Secrets of BRITAIN’S POMPEII
The current Pompeii exhibition at the British Museum o ers an unprecedented glimpse into ordinary Roman lives. The exhibition’s motley collection of domestic minutiae, from a loaf of bread and a child’s cot to the people themselves, preserved forever by the scorching heat of the volcanic eruption that destroyed the town, gives a real insight into the Romans, how they shopped, what they ate and where they made love (often with a slave in attendance). It tells us about the birds that sang in their gardens, and dogs that roamed their streets. The exhibition comes largely from Pompeii, and you might think that this wellknown site is unique in o ering a window into Roman life.
But you’d be wrong. A recent dig undertaken by the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) at Bloomberg Place in the City of London, has revealed almost as much about the Romans as Pompeii. This time, however, it’s how life was lived at the very edge of the Roman Empire – in particular, in Londinium. MOLA, which ran the dig, is analysing the finds at its head-quarters in north London, a forbidding brick building on the banks of the Regent’s Canal.
You enter via a lobby sporting posters advertising evenings of medieval mayhem and a notice stating worryingly that they are on a ‘heightened state of security’. It’s unprepossessing to say the least, but the minute you step through the doors into MOLA proper, you’re in another world – several other worlds, to be precise. For MOLA, with the Museum of London, holds the biggest archaeological archive in the world, a collection of artefacts that stretch back thousands of years. It’s also unique in archaeological circles in being almost entirely managed by women.
My guide on this occasion is Sadie Watson, the enthusiastic site director whose blue fingernails and waistlength dreadlocks in no way detract from her impressive qualifications. Watson grew up in Dorset and so was surrounded by hill forts and the treasures of the Jurassic Coast from an early age. She did a degree in archaeology at Bournemouth, chiefly, she says, ‘because they did a lot of digging in the hols’, and arrived at MOLA in 1998. Most recently she was site director at a three-acre site in the heart of Roman London, home to the Temple of Mithras.
A Roman tiled floor within a small wattle building Right: Amber amulet in the shape of a gladiator's helmet
‘We had a pretty good idea of what we were going to nd,’ she explains. ‘We knew about the Temple of Mithras [situated on the lost Walbrook river] and also recognised that the river had created the perfect, wet conditions for the survival of archaeological material. The depth of the dig, 50 metres below street level in some places, and the presence of water, meant there was lots of waterlog preservation, which acts like a bog or the ash of Pompeii.’
In six months of digging, the MOLA team removed 3,500 tonnes of soil and revealed 10,000 artefacts, covering Britain’s entire Roman period, from the 40s AD to the early fth century. But one of the most exciting objects was a collection of Roman writing tablets. ‘The Romans wrote on wax, melted over wood, with an iron stylus,’ explains Watson.
‘We need the stylus to have pierced through the wax into the wood – and this has happened here; 300 fragments of writing tablets, the most complete record of Roman writing we have. They haven’t been translated yet, but they look likely to be as informative and touching as the ones from Hadrian’s Wall, which are messages from soldiers writing home to their mums, asking for more socks.’
The most famous writing tablet in London so far was a slave transaction from the second century. ‘It says that Fortunata from Lyons was sold in London to an ex-slave. Apparently, she was a very good slave,’ reveals Watson.
The latest ‘Bloomberg tablets’ are written in cursive Latin, and only a few people in the world can translate them. ‘They are likely to be shopping lists, love letters, and hopefully a few baggage labels with addresses on,’ says Watson. ‘That’ll be exciting as we don’t know how Romans in London described where they lived.’
A lead or tin plaque depicting a bull; A late 1st to mid-century iron knife; A mid to late 1st-century ceramic beaker with applied ring and dot decoration; A ceramic oil lamp depicting a stag (France, mid-1st century AD)
The artefacts from this dig are stored in cardboard boxes, awaiting analysis. ‘It should take two years,’ says Watson. ‘Publication of the results should come in 2016.’
In the meantime, she takes me through rooms of archaeologists doing pottery analysis, dating and counting. We walk past shelves of pottery, glass, jewels, marble fragments and monumental masonry. Eventually we come to Michael Marshall, in charge of small finds, who shares a space with a skeleton dressed in overalls. Marshall’s collection of tiny Roman objects is stacked in boxes around his desk. I ask about his favourite find.
‘Roman brooches,’ he says. ‘They are incredibly intricate. But look at this…’ He shows me a silver image of a bull about two inches long, perhaps the astrological sign of Taurus.
‘It’s beautiful,’ he says. ‘See the detail, and the movement in the legs and tail.’
He then brings out a Roman bell, which still rings true – the sound of the fourth century, brought to life in modern London – and some Roman pewter bowls, which ‘came out of a well with six cow skulls near the Temple site’.
In the archive, on acres of industrial shelving, is stored the detritus of the centuries, salvaged from digs around the country – bits of marble, pottery, metal objects, Tudor pots, Roman amphorae with the maker’s mark on the handle, oyster shells, clay pipes – and a cattle bone activity box, whatever that is. And it requires a lot of work. Everything is washed, and labelled according to the date and place of find, and much of this work is done by volunteers.
MOLA is consulted on every underground dig in London. They are the team who analysed finds beneath the new development at London Bridge (there was nothing much under the Shard), who monitor the Thames foreshore for ancient objects, and who are often called in to oversee domestic planning applications. But what about the new fad for extending luxury London houses underground – a popular pastime in Notting Hill?
‘Reports often cross our desks,’ Watson says, but explains that as the area was built on open fields, there’s ‘hardly anything of interest there…’
For the rest of London, however, it’s a different matter. ‘Each major event leaves its mark,’ she explains. ‘You can still see the remains of the Great Fire, or the devastation of the Blitz. But after each disaster, London has built itself again. The emphasis has always been on looking forward.’
