Archaeologists from the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) have assembled thousands of fragments of 2,000-year-old Roman plaster, discovered in 2021 at a construction site in Southwark, south London. The find is one of the largest in the city's history: the wall paintings adorned at least 20 walls of a magnificent building, which, according to scientists, may have been a luxurious villa or guest house.
The frescoes are striking in their detail: musical instruments, birds, flowers, fruits, and candelabras. One of them — about 5 meters by 3 meters — has a light pink lower part with specks that imitate marble and bright yellow panels with green borders. Among the images are lyres, white cranes, daisies, and a plant resembling mistletoe.
On one of the fragments, researchers found the Latin word "Fecit" — "made," which usually accompanied the artist's signature, but the name, alas, is lost. The archaeologists hope that the missing piece with the signature will be found among the remaining debris.
According to the team, the find sheds light on the luxurious lifestyle of the Roman elite in Londinium. The Southwark area, where the frescoes were found, is called by researchers "the Beverly Hills of Roman London" — a wealthy and fashionable suburb of the time.
"It's like the world's most difficult jigsaw puzzle," says archaeologist Han Li. "You have to be extremely careful: the fragments can only be joined a few times before they start to deteriorate." This work reveals not only artistic tastes but also the historical scale of the Roman presence in ancient London.