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Found in London: Roman bowl you could eat dinner off after 1,900-year-old
Amar Singh29.04.09
It adorned the table of a wealthy merchant some 17 centuries ago. Now this glass dish, the first of its kind to be excavated in western Europe, is giving a fresh insight into the life of Roman London.
The astounding find comes from an archaeological dig at the site of a Roman cemetery in Prescot Street, Whitechapel. Discovered in September, it was in fragments held together by the soil around it, but now, after months of painstaking work, it has been restored to its former glory.
The intricately patterned dish, which is about 12 inches in diameter, is made using the ancient technique of millefiori, in which coloured glass rods are arranged in bundles so that the cross-section forms a pattern. Experts believe it was the prized possession of a Roman merchant or administrator whose cremated remains were uncovered beside it with other ceramic and glass vessels, two of which are likely to have held perfumed oil.
It has helped solved a few mysteries about the citizens of Londinium - but created new ones as well.
Museum of London curator Jenny Hall said: "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."
Londinium was founded in AD43, and thrived in the first and second centuries. At its peak, in AD140, it had 45,000 to 60,000 inhabitants, concentrated around what is now the financial centre.
It was one of the empire's most successful outposts but by the beginning of the fifth century, as the empire dwindled, the Romans left, returning to Italy.
Prescot Street has been excavated over the past 30 years. The dish, which is now on display at the Museum of London, came from an area at the eastern end of the site where there was also a stone mausoleum.
