Phil Harding's favourite object - the Stonehenge Dagger

[@xeviphract5894]

Phil Harding and his love of flint workmanship always warms my heart.

[@Ana_crusis]

yes I love this. Phil's admiration for the workmanship is great. It's not archaeology anymore He just wants to sit down with the guy who made that dagger and talk about flint knapping technique as two equals.

[@mark.J6708]

He's such a great dude. Absolutely wonderful man, passed a few emails with him awhile back, he was kind and gracious with his time. One of a kind!

[@sassandsavvy007]

An absolute expert with a great way to explain things and to catch and hold people's attention. I could listen for hours. Thank you, Phil Harding. You're legend already 🌹

[@trevorflarty1811]

What a great, bloke. No airs, & graces. Knows his stuff. Tells you as it is. Christ! You just want a good natter, & a pint, with this, genuine man.youve just got to love him.

[@stjbananas]

Phil Harding, thank you for the years of wonderful discovery and revealed history you and Time Team made so bloody interesting; I have learned so much from you. Every time I watch an episode I have seen a half dozen times before I still learn new things. Thank you again. Most sincerely.

[@RonMalleck-mb8vy]

Your ancestors would be so very proud of you :) You’re so skilled at knapping (me I practice a little napping every day) You sure are a good digger too … never tired or complaining thank you for all the knowledge that you have shared

[@belwynne1386]

Guy voted whom I would most like to raise a pint with. Can you imagine how fascinating and funny that pint would be?

[@kurtweber162]

All I can say Is WOW! such a lovely piece of workmanship.

[@chriscadue4916]

To hold something like that in your hand for the first time must be simply overwhelming.I think my heart would explode.

[@MariVictorius]

It’s like he’s holding a flashlight under his face, telling a scary story when the power’s gone out.

[@thomasevans5467]

Phil Harding is an absolute treasure of a human being. I hope that the people of the UK or Britain more specifically England realize what they have in him and don’t take his citizenship for granted. Absolute Legend, #TEAMPhil

[@eldermanager]

Love Phil, don’t change a thing. And more importantly, he knows what he’s talking about:)

[@neilwilliams2409]

JenThat's a rare quality these days. Great bloke.

[@addictedtotreasuretrash108]

Hej. You know what, I can honestly say that i have watched time team from the beginning up untill it stopped and even before time team started, I have many episodes on dvd. I am an amature archaeologist but there is always one person i want to see on time team every time and that is Phil Harding. I think you should be called Sir Phil Harding for all the important work you have done and contributed to the history and study of archaeolgy. I admire you so much. The other team players are very good but you Phil are the icing on the cake. It is a great shame that the show had to stop, the newer versions are not half as good. I am please to see bits here and there of your exploits linked to the Wiltshie Museum. Keep up your good work and you are ashining light to us all. Thank you

[@blackbird5634]

Lots of love Phil!! How wonderful to hear you explain this amazing find! Thanks!

[@SuiLiF]

Phil is the best.Love him. 🥰

[@caduceus68]

I keep coming back to this video from time to time when I'm in something of a contemplative mood. My ancestors all, as far back as I have been able to trace, hailed from Southern England, and significantly from the Wiltshire area. It may be the romantic in me, but the idea that the man in the barrow, or the crafter of the blade, or both, could very well be my direct ancestors gives me chills. Phil's delivery doesn't hurt, either.

[@KatieReadsKoziesAndMore]

Story time with Phil Harding! What a treat.

[@WmGood]

Phil Harding is my hero. I love archaeology and collect both old world ( Europe and Africa and Middle East ) and American stone artifacts. Phil is both personable and erudite yet down to earth ( and often in it!! ) .

[@granskare]

I have always enjoyed the Time Team series and especially Phil Harding...I have friends in Wilts and it is nice to know that Phil is from that county. :)

[@joshschneider9766]

Man I can't even forge steel that thin without electric powered grinders. What a boss flint worker.

[@dazuk1969]

Flint knapping is extremely skillful and takes years to master....and when done properly, sharp as scalpel. I have seen Phil do a few demos on TV and he is a dab hand. The flint knife here is a wonderful example.

[@dgadza]

I love how it zooms onto his face "It ain't that good."

[@marthareis5873]

Yes, it's perfect.

