A Roman temple in sight of the Millennium Dome
Greenwich
12 March 2000

The Time Team dig gets under way in Greenwich Park, the oldest of Britain's royal parks and birthplace of Henry VIII:

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Henry VIII was born there, Elizabeth I played in its gardens and the meridian line runs right through it. Greenwich Park, in sight of the Millennium Dome in south London, is the oldest royal parkland in Britain, having first been enclosed in 1433. That means that, despite later landscaping, many archaeological features remain there, untouched by the buildings and other developments that have covered up most of the rest of London. Various earthworks are readily visible within the park boundaries, including a large number of Saxon barrows and a mound, surrounded by iron railings, that has long been associated with Roman remains on the site.

These remains were the subject of excavations during 1902-3. But all that was visible to visitors almost a century later were a few Roman tesserae, or mosaic fragments, stuck together in a clump of concrete. The precise locations of the three trenches dug at the beginning of the 1900s had not been properly recorded, and many of the finds made at the time had since disappeared. Nevertheless, enough had been discovered then to indicate the presence here of an important Roman structure. One of Time Team's principal objectives was to try to find out what it was.

The previous week's programme in search of King Offa's palace at the Suttons, near Hereford, had seen the Team's long-suffering geophysics surveyors joshed over their inability to give Phil a quick and exact location in which to dig his trench. One of their difficulties – that the long, wet grass was interfering with the megnetronomy results – led to one unkind visitor to the Time Team website forum asking whether this was geophysics' equivalent of Railtrack's 'wrong leaves on the line' type of excuse. Greenwich delivered further grist to the mill of those who like to tease John Gater, Chris Gaffney and Co when the geofizzers declared that on this occasion their readings were being upset not only by the metal railings that surrounded the few visible Roman remains, but also by the fact that the ground was too dry. 'Let's hope for rain,' they announced, to the general dismay of the rest of the Team.

Victor painting a wet plaster fresco, typical of Roman decoration.

An example of a high-denomination Roman gold coin – brought to the Greenwich dig by a member of the public.

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The railings were taken down, but nothing could be done about the dry ground. This resulted in Chris Gaffney resorting to an unorthodox, but effective, method of locating the line of Roman walls beneath the surface. This involved tapping on the ground with an upturned pickaxe and judging the presence of stone beneath the surface by the change in sound. Meanwhile, some cynics questioned whether geophysics was needed at all, since the 'parch marks' in the grass provided clearly visible evidence of underlying structures anyway. 'Just dig on the dry bits,' as Tony Robinson's new archaeological dictum had it.

These marks indicated the presence of a substantial rectangular structure on the site. The nature of the finds made in 1902-3, which included more than 400 coins, high-quality pottery and statuary, had also suggested some sort of high-status building. Time Team wanted to confirm that the rectangular structure was indeed of Roman origin, and to find out whether the building had been a temple, a villa or a military or other establishment.

Two finds in particular, both made on the third day, were to provide important evidence. A Roman roof tile was found in Trench Two, which had been set up under Carenza's supervision on the line of the rectangular enclosure and soon revealed a Roman wall not far beneath the surface. The tile was inscribed with the letters PPBR, standing for Procurator of the Province of Britannia. The beginning of the letter L, which also appeared on the edge of the tile, was thought to stand for Londinium. The procurator was the second most important official in Roman Britain, responsible for much of the province's finances, military supplies and transport. The presence of his stamp on the tile indicated that there had been an important public building on the site associated with Roman London.

An even more significant find was made in the small Trench Five, on the west side of the mound. This comprised a piece of broken limestone on which the letters MIN and ILIV could be made out in two rows, one above the other. A further three letters CVS formed part of a third row underneath. The presence of the letters MIN led to immediate speculation that it referred to the Roman goddess Minerva. One of Time Team's Roman experts, Guy de la Bédoyère, was called upon to feed the letters into his computer database of inscriptions from Roman Britain to identify the words in which they appear most often.

Minerva turned out not to be the most likely word. Rather the inscription in which the letters MIN were most likely to be found was determined to be ET NUMINEB AUG, referring to the spirits or deity of the emperors. The letters ILIV were most likely to be found as part of the name CAECILIVS, and the letters CVS as part of the name PRISCVS. Both were common Roman names and Mark Hassall, Britain's foremost authority on Roman inscriptions, explained that the stone had probably been part of a dedication to the gods, perhaps placed there by a wealthy patron by the name of CAECILIVS PRISCVS.

