EARLY ROMAN BURIALS

Evening Star, Issue 19786, 9 February 1928, Page 4

EARLY ROMAN BURIALS

FIRST CENTURY CEMETERY URNS WITH A HISTORY The first Roman cemetery discovered in London west of tho Fleet River has been found underneath the extension of tho ‘Daily Express’ offices in Shoe lane, This is an archaeological discovery of the first importance. The presence of lirst-century burials so far west of London Bridge means that archaeologists and historians must reconsider their opinions on the growth and development of Roman London. Workmen digging 18ft to 20tt below tho modern ground level in order to sink foundations for new machine rooms came on rows of urn burials tightly embedded in tho clay. Many of them were in burial pits, three or four urns to each pit. The urns contained the calcined bones of Romans who were cremated in London more than 1,800 years ago,_ shortly after the foundation of the city following the oenpatiou of Britain under the Emperor Claudius. Unfortunately many of the urns had suffered severely from earth pressure, and when removed fell to pieces. Eight burials were taken out intact. The ‘ Daily Express ’ has presented the relics to the London Museum, St. James’s. In discussing the discovery, Dr Mortimer Wheeler, curator of the London Museum, said: “ Every day relics are being discovered during rebuilding which should go into safe custody. It does not matter which London .museum they enter so long as they are proserved. The which lollo’ws us will not find one stick nr stone of ancient London, because the modern buildings which arc going up all over the city have push'.”! down their foundations to the primeval clay. Relics of Roman London aic being discovered for the last time. Let us hope that all who find them will sec that they are preserved for tho benefit of the public. HIRST ROMAN CEMETERY. “This collection of burials is interesting for more than one reason,” continued Dr V heeler. “In the lirstplace is represents the first Roman cemetery found to the west of the old River |ri ec t-_iiltliuugh scattered burials have been found as far afield as Trafalgar sriiuu’C and Regent street. The Shoe lane urns are in many cases of first century date, and may therefore contain the remains of those who took part in the foundation of. London. Other urns are of third century date, and prove that the cemetery was long in use. “It- was probably an extension of the large Roman cemetery which stretched from the western end of Chcapside to the neighborhood of the Old Bailey. The fact that it extended to. the west side of the Fleet in the first century is new and remarkable evidence- of the growth of the Roman The burials were discovered by workmen in a great pit 18ft to 20ft below the level of modern London. They were driving down foundations lor now machine rooms, and had only a few feet to go before they struck the Ijoudon dnv. One of them noticed peculiar hard substances —* like iootballs covered in clay” as he expressed it, tio-lit.lv embedded in the side of the pit. 'Those were removed with rrroat care. When the clay and caked soil had boon washed away the urns -.vere revealed, full to the neck with brittle, calcined human hones. BONES DRY AND BRITTLE. The bones were dry and light as touchwood. Sections of vertebrae were plainly recognisable: so were kneecaps and fragments of large joint bones. There were, pci haps, twenty or more burials in the small space. Most of the urns had endured heavy earth pressure for centuries, and when the clay which held them together was dissolved they crumbled to pieces. The position of the burials suggested that only a small section of a great cemetery had been opened up. This cemetery may still lie beneath the buildings of Shoe lane and even further west. One of the most skilful archaeological restorers m the country took charge of the urns and subjected them to treatment. He managed to preserve eight perfect urns, with 'their contents. “It is perhaps the human interest of such a discovery which appeals most vividly to the imagination,” writes Mr H. V. Morton, in the ‘ Daily Express. When those urns were placed in position more than 1,800 years ago Shoo lane was a sloping great meadow on the banks of the Fleet, and eastward rose the first London, a little, busy, growing Winnipeg of the Roman Empire, its red-tiled roofs straggling down from London Bridge toward Ludgate Hill. It was, as yet, not circled by London Wall. SLAVES CHAIN!® TO GALLEY OARS. The docks were busy with galleys from Rome and Gaul. The streets were vivid with the polyglot crowds which Romo drew to her cities; Spanish cavalry setting out for St. Albans; an auxiliary legion of Belgians on the march for Colchester; a high civil official in his two-horsed chariot; negro slaves; Egyptian soothsayers: Jewish merchants; army contractors; jerry builders:-yellow-haired Gaulish fur merchants, and—who sljall deny it?—possibly a few Greek tourists wandering round the public squares, gazing at the statues of Caesar, commenting on the “quaintness” of the Britons and the pushful enterprise of the inevitable Rome. There wore still men Jiving who had seen Christ, and the slaves who sweated up river, chained to the galley oars, might even have brought the first whisper of Christianity to Lie young Roman city on Ludgate Hill. And as far away as the green meadow oh the slopes of the Fleet River the first citizens of Rome were being •unfed on funeral pyres, their bones collected and placed beneath the London soil in little

THE ' EVENING STAR.'

urns of grey pottery—the bones of the founders of London, Mr Hope writes; “I took up a handful of these brittle bones yesterday and wondered about them. W» ho a young Roman who had come to this cold end of the world to make his fortune, as young Englishmen go to Canada? Was he a merchant or a prospector who had followed the legions with the pbiiiso ‘ Trade follows the eagles ’ on lips? Possibly the bones were those of a woman—-a Roman wife who had followed her husband to Britain to die with tho cold sweep of the Thames before her and behind the bleak outline of tho Hampstead Woods, and nothing to remind her of Rome hut the creak of galleys coming up river with nows and wine and olives.” VISIONS OF FIRST LONDON. Alan or woman, those bones had known what it was to walk the streets of the first London; this man or woman had seen the legions fling London Bridge across flic Thames; had seen the sacred grove of Diana on Ludgate Hill; had heard the .stonemasons put up the first statue to Ca?sar in London as a sign that at last all the earth was circled by a Roman ocean. “ What is the message of these burials? They seem to tell us that within twenty or thirty years of her foundation London had grown so large that her citizens had to cross the Fleet River for their burial. It has always been considered that when Boadicca destroyed London in 60 a.d. the northwestern limit of tho city was the Cheapside to Old Bailey cemetery. These new burials suggest that this first London may have been much larger; that the boundary should be put forward as far as Shoe lane. “ They tell us that London was an instantaneous commercial success; a mushroom city full of vigorous initiative; a city which within the first few years of her foundation grew like a Canadian town in which thousands of men have suddenly seen a new and profitable means of livelihood.”