[@joshschneider9766]

@@marthareis5873 Phil's work is as good as it gets without dedicating your entire life to knapping the same shapes ovet and over for your entire life. hes as good as humans today can possibly get but as he said, not that good.

[@marthareis5873]

@@joshschneider9766 Dgadza "loved how they zoomed onto Phil's face" when Phil said "it ain't that good." I too thought that moment was perfectly captured. So, not a comment on his knapping (which is pretty darned good,).

[@joshschneider9766]

@@marthareis5873 oh i didnt think you were denigrating the guy i just commiserate with him. as a modern glassblower im not a shop production worker but rather a guy that has a hobby. every time i work and then see a museum piece im just like yup, definitely not that good lol

[@kurtbogle2973]

As always AWESOME!

[@ruthsmith2434]

Perhaps yours doesn't meet the standard of the one in the museum, but it's pretty darn good!

[@MeanaBeana391]

Phil Harding with clean fingernails! A man with enviable passion for his work!

[@DonniePalmer57]

Most inspiring archeologists in my opinion Mick and Phil

[@tango6nf477]

I'm a bit fussy about who I go for beers with but if I had a choice Phil would be at the top of the list.

[@Ritzi66]

Phil is the man

[@kc3718]

I have visited the Devizes Museum and many of the greatest museums in Europe, and it is definately worth a visit. The reason being the Louvre, the Berlin Island, the British Museum etc. the finds, though marvellous are out of context, the story is weak, but here the story is strong the landscape of the finds is all near the museum and the exhibits arestill woven into to all this.

[@brianpeck4035]

it's impossible to appreciate the difficulty in flaking stone that thin and that wide without having done some flint knapping. It's a very complicated game of reducing the thickness while keeping the width. As layers are chipped away, the new surface creates new problems/puzzles. The better it's done, the easier the next layer becomes. A false move can make the next layer more difficult, impossible or just break it. While stone blades can be sharper than metal, they are very fragile. Such a stone knife represents the skill only possibly found after hundreds of blades have been attempted. Fortunately with guidance it takes little to get the basic rules of this game and create a usable stone blade. Once I did this I started noticing ancient stone tools all around on the ground. Now I can better recognize what they look like after having made some...and shapes that don't occur naturally. All of us have ancestors who played this game of stone, why not you?

[@atommi1]

Skill defines master and a hobbyist. We all can do some level of handy work, some are just going to exceed others in a completely different stage. I like building stuff, i have tried many things but i know there is stuff, i am never going to be very good in. Some are just born with needed qualities for spesific kind of job. Like Phil was born to be an archeologist. I can't stop binge on time team, the finds they do all the time are just splendid. Human's have always been fond to beautiful pieces of craftmanship, smiths from iron age to dark age just baffle me with their legacy. They just were different breed of men.

[@markorollo.]

I kind of want Phil to tell me a ghost story now......

[@velvetindigonight]

Chuckle chuckle totally get the vibe..............

[@barbmcconnaughey3070]

Around a campfire...

[@Qingeaton]

If you want to see absolute master working, look at a danish dagger made of flint with a handle included in the one piece of flint. A modern replica made by D.C. Waldorf is my personal favorite.

[@screwthecabal6453]

CRAFTMANSHIP TONY, CRAFTMANSHIP!

[@TheMilwaukeeProtocol]

Came for the Cornish accent; stayed for the compelling back story.

[@deborahparham3783]

That's a Wiltshire accent , thank you very much.

[@TheMilwaukeeProtocol]

@@deborahparham3783 good to know, thanks. My friend from Dorset said it was Cornish.

[@cliffcurtistruth]

I'd say "it's pretty darned good".

[@flarqueologia4295]

Phil is the best

[@billkaroly]

Phil's dagger is a 9.5 out of 10. So so close.

[@MidnightPupster]

:D Phil is the best!!

[@CaptainNorris]

Brasses are very often used today. Rifle rounds are made from it and various alloys of copper and zinc (i.e. brasses) are used for machine parts like valves. Zinc will clean the molten alloy by purging out the dissolved hydrogen. It is cheap compared to copper or tin and special brasses are even more durable than bronze.

[@bonedigger666]

I've seen Indian points that good and made with less high grade flint, when that's all you do you get good at it. But yes, that's a nice point.

