The Dig - Netflix

They started the dig in 1938 and finished in 1939. They excavated the smaller mounds first finding a small ship and artefacts and were already sure that this was Anglo-Saxon after the first mound.

People had looked at them before and tried but they were deep underground.

Then the landowners hadnt let anyone do it.

The Pretty's bought the land knowing they were there and wanting to excavate but him dying held things up.

Peggy Pigott in the film was an established archaeologist and wrote the definitive (at the time and for a long time) books on excavating. She didn't split up with her husband until the mid 50s and they remained friends and worked together. The romance in the film didn't happen, that's just film producers. It wasn't her honeymoon either they'd been married some time.

Smith and Moir did get along and worked on many digs together. Archaeology as a science was only just getting established and even Morris was just a knowledgeable amateur. Pigott had studied at degree level but there were really very limited options for that.

I enjoyed the film but thought it unnecessary to introduce the romance and thereby suggest that was all she was there for, a plot device. When she was well known at the time and had a brilliant career in archaeology as did her husband.

I'm not sure why the writers wanted to include a pointless romance - but having decided to do so surely it would have been better to have been between 2 fictional characters? Not difficult to have a young student working on the dig and perhaps a girl from the local area meeting up?

I would have liked a final image of the items as they are displayed - I cannot be the only one who enjoyed this but has never seen the pieces.

Nonetheless it was a brilliant piece of film. The collapse of the walls was so brilliantly filmed that, even though you knew Fiennes character did not die, you were on the edge of your seat willing on the rescuers.