet, Callimachus – who invented the library catalogue, and who also is supposed to have said "mega biblion, mega kakon" ("a big book is a big bore") in a literary dispute with Apollonius of Rhodes, author of the epic, Argonautica; and also the truly remarkable  philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, Hypatia – she was a deeply respected scholar and much loved teacher whose very brutal murder shocked the Classical world. So it was a really happy surprise when I recently found Justin's book, The Rise and Fall of Alexandria: Birthplace of the Modern Mind (2006), co-authored with Howard Reid. Justin also wrote and co-produced the documentary, Alexandria – The Greatest City, presented by Bettany Hughes in 2010, which very evocatively brings this wonderful cultural melting pot of an ancient university town vividly to life. 

Alexandria - The Greatest City, 2010 (Lion Television)

So, as I said before, history is a very big thing. But those who venture undaunted into its vast landscape often seem to follow paths which occasionally re-cross over great and improbable stretches of time (those early digging days in deepest Surrey seem so long ago now). Perhaps that’s not so surprising though, as after all we are clearly all fellow time-travellers with kindred passions and deep rooted interests traversing the broad fields of history. In our shared pursuit of the past, in search of the lives of people who lived long before us, we've created interesting lives and scholarly adventures of our own, and that is something well worth raising a glass to, if ever there was – cheers!

"Now, here's an interesting thing ..."

~

Also on 'Waymarks'

Testament - John Romer

 "People Call The Romans, They Go The House?"

The Battle of Maldon

 Behind the Scenes - 25 Years at the British Museum

Photographic Memories

As I turned the lever with my thumb I realised something was amiss. You’d often get an extra frame or two if you were lucky at the end of a roll of 35mm film, but as I watched the dial-counter spin from 38 to 39, then – crank – 40, then – crank – 41, then – crank – 42, there was no doubt about it. I’d misloaded my film. A 36 frame roll should never ‘wind on’ quite this far.

It was a tricky procedure and I wasn’t very familiar with this type of camera. I’d just graduated from a Kodak 110 camera, a device shaped like an old pencil box, which was designed to take the film in the form of a foolproof little plastic cartridge, to my first SLR (single lens reflex), a Praktica (from the GDR) – a real “grown ups” camera. Initially I’d fancied myself as the next Tim Page or Robert Capa. A glorious career as a famed photojournalist at the National Geographic clearly beckoned. But after this particular mishap I’d never come to feel completely at ease with the fiddly technique required to thread the end tab of a roll of 35mm film onto the camera’s ‘take up spool.’ It was a crushing introduction to the world of “grown up’s” photography (I was sixteen at the time). Not least because that precious roll of film then stuck inside the camera had been loaded ahead of a holiday to Egypt from which I’d only just returned. In my mind I ran through all the images I could remember carefully framing – of yellow sandstone monuments, faience blue skies, green palm trees, white sail boats on the shimmering waters of the Nile, orange fire-red sunsets – all of these sights, these special memories, were utterly lost. 

Well, maybe not completely lost. For the moment they remained etched vividly in my memory, but how long before those remembered images began to fade or start to get forgotten one by one? My despair was dampened by the advice that I should begin to twist the roll of film back into itself. That way, if there were any images at all, some of them might still be saved. I flipped up the little lever on the opposite side of the camera and began to wind, wind, wind, and wind ... It was hard to tell simply from the feel of it or even the noise, but – maybe it was simply my ever hopeful imagination – the lever did seem to be reeling something back in. I continued to twirl the little spool far longer than was probably necessary just to be sure before I flicked the catch and the back of the camera body sprung open. There was the roll of film all neatly wound back within itself. I dropped it off at the chemist and returned a few anxious days later to discover whether or not any of the images I still so vividly remembered taking had actually come out. 

I handed my slip of paper over to the man on the other side of the window and after a moment of rummaging through a drawer he handed me a large blue envelope. I ripped it open and took out a slim packet of prints. Astonishingly the roll of film seemed to have slipped around halfway through; perhaps the camera had received a heftly jolt at some point, or, perhaps more likely, my tenuous threading had simply come unstuck with the continual pressure of winding the film on after each frame? Whatever had happened, evidently all was not lost. 