[@Raycheetah]

Bet that old flint-knapper couldn't lay down as pretty a trench as Phil can. =^[.]~=

[@bradwalden546]

Amazing...! I think the word amazing is used to much lately... Phil’s right!

[@amandajstar]

I dunno, Phil: it's pretty good! : )

[@kurtbogle2973]

I am stupefied! As I said earlier, Im a great gravle napper. I wouldn't have even been able to start before it was in pieces.

[@myname7056]

I want to know if the adult male was the one who made the Flint dagger, or just a recipient of it.

[@WiltshireMuseumDevizes]

No way of knowing for sure. I like to think that he made the dagger ...

[@kosmokrator555]

Stuck in the cave all winter with no sex and TV, you're bound eventually to master the art of how to make daggers out of flintstones.

[@markjackson5665]

No sex? They’ll have been at it all the time! 😉

[@tectoramia-sz1lu]

I've watched Will Lord make something very similar.

[@mickeykindley9885]

LI’ve him💕❤️💕

[@gaz1tinsley]

Have timeteam ever excavated stonehenge for artifacts since it was built starting 1951+ ? they would need more than just trowels & brushes to get through the ancient concrete to be finished in 3 days with this ancient monument i think ?

[@davidevans3227]

museum?

[@CaptainNorris]

Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. But if you try to produce Zinc in a blast furnace it will be gaseous, as it boils below 1000°C. So ancient people never produce pure Zinc to alloy it with copper. What they did was mixing copper and zinc ores and melt out the (red) brass directly. It was very low in zinc and they tought it was some sort of very fine copper. They never distinguished between sorts of copper and brasses.

[@bucc5207]

Phil's a guitar player! Your hands give you away mate.

[@deborahparham3783]

He is a blues stringer and no doubt a damn good one.

[@transvestosaurus878]

If you talk shit about Time Team, this is the knife Phil slits your tires with.

[@ELCADAROSA]

Perhaps Jondalar himself knapped that beautiful piece.

[@robertallen4774]

I bet when Phil goes to a fine restaurant, the first thing he notices is the napery

[@andrewnable]

Phil, I also have made stone tools. I would say that I have not achieved your level of skill maybe; but I have produced accurate (Stone hammer stones Etc) stone tools.

[@bigbensarrowheadchannel2739]

That's a fine piece. But I've found many archaic era projectiles and blades in Texas that are much thinner and better quality. Not knocking that fine piece of flint in anyway. The fact it was found at Stonehenge in a burial makes it much more important than anything I've recovered for sure. But if it were not found in that context it would just be another biface.

[@acerb4566]

@ramanaross ........hey? if there were Copper, Bronze, Iron, and Steele ages, where does Brass fit in?? nuthin wrong with Brass! its just as strong as Copper or Bronze and alot more shiny! why has history silenced the Brass Age!

[@dragonmaid1360]

Because phil has beautiful nails on his right hand im betting he plays a picking instrument

[@acerb4566]

would someone tell Mr. Harding about the video>>>>>>>>>"Skellig Michael: The Fabrication of History".....................only Time Team can stop the OPW!

[@antyeardsley]

Top banana. X

[@therealpatriarchy]

It seems the Romans may have invaded Phil's family. Look at his hand at the beginning.

[@yewenyi]

Personally I’d be happy to be buried with Phil Harding’s dagger.

[@StephenMortimer]

Can't you "tidy" him up a bit?

[@samanthabell9363]

Stephen Mortimer he's digging in mud most of the time and in rain, what do you want him wearing ? a tuxedo ? get a life you pathetic cretin

[@mariegriffiths]

Acres of necessary and unjustified newsprint is dedicated to how Mary Beard looks yet Phil Harding appears for years in that horrible greasy hat. Yes I know he is down a hole most of the time but here he is in an office. Surely he has a clean hat for that purpose.

[@markorollo.]

People judging books by the cover again, I don't care if he filmed this wearing a banana costume.

[@willhouse]

Even meeting the Queen herself couldn't convince Phil Harding to clean up very much!

[@caroleast9636]

He’s great just the way he is. I could listen to him any time.

[@brushbros]

Thank God he isn't wearing those disgusting cut-offs.

[@deborahparham3783]

There is nothing disgusting about Phil's shorts. The man was blessed with a beautiful pair of legs. When you have them, flaunt them.