Photo: Collected

LONDON, June 19, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Archaeologists have unearthed one of the 
largest collections of painted Roman wall plaster ever found in London and 
painstakingly pieced the fragments together, they said Thursday.

The plaster, which was discovered on a construction site in 2021, once 
decorated around 20 internal walls of a high-status early Roman (AD 43-150) 
building in Southwark, south of the River Thames, the Museum of London 
Archaeology (MOLA) said.

The plaster was found dumped in a large pit, having been smashed into 
thousands of pieces during Roman demolition works that took place some time 
before AD 200. 

MOLA Senior Building Material Specialist Han Li has spent the last three 
months laying out the fragments and reconstructing the designs.

"This has been a once in a lifetime moment, so I felt a mix of excitement and 
nervousness when I started to lay the plaster out," he explained.

"Many of the fragments were very delicate and pieces from different walls had 
been jumbled together when the building was demolished, so it was like 
assembling the world's most difficult jigsaw puzzle. a

"The result was seeing wall paintings that even individuals of the late Roman 
period in London would not have seen," he added.

The reconstruction revealed bright yellow panel designs decorated with images 
of birds, fruit, flowers, and lyres not seen for 1800 years. 

Among the fragments is evidence of a painter's signature, although their name 
is not among the pieces, as well as unusual graffiti of the ancient Greek 
alphabet.

Another fragment features the face of a crying woman with a Flavian period 
(AD 69-96) hairstyle.

The construction site has already yielded mosaics and a rare Roman mausoleum.