Whatever the exact explanation, the discovery added weight to the other evidence from this and the 1902-3 excavations that this had been the site of a Roman temple. Because of its location on high ground on the line of Watling Street, the main Roman highway from Canterbury and the south east, it would have formed an important and readily visible landmark as that road approached London.

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Resources

This website contains links to other websites which are not under the control of and are not maintained by Channel 4 Television. Channel 4 Television is not responsible for the content of these sites and does not necessarily endorse the material on them.

Museum of London
London Wall
London EC2Y 5HN
Tel: 020 7600 3699
Information line: 020 7600 0807
Website: www.museum-london.org.uk/
Email: info@museumoflondon.org.uk

As the name suggests, this is the museum of London with a wide range of well-presented displays and exhibits from all periods of the city's history. Located on the site of the old Roman wall, part of which is visible within the museum grounds, it is the world's largest urban history museum with more than a million objects and Europe's largest archaeological archive. The Roman collection comprises some 47,000 objects, the great majority of which were recovered during building operations in the City of London, Southwark and nearby areas in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Around two thirds of this collection comprises what is probably the largest collection of Samian ware in the country.

Roman exhibits on display include tools, weapons, coins, metal, pottery and leatherwork (including the famous leather 'bikinis'), various everyday items, complete mosaics, tombstones, an altar to the goddess Isis and detailed marble carvings – among others, a marble head of the goddess Mithras and a sacrificial scene depicting Mithras slaying a bull, both recovered during the excavations of the Mithraeum, or Temple of Mithras. The most recent exhibits include the 'Spitalfields princess', which featured in the BBC's Meet the Ancestors series and whose body was found in a lead-lined stone sarcophagus during the excavation of a building site in 1999.

Other digs organised by the Museum of London and highlighted in its displays include one in Southwark, in which the secrets of Roman Londoners are revealed through their rubbish pits and wells, and another in which a Roman pottery workshop was discovered in the heart of the City of London. Articles about these and other excavations can be found in the museum's free newsletter, Archaeology Matters, which is published six times a year.

Other websites

Time Team has carried out a number of other investigations into Roman sites in Britain, details of which can be found in the Archive section of this website. From past series, these investigations include the 1997 live dig on the site of a Roman villa at Turkdean, in Gloucestershire. As well as a detailed report on the dig, our special web pages for that programme include a chronology of Roman Britain and a wide range of other links and resources. Time Team returned to Turkdean as part of its 1999 series, which also included another programme based around a Roman settlement next to a fort at Papcastle, in Cumbria. The 2000 series includes an excavation of Roman remains at Cirencester and at Birdoswald on Hadrian's Wall. All of these pages contain further information and extensive links to Roman-related websites.

Other websites that may be of interest include, at www.roman-empire.net, the online 'Illustrated Guide to the Roman Empire', which bills itself as 'the leading web resource on Rome'. That claim may be debatable but the site certainly contains extensive information on the subject, including a detailed history, timeline, interactive maps, quiz, frequently asked questions and a great deal more. Well worth a visit.

For those interested in discovering further information on Roman coins, several dozen of which were unearthed during Time Team's excavations at Greenwich, two sites in particular may be of interest. The commercial site www.oldromancoins.com offers hundreds of ancient coins, antiquities and books for collectors and hobbyists interested in Roman and Greek and other coinage. And at www.romanrepublicancoins.com the Roman Republican Coin Project displays Roman Republican coins with information about each coin and what happened in the Roman Republic when it was minted. Although the website covers a period prior to the Roman occupation in Britain, and is meant to inspire interest in Roman Republican history through the enjoyment of Roman Republican coins, it is a valuable educational project worth a visit by anyone with an interest in Roman coinage. The site represents an ongoing project, which aims ultimately to document every coin minted by the Roman Republic.

If your appetite for information about Roman history on the web has not been sated, the Open Directory Project, the archaeology section of which is maintained by Time Team Forum regular Jean Manco, has further links to Roman-related websites. These include a section on various Roman sites and monuments in Britain. It can be accessed directly at http://dmoz.org/Science/Social_Sciences/Archaeology/
European/British/Sites_and_Monuments/Roman/

Another Time Team Forum regular is behind a club on Roman Britain, set up specially to discuss the history and archaeology associated with this furthest outpost of the Roman empire. Visit it at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/romanbritain.