As I flipped through the prints my heart, which only moments before had soared, was now in rapid freefall. Largely the prints were OK, but many were grainy, some too dark, some slightly out of focus, or the framing was a little skewed. The pin sharp memories I’d nurtured of each shot dissolved with the reality of looking at this half-salvaged handful of prints. Evidently I still had much to learn about the intricacies of lenses, f-stops, focal planes, depth of field, and camera wobble. Clearly this was technical stuff. And much like riding a bike it was something which had to be learned. At that moment I decided I hated machines.

But later on, after musing for a few days on this first photographic misadventure, I resolved not to give up. Philosophically I came to the conclusion that the best trip of my life so far wasn’t just about the photos – there was much more to the memories of that trip. It was a whole experience. There were sounds, smells, tastes, jokes, surprises, bemusements, mistranslations, camaraderie, sunburn – all sorts of experiences which I felt I’d never be able to forget. I’d written a journal during that holiday, in which, leafing back through its pages, I realised I had managed to record a myriad of things that no roll of 35mm film could ever capture. It made me wonder, what were these images after all? – Were they simply records and reminders to the self; a means of sharing one’s experiences with others who’d not been there; or validation, testament to the fact that I’d ‘been there, done that’? … Veni, vide, vici.

But still, I never gave up on photography. And there were two reasons for this: first, I come from a family of accomplished photographers (all of them far more accomplished than me), who were always unfailingly encouraging; and, second, because over time photography got immeasurably easier. When I say it got easier this is no reflection on my mechanical aptitude – I never did quite get to grip with f-stops, etc., but I did find the quality of the kit being used was key. That first camera had a lens I never really got on with; partly I think because of my poor eyesight, I always found it hard to focus this particular lens. A later set of lenses I used with my second proper SLR (a Nikon) were much easier to operate, and my first pictures using this camera were surprisingly good. The very first roll I shot on it was a real success – I took a series of photos of my brother and my (then) two year old nephew fooling around together on a visit to London Zoo. The Fuji film really brought out the greens of the weeping willow trees in the background which were nicely blurred out ‘in soft focus’ because of the use of a long zoom lens. I learnt from this and managed to get a similar effect when photographing a small statue in Tokyo a few years later.

To supplement my SLR, which at times could be quite unwieldy, I bought an Olympus electronic ‘instamatic’ camera which worked like a dream. It had auto-focus, which meant I could relax about my bad eyesight as the camera did all the necessary work for itself. I became very keen on black and white photography at this time – my Cartier-Bresson phase – and managed to do quite well with it using both my SLR and my little Olympus “point-and-shoot” camera. A small album of creditably arty black and white photos came into being.

I loved the grainy textures and the gradations of light. I loved the size and the smell of the little plastic 35mm film canisters. Popping the lid on a new roll was just as exciting as snapping the lid down on an exposed roll felt satisfying. I also loved the smell and feel as much as the look of real prints, and the way they aged too. I loved the smell, and just the atmosphere too, of my local camera shop. Photography was tactile, it was mechanical, it was creative and constructive. But it was always tinged with an element of chance. There was always that sense of fear and excitement at the unknown whilst waiting to collect a fresh roll of prints, particularly in those moments just before opening the packet for the first time – would they be any good?

There’s a lot to be said for experimenting. Sometimes good photographs are simply a matter of chance. One summer two friends and I were given a stack of free film and we resolved to use all of it with real abandon, just to see what would happen. Later, when we had the films processed, we weeded out the many dud shots (and there were many), but happily we found we were left with a sizeable stack of really good photos. That’s when I learnt not to be afraid of using the camera. You win, you lose; but in shooting off frames like that – without giving into any hesitation – you are bound to capture a few quality shots. We were mostly photographing people so that spontaneity was really key, and it paid off! … Of course, nowadays with digital cameras this is all much easier. You can happily snap away and then later on, at your leisure, review your photos while they’re still in the camera and delete all your duds. Edit as you go …

