2,000-year-old Roman wall paintings unearthed in London
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.
© 2025 AFP
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
France 24
14 hours ago
- France 24
Cheap alms bowls imports hit Sri Lanka makers, monks
The village of Panvila has long been associated with craftsmen who produce the humble "paathra", the special bowl that forms part of the eight essentials donated to monks and which is used to ask for food. Thenuwara Badalge Sarath, 65, says he is the only blacksmith left in a village that once supplied much of the country. "When I learnt the craft from my father, there were more than 10 families in the neighbourhood who made these bowls," Sarath told AFP, while hammering a piece of scrap metal into a holy utensil. "Today, I am the only one keeping up the tradition. My son died recently in a road accident, and there is no one to carry on this line of work after I am gone," said the fourth-generation craftsman. He spends about a week producing a batch of five to six bowls from discarded steel barrels. He sells each for 600 rupees ($2), but competition from cheap imports is tough. "There are aluminium bowls that come from abroad. They are cheaper and lighter -- we can't compete," Sarath said at his village smithy, near the southern tourist resort of Hikkaduwa. Karma drives demand The Buddhist-majority nation of some 22 million people has just over 42,000 monks, but the demand for bowls is disproportionately high because of the positive karma attached to offering them to temples. Kirinde Assagi, a leading Buddhist monk, said the alms bowl forms part of the eight items for a monk to lead an ascetic life and spread the teachings of Buddha, along with two robes, a razor, a straining cloth, a needle and thread, and a belt. "The bowl is his livelihood. When a monk goes out begging with his bowl, he gets sustenance", Assagi said. "Because gifting 'ata pirikara' to monks brings enormous good karma, devotees clamour to donate this," said the monk, in reference to the eight-item package. At his Gangaramaya temple in the capital Colombo there were nine such packages donated within an hour one weekend. 'Mountain' of discarded pots Assagi says most of the bowls however are of poor quality, made out of aluminium and unfit to serve food in. In a storeroom at the back of his temple, there is a huge pile of bowls that monks say are not suitable even for offering food to household pets. "I will show you a mountain of begging bowls that we have discarded. We make holes at the bottom and repurpose them for potted plants." Monks in Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos traditionally seek alms every morning, underscoring their simple life and demonstrating that their livelihood depends on others. But the influx of cheap bowls is impacting the dawn ritual. "We see the practice of monks begging slowly dying off as the quality of the bowls goes down," he said. The Gangaramaya temple in Colombo has campaigned to improve the quality of utensils offered to monks and revive the ritual of seeking alms. Assagi said the Thai royal family has in recent years gifted more than 27,000 high qualitiy stainless steel bowls to Sri Lankan monks, most of whom are followers of the Siam sect of Buddhism practised in that nation. Unlike the financially well-off Gangaramaya, smaller temples are known to sell their excess bowls back to the market in a move that undermines traditional craftsmen such as Sarath. "When the bowls go back to the shop from a temple, we find it difficult to sell our produce," Sarath said. He is trying to convince devotees that there is less merit in offering bowls that are being regifted.
AFP
14 hours ago
- AFP
Video shows hospital in Lebanon, not hostel struck in Air India crash
"CCTV footage from BJ Medical College Hospital captures the terrifying moment an Air India plane crashed into the hospital premises, bursting into flames in just seconds," reads the caption of the shared June 14, 2025 on Facebook. The compilation shows an explosion near a building that showers an adjacent car park with rubble. Shots from what appears to be the inside of the building show people taking cover as the ceiling collapses. Superimposed text in the top-left corner reads "srhuhospital", and a logo with the initials "SRHUH" appears in the bottom- . The footage circulated two days after a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London ploughed into a residential area of India's Ahmedabad city (archived link). The fiery crash killed all but one of the 242 passengers and crew on board, as well as at least 38 people on the ground. Image Screenshot of the false Facebook post captured June 16, 2025 The same video also spread in similar Facebook and X posts. While Air India flight 171 did crash through a hostel for medical staff from a nearby hospital, leaving its tailpiece jutting out of the building's second floor, the video has circulated online since . A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the video led to the same footage posted February 5 on Instagram by the Lebanon-based Ragheb Harb University Hospital (archived link). The clips appear in a longer video detailing the hospital's restoration after being damaged. The "SRHUH" logo and "srhuhospital" are visible in the Instagram page's bio. Image Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (L) and the Instagram video from February, with elements highlighted by AFP Images of the hospital on Google Maps also correspond to the footage circulating online (archived link). Image Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (L) and an image of the hospital on Google Maps, with similarities highlighted by AFP local media reports and a post on the hospital's Facebook page, the hospital was damaged in November 2024 (archived here, here and here). At the time, border clashes between Israeli forces and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah had escalated into all-out war (archived link). A US-mediated ceasefire requiring Hezbollah to withdraw its fighters from the border strip ended the war in November 2024. Israel has repeatedly bombed Lebanon since the ceasefire went into effect, with no response from Hezbollah. previously debunked false claims that the clip shows an Iranian strike on Israel. More reporting on misinformation about the Air India crash is available here.
France 24
a day ago
- France 24
2,000-year-old Roman wall paintings unearthed in London
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. © 2025 AFP
