Museum news
The latest on acquisitions, exhibitions, and key decisions.
MOLA
The basilica in the the basement: Rediscovering the heart of Roman London
Traces of London’s earliest Roman basilica, where officials presided over the settlement’s legal, commercial, and administrative affairs c.2,000 years ago, have been revealed beneath a City office block. Sophie Jackson told Carly Hilts about the discoveries.
Section of Watling Street uncovered in London
A section of Watling Street – one of the most important roads in Roman Britain, running from Dover (Dubris) to Wroxeter (Viroconium Cornoviorum) via London and St Albans – has been uncovered during excavations in Southwark. Traces of the route,…
Examining a shackled Roman burial at Great Casterton
The skeleton of a Roman man with iron shackles locked around his ankles has been described as ‘perhaps the most convincing candidate for the remains of a Roman slave yet to be found in Britain’. Current Archaeology's Carly Hilts reports on recently published analysis illuminating this unique burial.
Northampton’s chequered history: uncovering Britain’s first medieval chess workshop
Excavation in Northampton town centre has revealed the remains of a 12th-century bone-working workshop that yielded not only antler offcuts and other echoes of industry, but a number of high-quality chess pieces that had been discarded at different stages of their manufacture. With a monograph describing the finds in more detail having just been published, Rob Atkins tells us more about this unprecedented discovery.
The monastery before the market: Spitalfields’ medieval chapter revealed
St Mary Spital was London’s first religious house founded by Londoners. Between 1197 and 1539, the Augustinian priory flourished, developing from a small roadside hospital into a large institution serving the capital’s poor and sick – a story brought to light by almost two decades of excavations, as Susan M Wright reports.