Initially I was quite anti digital photography when it first arrived. I hoped 35mm would hang on in there alongside it, but soon the high street chemists and photographic shops began to change, and fresh stocks of film slowly began to disappear. I bought my first digital camera in Japan, in Tokyo’s famous “electric town” – Akihabara. It was very small (tiny in fact when compared to my “small” Olympus), and very versatile (a Pentax Optio, alas now thoroughly worn-out from use). It set the pattern for me. From then on I’ve preferred the smaller compact cameras as they are easier to carry around, and as the technology has improved there are so many things you can do with them that previously you’d never have been able to do with a standard camera. I realise though that I could probably achieve a far higher calibre kind of photograph if I used a larger digital SLR and played around with fancy editing software, but it’s not quite the same. For the time being, keeping it light and unobtrusive is mostly my main concern, especially when travelling. 

Undoubtedly photography is a real art. It helps to have a genuine feel for it, a certain aptitude perhaps. How to frame an image; an eye for lines – symmetries and convergences; vanishing points, and depth of field; as well as a manner which doesn’t intrude upon or inhibit the subject (be it a person or a landscape for that matter), but instead having a modus operandi which helps put the world at its ease so that it can simply be itself and continue doing its own thing in its own way. Images are important, but a good photograph captures something more than memory or merely its surface. For all its convenience, digital photography isn’t quite the same. I do miss 35mm.

All the images accompanying this article (with the exception of the one showing my old Pentax Optio) are scans of photographs taken by me between 1992 and 2004 using the various 35mm cameras I've described above.

Testament - John Romer

A year or so ago I re-read John Romer’s “Testament: The Bible and History” (1988). The pages are beginning to yellow a bit now. The book, and the original documentary series which it accompanies, is a fascinating exploration of faith from the historical perspective. Bible archaeology can be highly contested ground where scholars would best be wise to tread carefully, but Romer masterfully manages to do exactly that. The first film in the series begins with him sitting in an English churchyard on a lovely summer’s day, and he begins by talking about the Bible and what it means to him. Not so much in terms of his own faith, but in terms of his own family’s Bible – it’s a remarkably old copy, the covers of which have been inscribed by all the preceding generations of his family, dating right back to the 17^th century. From this starting point he takes the viewer back through a history of how the Bible came to be, how it was read and received through time, and what it meant to different peoples at different times.

I first saw the programmes at a salient time in my life. I was already fascinated by ancient history and already beginning to get involved in both working in museums and archaeological fieldwork. I was also attending confirmation classes at my local parish church, the actual building of which fascinated me. I had many interesting conversations with the Vicar and the Curate about the architecture and the old monuments decorating the church. I was also a trainee bell ringer there, and it was often my job as the youngest bell ringer to climb up into the bell tower amidst the bells themselves to fit the mufflers before we rang the bells on Remembrance Day. I remember it was often freezing cold or stiflingly hot in the bell chamber (depending on the season), not to mention very dusty and potentially quite dangerous if you weren’t fully aware of what you were doing up there! Having access to the bell tower though was wonderful for a budding historian as the various levels above the ringing floor were intriguing spaces, filled with the dust of times long since past. The old clock mechanism was a beguilingly antiquated thing. And the stone sets around the stained glass windows had all sorts of weathered graffiti scratched into them – someone at some unknown point clearly had a real predilection for carving intricate flowers into the soft stone. The church itself dated back to somewhere around the 1300s.