One hopes that it always will be.
MOLA is at Mortimer Wheeler House, 46 Eagle Wharf Road, London N1. For information on volunteering, call: 020-7410 2200 or visit www.museumoflondonarchaeology.org.uk
But you’d be wrong. A recent dig undertaken by the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) at Bloomberg Place in the City of London, has revealed almost as much about the Romans as Pompeii. This time, however, it’s how life was lived at the very edge of the Roman Empire – in particular, in Londinium. MOLA, which ran the dig, is analysing the finds at its head-quarters in north London, a forbidding brick building on the banks of the Regent’s Canal.
You enter via a lobby sporting posters advertising evenings of medieval mayhem and a notice stating worryingly that they are on a ‘heightened state of security’. It’s unprepossessing to say the least, but the minute you step through the doors into MOLA proper, you’re in another world – several other worlds, to be precise. For MOLA, with the Museum of London, holds the biggest archaeological archive in the world, a collection of artefacts that stretch back thousands of years. It’s also unique in archaeological circles in being almost entirely managed by women.
My guide on this occasion is Sadie Watson, the enthusiastic site director whose blue fingernails and waistlength dreadlocks in no way detract from her impressive qualifications. Watson grew up in Dorset and so was surrounded by hill forts and the treasures of the Jurassic Coast from an early age. She did a degree in archaeology at Bournemouth, chiefly, she says, ‘because they did a lot of digging in the hols’, and arrived at MOLA in 1998. Most recently she was site director at a three-acre site in the heart of Roman London, home to the Temple of Mithras.
A Roman tiled floor within a small wattle building Right: Amber amulet in the shape of a gladiator's helmet‘We had a pretty good idea of what we were going to nd,’ she explains. ‘We knew about the Temple of Mithras [situated on the lost Walbrook river] and also recognised that the river had created the perfect, wet conditions for the survival of archaeological material. The depth of the dig, 50 metres below street level in some places, and the presence of water, meant there was lots of waterlog preservation, which acts like a bog or the ash of Pompeii.’
In six months of digging, the MOLA team removed 3,500 tonnes of soil and revealed 10,000 artefacts, covering Britain’s entire Roman period, from the 40s AD to the early fth century. But one of the most exciting objects was a collection of Roman writing tablets. ‘The Romans wrote on wax, melted over wood, with an iron stylus,’ explains Watson.
‘We need the stylus to have pierced through the wax into the wood – and this has happened here; 300 fragments of writing tablets, the most complete record of Roman writing we have. They haven’t been translated yet, but they look likely to be as informative and touching as the ones from Hadrian’s Wall, which are messages from soldiers writing home to their mums, asking for more socks.’
The most famous writing tablet in London so far was a slave transaction from the second century. ‘It says that Fortunata from Lyons was sold in London to an ex-slave. Apparently, she was a very good slave,’ reveals Watson.
The latest ‘Bloomberg tablets’ are written in cursive Latin, and only a few people in the world can translate them. ‘They are likely to be shopping lists, love letters, and hopefully a few baggage labels with addresses on,’ says Watson. ‘That’ll be exciting as we don’t know how Romans in London described where they lived.’
A lead or tin plaque depicting a bull; A late 1st to mid-century iron knife; A mid to late 1st-century ceramic beaker with applied ring and dot decoration; A ceramic oil lamp depicting a stag (France, mid-1st century AD)The artefacts from this dig are stored in cardboard boxes, awaiting analysis. ‘It should take two years,’ says Watson. ‘Publication of the results should come in 2016.’
In the meantime, she takes me through rooms of archaeologists doing pottery analysis, dating and counting. We walk past shelves of pottery, glass, jewels, marble fragments and monumental masonry. Eventually we come to Michael Marshall, in charge of small finds, who shares a space with a skeleton dressed in overalls. Marshall’s collection of tiny Roman objects is stacked in boxes around his desk. I ask about his favourite find.
‘Roman brooches,’ he says. ‘They are incredibly intricate. But look at this…’ He shows me a silver image of a bull about two inches long, perhaps the astrological sign of Taurus.
‘It’s beautiful,’ he says. ‘See the detail, and the movement in the legs and tail.’
He then brings out a Roman bell, which still rings true – the sound of the fourth century, brought to life in modern London – and some Roman pewter bowls, which ‘came out of a well with six cow skulls near the Temple site’.
In the archive, on acres of industrial shelving, is stored the detritus of the centuries, salvaged from digs around the country – bits of marble, pottery, metal objects, Tudor pots, Roman amphorae with the maker’s mark on the handle, oyster shells, clay pipes – and a cattle bone activity box, whatever that is. And it requires a lot of work. Everything is washed, and labelled according to the date and place of find, and much of this work is done by volunteers.
MOLA is consulted on every underground dig in London. They are the team who analysed finds beneath the new development at London Bridge (there was nothing much under the Shard), who monitor the Thames foreshore for ancient objects, and who are often called in to oversee domestic planning applications. But what about the new fad for extending luxury London houses underground – a popular pastime in Notting Hill?
‘Reports often cross our desks,’ Watson says, but explains that as the area was built on open fields, there’s ‘hardly anything of interest there…’
For the rest of London, however, it’s a different matter. ‘Each major event leaves its mark,’ she explains. ‘You can still see the remains of the Great Fire, or the devastation of the Blitz. But after each disaster, London has built itself again. The emphasis has always been on looking forward.’
One hopes that it always will be.
MOLA is at Mortimer Wheeler House, 46 Eagle Wharf Road, London N1. For information on volunteering, call: 020-7410 2200 or visit www.museumoflondonarchaeology.org.uk