The Story Unfolds

I'm interested in exploring the wider context of the Cantabrian War so I started reading around why capturing the north of Spain was so important to Caesar Augustus. Not insignificant were the natural resources, including gold. Las Médulas was a gold mine in Asturian territory that became, in fact, the largest gold mine in the Roman Empire. The beginning of mining here happened to coincide with the monetary reforms of Augustus. It also happens to be a stunning place that is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Because my friend Rob Bell knows a thing or two about engineering, I tasked him with helping me to understand how the Romans extracted their gold from these mountains.

This tiny object, found on Monte Bernorio, can tell us so much about the people who lived here. In the shape of the rear half of a pig, it is a bronze document from the late Iron Age and is engraved with an inscription in a Celtic language. It is a pact of hospitality or friendship between two groups, perhaps neighbouring tribes. The inscription appears to be in a newly discovered Hispanic Celtic dialect. It is one of only two of these objects recovered in archaeological excavations, the other being found in the middle Ebro valley. Jesús Torres Martínez tells me that it seems to have been deliberately broken, in an act that signifies the end of the friendship.

I love Dr Jo Ball. I was introduced to her by Saul David and there seems to be nothing she doesn't know about the Roman army and Caesar Augustus. She also happens to have an active interest in the Cantabrian excavations. I particularly enjoy the way that Jo sheds light on the strengthsm weaknesses & motivations of Augustus and hels us to better understand the Cantabrians, how they were viewed by Rome and the brutal nature of this particular war.

Thousands of Roman arrowheads have been found at La Loma and I could choose any of them to include here. But I think this one is the one that really brought home to me the opportunities offered by this archaeological project. The arrow is itself a micro-story. 2,000 years after it was shot by a Roman soldier, here it is still lodged in the stone walls of the Iron Age fort. The archaeologists are the first people to touch this arrowhead since the Roman who launched it. It's not just the sheer number of projectiles found that allows this story to be told in such detail, but the fact that many, like this one, were found in a context that enables the archaeologists to plot the battle in forensic detail and to answer questions like, from which direction did the Roman attack? Where did the artillery assault come from? Where did they breach the walls of the fort? Where did the final moments of the battle play out? And they can do this for multiple sites that were attacked during the Cantabrian War.

Dr Miles Russell is the lead archaeologist on one of our other stories - Life and Death in Celtic Britain. But as an authority on the Iron Age, he knows an awful lot about Roman Conquest across Europe and about the cultures the Romans stamped out or claimed as their own. He has a particular interest in Rome's approach to conquest and how they adapted this over time. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Roman source material and a gift for bringing this history to life in an engaging way. I particularly love his ideas about women in Iron Age society, and how they were viewed by the Romans.

Dr Torres Martinez is key to this story and these excavations. They are and will continue to be his life's work. He was born in these mountains and, like the Cantabrians, considers himself a 'highlander'. With a mountaineering background, he is driven by a passion for unearthing the Celtic history of his ancestors. It is his knowledge of the mountains, its volatile climate and difficult terrain, that has allowed him to investigate these locations more thoroughly than ever before. Having briefly come across Dr Torres Martinez on a Sky History series, I was left completely convinced that there was a much bigger story to tell and, when I approached him, thankfully, he agreed with me and got fully behind my plans. So far I haven't asked him a question he hasn't been able to answer; his knowledge of Iron Age history is encyclopaedic. Still, although he is brilliant, for a longer form film I will need to look for other voices to help tell the wider story. Dr Torres Martinez carries out this work under his own company - IMBEAC or the Monte Bernorio Institute of Ancient Studies of the Cantabric. You will often hear me refer to him as Kechu - the shortened version of his forename - as it is a lot easier for me to say than his full name!