‘Testament’ as a TV series and a book seemed to sum up my interests at the time. It visited many places which I too would visit not so long after it first aired on television: Karnak, Luxor, and Elephantine in Egypt; the Pergamon Museum and Wittenberg in Germany; Florence and Rome in Italy; the (old) British Library in London, and, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. The programme presents a subtle but unashamedly English view of its subject – and indeed there seems to be a perennial fascination in this country for the story of William Tyndall (c.1494-1536) and the King James Bible, how it came about, along with the country’s conversion to Protestantism, and then later the debates started by the publication of Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’ in 1859. But I think what struck me most, perhaps without fully realising it at the time, was Romer’s style of presentation. He has a very easy manner, and talks to you as if he’s having a conversation. He has wonderfully expressive hand gestures, and he assumes from the first that you aren’t an idiot – you must be as familiar with the subject as he is, but, he’s very much seeking to open your mind to the various means and methods by which we can place and interpret real history. It’s amazing how a man simply talking and strolling around an overgrown field of tumbledown old stones can vividly summon images by weaving a picture of words which the viewer can relate to – History genuinely comes alive without the need for silly or forced re-enactments or computer simulations. His writing style is equally as accessible. If I could found my ideal university in which to study, I think I’d like John Romer to preside as its Chancellor.

Watching the films again I can feel how he nurtured that interest already long kindled in me from visits to forgotten Neolithic sites whilst on family holidays to Cornwall. Seeing him giggling at a showcase full of ancient statuettes “all jumping and jiggling about” on the glass shelves before launching into some very perceptive reflections which they’d instantly seemed to suggest to him as he wanders around a museum gallery is exactly why I always wanted to work in museums. Objects aren’t simply boring things which sit bland and immobile on shelves. We don’t always need whizzy coloured lights and interactive displays to genuinely engage with the material culture of the past. Just looking at them and reading about them in the accompanying labels and interpretation can set us off and get us really thinking about what they can tell us of the past, or better yet – what they can suggest, which we can then weigh up and debate for ourselves. History is always, and only ever, a reading of the past. We can’t possibly know everything – often we can only guess, but it’s better to attempt an educated and informed guess, rather than a wild surmise. Romer’s style is perfect for opening up just such a conversation – after all that’s what history should be, in my opinion. A conversation between us, ourselves, here and now; and, between us and the past itself. We can do this by visiting particular historical places, by wandering around in museums and libraries, by leafing through old and new books, by chatting with other people who share such interests – this is the appeal of history for me, and also, frequently enough, it’s how I see history appealing to other people too. Curiosity is often highly infectious, and that’s no bad thing.

_ _ _

John Romer is the only one of my early scholarly heroes whom I’ve not, as yet, met. I imagine it would be fascinating to chat or travel with him. He has written a number of highly acclaimed books and presented several excellent documentary series, mostly to do with ancient art and Egyptology, but sadly there’s relatively little about him nor much about his work currently on the internet. His Wikipedia page and the John Romer Resource Page are the best sources of information, but ultimately the best way to know more about the man is through his work, the books and TV programmes themselves. A playlist of all 7 films of ‘Testament’ can be viewed here on YouTube. The two accompanying photographs of John Romer were taken by his wife, Elizabeth Romer, who is also frequently his co-author (… and they live in lovely Tuscany too!).

Also on 'Waymarks'

John Romer's Ancient World

From Surrey Heath to Ancient Alexandria

From Cairo to Nubia - Travelling through Time

“So composite and incongruous is this body of Nile-goers, young and old, well-dressed and ill-dressed, learned and unlearned, that the new-comer’s first impulse is to inquire from what motives so many persons of dissimilar tastes and training can be led to embark upon an expedition which is, to say the least of it, very tedious, very costly, and of an altogether exceptional interest. 

His curiosity, however, is soon gratified. Before two days are over, he knows everybody’s name and everybody’s business; distinguishes at first sight between a Cook’s tourist and an independent traveller; and has discovered that nine-tenths of those whom he is likely to meet up the river are English or American. The rest will be mostly German, with a sprinkling of Belgian and French. So far en bloc; but the details are more heterogeneous still. Here are invalids in search of health; artists in search of subjects; sportsmen keen upon crocodiles; statesmen out for a holiday; special correspondents alert for gossip; collectors on the scent of papyri and mummies; men of science with only scientific ends in view; and the usual surplus of idlers who travel for the mere love of travel or the satisfaction of a purposeless curiosity.”

