Tuesday, February 01, 2000

'Nova' builds case for ancient engineering marvels

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BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        Don't be fooled by the advertisements for today's Nova miniseries, Secrets of Lost Empires. What looks like a silly old slingshot was the nuclear weapon of the Middle Ages.

        If you're like me, you'll find tonight's first episode, “Medieval Siege,” an absolutely mesmerizing hour of television.

        For the “Siege,” a team of traditional woodworkers constructed two trebuchets — giant catapults capable of hurling 250-pound boulders to knock down castle walls.

        According to lore, England's King Edward I ordered his men to build such “a monstrous new weapon” in 1304, two centuries before cannons, during his attack on Scotland's Sterling Castle.

        “Details about the weapon design are tantalizingly vague,” says narrator Stacy Keach, “except that it was nicknamed "Warwolf' and its appearance outside the walls terrified the garrison.”

        That was 700 years ago. No one knows for sure whether such devices were made or how Middle Ages men could have constructed them without cranes and power tools.

        “There was supposedly this mechanized catapult which could shatter the walls, but all we have are some fishing tales which probably sound very exaggerated, and some very strange-looking pictures where the soldiers are often taller than the castle walls,” explains Michael Barnes, Secrets of Lost Empires executive producer.

        So Nova commissioned a series of “engineering dramas” to chronicle modern attempts to replicate ancient engineering marvels.

        After tonight's “Siege,” the award-winning PBS science series erects:

        • A 25-ton granite Egyptian obelisk (Feb. 8).

        • A 15-ton Easter Island monolith (Feb. 15).

        • A three-chamber Roman bath (Feb. 22).

        • A Chinese wooden arch bridge (Feb. 29).

        “We tend to take modern engineering wonders for granted, because we know how they're built,” says Mr. Barnes, a senior producer whose credits includes Nova's “This Old Pyramid.”

        “The Romans built magnificent bathhouses, but they didn't leave an instructional manual,” he says.

        For the “Siege,” Nova rounded up 40 traditional timberframers to build two trebuchets under the supervision of English medieval armor expert Hew Kennedy, Virginia Military Institute mechanical engineering professor Wayne Neel and French architect Reined Beffeyte.

        Their mission: Whip a 250-pound boulder 200 feet through the air and pulverize a 5-foot thick sandstone and lime mortar wall.

        I'm not giving anything away by saying they do succeed — finally — because Nova shows the wall tumbling down in the opening credits. But how they do it is a great David vs. Goliath story, and terrific educational television.

        And you won't believe how Mr. Kennedy, the English arms expert, tests his trebuchet — by flinging an upright piano on his farm.

        “If you've got one of these trebuchets,” he says in the film, “and you've got plenty of time to shoot it, you're going to knock (a castle) into a powder. You can reduce it to rubble.”

        Says Mr. Barnes, the producer: “I never imagined that it was going to be worth our money to actually build a target wall, because I never thought we'd actually hit it. But remarkably, these machines ... hit it repeatedly.”

        To be honest, Nova didn't enjoy similar success with the four other attempts at re-creating ancient wonders. But I won't say anymore. You'll have to watch.

ON THE AIR

What: Nova five-week Secrets of Lost Empires         When: 8 p.m. today, and Tuesdays through Feb. 29         Where: Channels 48, 54, 16

John Kiesewetter is Enquirer TV/radio critic. Write him at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, 45202.