And finally, a special mention for Peter Green's exceptional website dealing with the Roman army in Britain at www.morgue.demon.co.uk, which provides a comprehensive guide to its forts, watchtowers, temporary camps, depots and industrial sites, with photographs and other background material on the army and military history of Roman Britannia. The site's general reading list of the history of Roman Britannia and its Roman military bibliography of Britain are both very good, as are its links to other Roman-related websites.

Books and maps

Ordnance Survey Historical Map and Guide to Roman London (Ordnance Survey) £6.25
This map and guide graphically highlight the known and surviving features of Roman London superimposed on the modern detailed street map. Visible remains are pinpointed and the London Wall Walk is also indicated. The guide includes a brief descriptive history with explanatory diagrams. The map is further augmented by numerous colour illustrations of important finds that can be seen in the Museum of London.

Ordnance Survey Historical Map and Guide to Roman Britain (Ordnance Survey) £6.25
This Ordnance Survey new map and guide incorporates the advances that have been made in our knowledge of Roman military sites, roads and place names in recent years. The information is portrayed for the first time against a background of modern Britain. The map, which covers the whole of Great Britain is printed with North and South Britain back to back and includes a comprehensive index of sites, photographs and a chronological table. Informative text describes the construction and layout of both Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall, with a list of the best-preserved parts to visit or view. The text also gives an insight into settlements, amphitheatres and temples, as well as industry and mining.

Roman London by Jenny Hall and Ralph Merrifield (HMSO Books) paperback £6.95
Although the origins of the Roman city await discovery, much is now known from archaeological evidence about the development of Londinium. This handbook in 48 pages graphically describes the history of Roman London and forms an essential companion to the Ordnance Survey map of Roman London. The fabric of the city is reconstructed, with explanatory maps and diagrams, to reveal the great public buildings, the port, the city wall and evidence of domestic houses and shops. The way of life of London's earliest-known urban population is vividly portrayed by full colour illustrations of the objects of personal artefacts that have been found in London, many of which can be seen in the Museum of London.

The Temple of Mithras, London by John D Shepherd, editor (English Heritage, 1998) paperback £20
Illustrated account (illustrator N Griffiths) of Roman Londinium's temple to the god Mithras.

An Atlas of Roman Britain by Barri Jones and David Mattingly (Blackwell, 1993) paperback £15.99
An amazing accumulation of archaeological evidence has been used to map every aspect of Roman life on a countrywide scale, including the distribution of Roman forts, towns, villas, potteries and quarries. Lots of additional plans and useful descriptions on each topic.

The Finds of Roman Britain by Guy de la Bédoyère (Batsford, 1989) paperback £14.99
Written in non-specialist English, this is a well-illustrated guide to the various Roman finds from sites across the country, placing them within their social context.

Roman Britain by Tim Potter and Catherine Johns ('Exploring the Roman World' series, British Museum Publications, 1992) hardback £19.95
A survey of the effects of Roman culture on Britain and its people, by two British Museum curators. Includes evidence from the latest archaeological discoveries, including the Vindolanda writing tablets and the Thetford and Snettisham treasures, as well as a gazetteer of noteworthy sites to visit.

The Landscape of Roman Britainby Ken and Petra Dark (Sutton Publishing, 1997) paperback £10.99
A history of Roman Britain, considering the effects of human activity on the landscape, with particular attention paid to the Iron Age background.

Roman Britain by Martin Millett (English Heritage, 1995) paperback £15.99
Making full use of the archaeological material available, this introductory study of four centuries of Roman presence in Britain explores the central themes of daily life, laying particular emphasis on the social, economic and cultural history.

Vitruvius: On Architecture, translated by Frank Granger (Harvard University Press, 1996) hardback £12.95
Studied by architects from the Renaissance to the present, Vitruvius's book is an incredible DIY handbook ranging from recipes for plaster and paint to the aesthetic use of marble and the construction of siege engines. An invaluable reference for Time Team cameos and a guide to the styles and means of construction of Roman buildings that survive today.

Life in Roman Britain by Joan Alcock (Batsford/English Heritage, 1996) paperback £15.99
An excellent social history of life in Roman Britain covering food and drink, clothing, recreation, administration and religion. Richly illustrated.

Roman Coinage in Britain (Shire Publications, 1994) £4.99
A concise guide to coins from the Roman era in Britain.

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