This description by Amelia Edwards (1831-1892) from the opening pages of her great travelogue, A Thousand Miles Up the Nile (1888), in many ways held just as true when I travelled on the Nile in 1992. I remember scanning the deck of our boat and noted two types of tourist – those assiduously reading their books on the Pharaohs and those deeply engrossed in reading Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile; another way of divvying them up might have been those lounging in the sun and those sitting in the equally sweltering shade. For each though, it seemed Egypt represented a land of historic romance, of nostalgic charm, each lost in their shared exotic fascination.

Egyptology is a uniquely fascinating branch of archaeology. And it seems almost as if the sole purpose of the ancient civilisation which flourished for so many centuries on the banks of the Nile was purposefully orchestrated towards preserving its own immortal posterity. Obsessed with death and the afterlife they built monuments that sought to defy the marching sands of time, and, in so doing, they created a rich playground for archaeologists, scholars and scientists of all kinds of allied disciplines who in many respects have taken up that role of preserving their remains as far into eternity as science can manage. Before I travelled to Egypt I had actually been lucky enough to do some voluntary museum work which had given me some first hand experience of ancient Egyptian material culture, I’d also read a few relevant books. The best of which was Exploring the World of the Pharaohs (now published simply as The World of the Pharaohs) by Christine Hobson (Thames and Hudson, 1990). This book, as its sub-title states, is a complete guide to Ancient Egypt. It is set out rather like a textbook, with excellent illustrations – drawings, maps, photographs – and short, neatly rounded chapters, with boxed biographies of key people in the history of Egyptology in the margins of the pages directly relevant to their work. There is even a useful ‘Gazetteer’ at the end with tips for the modern day traveller, who hopefully will not have to sink their dahabiyeh in the waters of the Nile for 24 hours to rid it of vermin before setting out on their journey up river as the celebrated artist David Roberts (1796-1864) had to in 1838.

Roberts’ paintings and drawings are now the eponymous representation of the romance of that first era of Western-led scientific exploration in Egypt. Many of his sketches and paintings are so accurate that even to this day they still provide a valuable record for modern Egyptologists. Yet he remained very modest about the great achievement of his works, to a friend he wrote that: “Having been familiar with almost every work on Ancient Egypt previous to my coming out, I should say that those mighty remains remain yet to be done, both with regard to showing their vast magnitude and elegant formation of the architecture. Yet I think I have approached nearer the thing than anyone hitherto. To do anything nearer would take years.”

Roberts’ artworks and Edwards’ descriptions are both evocative representations of a bygone Egypt. Yet following in their footsteps, Egypt remains an equally fascinating place to explore, not least for all the many varied and amazing discoveries that have been made since they each travelled their thousand miles up and down the Nile. But Egypt is a country currently in flux with the recent revolution and the subsequent great changes in its government. Travel and tourism however have been such great mainstays of the Egyptian economy since the days of Roberts and Edwards, I hope the country continues to capitalise on this industry and further the exploration and understanding of their ancient forbears. Whilst I was travelling in Egypt I found all the people I met open, welcoming and friendly. Most Egyptians seemed very proud of the great antiquity of Egyptian civilisation. And understandably so, for the past permeates the present throughout the country. 

Yet only a few years after I wandered around the Temple of Hatshepsut, admiring its beautifully harmonious architecture set before a breathtaking rocky escarpment, around 60 foreign tourists and their guides were massacred by extremist gunmen. I hope that a harmonious outcome will be the lasting result of the recent elections in Egypt. I can’t help but think of the story of Caliph Omar (c.582-644) and the once magnificent Library of Alexandria – who when asked what to do with its books after Egypt first came under Muslim rule supposedly replied: “If what they contain is in accord with the Koran we have no need of them; if what they contain is not in accord with the Koran we have no need of them still. Proceed, then, and destroy them.” (see, Luciano Canfora, The Vanished Library (Vintage, 1991), Chapter XVI). It is said the scrolls were then fed into the furnaces of the heating system for the city’s baths, and it took over six months to burn them all. History is not simply a single country’s asset – it is also of relevance and instruction to the rest of the world too. We have much to learn from the people of Egypt, both past and present.