Lavish Roman mosaic is biggest found in London for 50 years

Archaeologists have uncovered the largest area of Roman mosaic found in London for more than half a century. The two highly decorated panels feature large, colourful flowers, geometric patterns and elaborate motifs in a style unique to the capital.

It is thought it once decorated the floor of a Roman dining room.

The Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) find came during excavations as part of the construction of a regeneration project near the Shard in Southwark.

MOLA site supervisor, Antonietta Lerz, said: “This is a once-in-a-lifetime find in London.

It has been a privilege to work on such a large site where the Roman archaeology is largely undisturbed by later activity – when the first flashes of colour started to emerge through the soil everyone on site was very excited.”

It is made up of two panels, with the largest showing large, colourful flowers surrounded by bands of intertwining strands – a motif known as a guilloche.

There are also lotus flowers and several different geometric elements, including a pattern known as Solomon’s knot, which is made of two interlaced loops.

Dr David Neal, the former archaeologist with English Heritage and leading expert in Roman mosaic, has attributed this design to the “Acanthus group” – a team of mosaicists working in London who developed their own unique local style.

While the largest mosaic panel can be dated to the late 2nd to early 3rd century AD, traces of an earlier mosaic underneath the one currently visible have been identified which shows the room was refurbished over the years.

It was located on the outskirts of Roman Londinium, an area centred on the north bank of the Thames which roughly corresponds to the modern City of London.

A spokesperson for MOLA added the room it was situated in would have contained dining couches, where people would have reclined to eat and it might have been part of a Roman mansio – an upmarket “motel” for state couriers and officials travelling to and from London.

The excavations are part of the Liberty of Southwark regeneration project, which will comprise homes, workspace, shops and restaurants.

The mosaics will be carefully recorded and assessed by an expert team of conservators before being transported off-site, to enable more detailed conservation work to take place. Future plans for the public display of the mosaics are currently being determined.

Inscribed Medieval Gold Brooch Recovered in England

A metal detectorist has discovered a medieval gold brooch with a series of Latin and Hebrew inscriptions. The artefact, found in Wiltshire in the U.K., may have mixed religion and magic in an attempt to give its user protection against illness or supernatural events. 

The Latin inscriptions translate to “Hail Mary full of grace the lord/ is with thee/ blessed art thou amongst women/ and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Amen.” The Hebrew initials for “AGLA” are also inscribed on the brooch and represent Hebrew words that mean “Thou art mighty forever, O Lord.” 

The gold brooch dates to sometime between A.D. 1150 and 1400 and may have been used in an attempt to prevent fever, according to a brief report on the brooch published online by the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) and written by Sophie Hawke, a finds liaison officer for PAS. In England and Wales, metal detectorists report their discoveries to the PAS, a government-sponsored organization that publishes reports and images of the finds on its website and sometimes in scholarly journals.

What was it used for? 

Live Science talked with a number of scholars with expertise in medieval history and magic to get their thoughts on what the brooch might have been used for. 

The Hebrew initials that represent the phrase “Thou art mighty forever, O Lord” may be important to the brooch’s purpose, some of the scholars said. This phrase “figures prominently in medieval magic,” Richard Kieckhefer, a professor of religious studies at Northwestern University, told Live Science in an email. 

He noted that the other prayers engraved on the brooch were common religious prayers at the time. “What I would want to emphasize is that this sort of combination of ‘religion’ and ‘magic’ is not unusual,” Kieckhefer said, noting that the mixture of religious and magical meanings would have given the brooch special powers in the eyes of the person who created it. 

The Hebrew initials for “AGLA” were “very commonly used in magic, from high ritual magic to protective amulets and charms,” Frank Klaassen, a history professor at the University of Saskatchewan, told Live Science in an email. “It is one of many divine names or words of power common in medieval traditions.” 

But why would someone wear such a brooch?

“Wearing Bible quotes like this was sometimes done as a way of protecting a person against misfortune,” such as fire, sudden death or supernatural forces such as demons, Catherine Rider, a professor of medieval history at the University of Exeter in the U.K., wrote in an email. “It’s hard to be sure that it’s magical — it’s perhaps more in a grey area between what we’d see as magic and religion.”

Given the brooch’s small size and mention of the Virgin Mary, the person wearing it may have been a woman. With its “small, though elegant, size, I would guess it was used on a woman’s garments of some light fabric,” Karen Jolly, a history professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, told Live Science in an email. “This woman was of sufficient means to have the object or have been given it. Whether she was literate or not, she would know what it said and what it meant,” Jolly said, adding that perhaps the brooch served a protective purpose related to pregnancy and childbirth. 

The brooch, with its tiny engraved inscriptions, was well crafted. “My main reaction to the brooch is that it was made by somebody who was highly skilled and that its first owner, at least, was a pious person who recorded on it both devotion to the Virgin and a charm to protect them against various threats,” Anne Lawrence-Mathers, a history professor at the University of Reading in the U.K., wrote in an email. 

The brooch is now going through the Treasure Act, as required by British law. It’s a process by which a determination is made as to what will happen to the artefact. It may end up being placed in a local museum depending on a number of factors. For instance, one possible outcome is that the metal detectorist may be given a monetary reward and the artefact may be handed over to the government, which could place it in a museum.