An idea for a dramatic program/tale that works on the basis that TT causes historical anomalies by the digging up of people: based on the Poulton dig.
Time Team or time terrorists? Robinson et al: cause or effect?
The roman villa had been occupied by Marcus Caledonius and his family for many years. It was situated in a fecund area of north western Britannia and after a hard start his family had built a large villa with bath house, hypocaust and its very own temple to Athena, his favourite deity. He was the descendant product of a liaison between a roman centurion and a blazing red haired Pictish beauty. His current prosperity was a result of her unwillingness to move back to Rome and her husbands influence in those bygone days.
But there had always been rumours of strange happenings in this area that had made it a sacred, if not a feared place. Apparitions of dragons and strangely clad men in bright blue and yellow helmets muttering in unknown tongues were common amongst the locals. Marcus had heard something of these echoic tales, but thought them the result of the superstitious druids spreading unrest amongst the invaders.
It was in a bright autumn after a good harvest had filled the barns to brimming when the sad incident occurred that made him and his family forsake his Poulton home.
The weather had been glorious for the gathering the bounty of goddess of plenty and had stayed fine for the milling and selling of Marcus's produce at Chester. Never had omens been so propitious, not in the 2 centuries since his family had set up home upon this wonderfully green & fertile if cold land.
His family and retainers and slaves were in celebratory mood when after a day of feasting they drunkenly made their way to the temple. There they all witnessed the strangest sight of men in odd garb with shiny metal chariots and dragons ridden by men digging over the ruins of what had been their temple! These men were led by a dwarf who spoke endlessly to a man who pointed a shiny urn with a glass top at him. These phantoms were digging up the sacred remains of his ancestors. They held the skulls of the long dead in their hands as if in triumph. These creatures were oblivious of the sacrilege they were committing, unaware of the villas community that now in astonishment viewed the scene of wanton destruction & desolation.
The local druids had by now arrived, aware of the activity and were able to discern the weird assemblage as spirits from an evil after world where no thought of the spiritual plane was alive. Marcus listened and saw these things; for 3 days of terror they lasted, the terror brought not just by the annihilation and disregard of their lives they saw before them, but also with the sense of countless lost souls also communing here, as if a sea of empty watching eyes were washing at the shore of their being, their very essence.
After the third day, the temple then returned to its former glory, untouched it seemed by the callous hands of the after-worlders as the druids had named them.
Marcus Caledonius could not ignore such omens, and thus on the recommendation of the head druid, Uther, decided to level his home to the ground in fear of the malevolence visited upon him may be repeated.
This demolition of fear was carried out amidst baleful incantatory sounds and grey cloaked shapes that now haunted the place. These spectres had appeared once the dwarfish character and his dragon dervishes had seemingly departed after their three day ghostly sojourn at villa Caledonia.
Did you ever catch the film Timeline? It was pretty neat work of fiction/fantasy that saw a group of archaeology students transported back to events in 1357 (featuring big, bad Billy Connolly as the prof...well...he does have a honorary doctorate!). In the end, for me, it didn't break any new ground but was enjoyable escapism and a well-told story.
Where your narrative is different is that it is the perspective of the the Roman watching these events.
Incorporating our intrepid "time travellers" is an interesting twist. I think you'd have to put a fair bit of distance between what we watch every week (sorry...boasting again) and the characters of your story, even if they were analogues. Bearing in mind that Tony has a strongly established role as a comic time traveller, courtesy of his previous work with Rowan A.
I reckon go with it. See if it grows legs and crawls out of the fridge.
I think it raises an interesting point, while we are prone to adopt everything and anything as our (rightful) "heritage", would those who made, used and left it have necesarily accepted us as their heirs? Or would they be aghast at whose hands their things were to fall?
When I was young we were all terrified by the 'Four Minute Warning' and I remember a play on TV set in the 17th century?. The villagers were troubled by ghosts and strange appartitions and as the play developed it appeared that they were not from the past but from the future -all fleeing northwards up the A1 shouting and panicking. The apparitions ended with a searing flash of light!
