Copyright walesonline
Former Great British Bake Off presenter Sandi Toksvig "could not stop crying" after finding a teenager's skeleton during her new Channel 4 show. The TV star - who was a presenter on the much-loved baking programme from 2017 to 1019 - has a new series called Hidden Treasures with Sandi Toksvig. It sees her channelling her passion for archaeology into an exciting new adventure, looking at Britain's rich history hidden beneath its soil. And she shared that one particular moment during filming left her emotional. The series starts in Dorset, where a team from Bournemouth University is excavating a 2,000 year old Iron Age cemetery belonging to the Durotriges, one of Europe's earliest matriarchal societies, reports the Mirror . In the first episode the team make a chilling discovery deep within a pit. "We discovered a 15-to-17-year-old skeleton face down with a break across one of the arms," Sandi said. "The arms had been tied together prior to death. "The nature of the death seemed to be violent and suggested this was perhaps a sacrificial grave. Everybody was being careful." Her friend and archaeologist Raksha Dave handled the skeleton delicately, passing it to the TV star. "I turned the face at last to the light and it felt like the person was looking at me," Sandi shared. "At that moment, I unexpectedly burst into tears. I could not stop crying. To hold that person's head in my hands was one of the greatest privileges of my life." Raksha admitted: "It was pretty gobsmacking." "It's very rare to find a human sacrifice," the archaeologist went on. "That's not the first one they've discovered, there's an obvious pattern that follows from years of digging. This suggests that it was the norm for the Durotriges." Opening up about signing up for the new Channel 4 series, Sandi said: "I studied archaeology many years ago at Cambridge University. It was a theoretical course, so I never went on a dig. "So when I got offered this, it was a bit that was missing in my education." "I really needed to do this," she said. Hidden Treasures with Sandi Toksvig airs on November 4 on Channel 4.
