The Search For King Alfred Bbc2

[boxtops]

Did anyone watch this, just finished on BBC2? Neil Oliver was commentating on Alfred's life and trying to determine whether a bunch of bones were actually Alfred's. It was really interesting, but I fell asleep at 945 - were they Alfred's bones, or not......?

[shaneystar2]

No .The carbon dating put them at much later .
But they a found a bit of pelvis in another box of bones that had been dug up in Hyde Abbey in the 90's that sort of tied into the date he's supposed to have died .

[Peter Pedant]

The papers said the pelvis was his
on age grounds I think.
you can tell if a bone is 1000 y old - esp if the rest are 100.

[boxtops]

Thanks Shaney, I can go to bed easy now! :-)

[ferlew]

Flip, I meant to watch that :(

[Ratty2E]

No. Well not the original ones they were testing but they then were given some more from a recent excavation of the abbey site and apart from a few more that were too late they did have a part of male pelvis that had the right date. So it's a possible but another dig is needed to try and find the rest of him ( whoever he might be)

[Ouzel]

It's on BBC2 Scotland at 11.20 - if you have Sky

[Peter Pedant]

If you get those Freeview Preview boxes, you can just go back.
They're great.....
I um er live in the past....

[jno]

hey found a bit of a pelvis from a male, from about that era, and said there couldn't have been many other people buried around there (which sounds like speculation). They couldn't even say if it might be him or his son, though.

Wishful thinking, if you ask me, but they say they hope to resume digging (the pelvis was dug up in the 90s and then put in a box and forgotten.) So they could come up with better evidene. Don't hold your breath.

[boxtops]

Thanks all - I feel a second programme coming on, then ...:-)

I know I could watch it again on catchup, but I don't want to watch it all again, only the bit I missed - and I seem to have a problem doing fast-forward on our catchup!

[naomi24]

I tend to ignore programmes like this. I figure if they'd found anything of substance, I'd have read about it in the newspapers.

[boxtops]

I like the background information on this sort of programme, naomi - kind of Time Team with Good Hair :-)

[shaneystar2]

Anything with the lovely Neil Oliver is interesting :)

[jno]

yes, the Mail would have run an exclusive interview with Alfred by now and Ukip would be demanding that he be reburied in the cathedral as this would please God and improve the weather.