This one received quite a bit of press attention this past week … conservators at the Museum of London have (painstakingly, no doubt) reassembled a Roman millefiori bowl which was found with a burial thought to come from the cusp of the second/third centuries. Some snippets (the journalists seems unsure how to spell millefiori and have caused me to question my own spelling, alas):
Curator Jenny Hall dixit (in the Evening Standard):
“This find indicates an important person was cremated.
“The fact they placed these objects suggests significant money was involved.
“In the first and second centuries AD the fashion was more for cremations, then later it changed more to burials. This seemed to have taken place around the time the fashion was changing.
“The dish was certainly made abroad as the skill to make it did not exist here. The owner would have regarded it as one of their most valuable possessions. It may have been a traded item, or brought by someone coming from where it was made – possibly Italy or further afield. Londinium was a real cultural melting pot.”
She adds (in Reuters coverage):
“For it to have survived intact is amazing. In fact, it is unprecedented in the western Roman world … We are still checking out whether there are similar examples surviving in the eastern part of the empire, in ancient Alexandria for example, but it’s the only one in the West.”
Conservatrix Liz Goodman told AP:
“Piecing together and conserving such a complete artifact offered a rare and thrilling challenge … We occasionally get tiny fragments of millefiori, but the opportunity to work on a whole artifact of this nature is extraordinary.”
Guy Hunt — one of the archaeologists working at the site — gives an idea of its extent (in Reuters):
“No-one knows how big the cemetery really is. Some think it could be up to 16 hectares (40 acres), disappearing under roads and buildings.”
… so I suspect we’ll be hearing of more finds from this site …
- Found in London: Roman bowl you could eat dinner off after 1,900-year-old (Evening Standard … best photo)
- Rare Roman dish goes on display (Press Association)
- Unique Roman glass dish found at London grave site (Reuters … includes a slide show of the site)
- Archaeologists make ‘unprecedented’ Roman find (Reuters … Canada.com)
- Rare Roman glass dish goes on display in London (AP … Denver Post)
- Museum reassembles ancient Roman dish (AP … Herald)
- Unique Roman Glass Dish Discovered At London Grave (Science Daily)
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