B A R B I C A N L I F E
Well preserved leather
Roman carabatina shoe. © MOLA
A remarkably preserved Roman woven basket
being excavated at the Walbrook site. Photo © MOLA
evidence of wealthy lifestyles. These include fragments of wooden furniture such as legs, spindles, lion paw table supports and fancy cabinet doors, many of which are unique because the water logged conditions have enabled the preservation of objects not found elsewhere in the Roman empire. One novelty is a sea sponge mounted on a stick and kept in vinegar – the Roman equivalent of toilet paper. Other items include oil lamps made in the Lyons area, objects of amber and high status tableware. As well as housing the banks of the Walbrook also supported a variety of industrial processes. One was metal working. Metal finds are often well preserved in waterlogged conditions because the lack of oxygen means that there is little corrosion but objects are often found in pieces. An unusual metal find has been six pieces of copper alloy decorated in red, white and blue enamel which would have formed part of a hexagonal flask used for perfumes, oils or unguents. The decoration is similar to the Celtic art of Britain. Only about a dozen are known from the whole Roman Empire and nearly all those have been found in Britain suggesting that this British influenced design was made here and exported. Other metal finds include copper-alloy sheets and miscast and incomplete metal objects
such as enamelled mounts, military belt buckles and fitments for armour. A small head of the god Bacchus, cast in one piece, probably came from a Roman vessel called a “trulleum”, a pan with a handle looking rather like a modern saucepan. It was
Colchester. These objects would have been easy to transport away from the Walbrook valley by boat. The water also preserved fabric
and leather goods. Soft furnishings, bags, wicker baskets and rope have been found together with the largest quantity of Roman leather ever found in London. This includes 250 shoes, not just caliga, the sandal-like boot associated with the military, but flip flops, cork soled shoes to
protect the feet from the heat of a hypocaust, and slippers or shoes with
probably imported from Italy. Excavations in the Walbrook
valley in 1999 provided the first evidence of large scale Roman pottery production in the area. On that occasion at least six pottery kilns, workshops and associated features were found from the 2nd century. Also found were rare ceramic vessels of unusual shapes which contained residues suggesting some kind of industrial process. The recent excavations found broken moulds for ceramic oil lamps suggesting that they were manufactured here too. Such lamps were very fashionable after the Roman conquest. Similar lamps were found at a workshop in Roman
enclosed toes. Until now it had been assumed that Londinium was mostly a male, military society because most of the Roman cemeteries seem to have held male bodies. But these shoes are in all sizes for children as well as adults so there must have been families living here too. And they made shoes from recycled materials; the seams of leather panels were trimmed to make sandals. The other major group of finds has
been of writing tablets. The wooden frames were made from silver fir, each page measuring about 140x110mm with a recess to hold black wax. They were bound in pairs with a cord, with the wax facing inwards to protect it. The message was scratched with a copper inlaid iron stylus to remove the wax and leave white wood exposed so the message would appear as white text on a black ground. A flat scraper was used to remove unwanted text. The wax has not been preserved but sometimes it is possible to read words scratched into the wood. 350 fragments of writing tablets have been found and it is hoped that it will be possible to read some of the messages. The excavations in Bloomberg
Place continued until the archaeologists hit London clay. No finds were made of objects between the 4th and 9th centuries. By the 4th century the area was in decline as the Romans abandoned Londinium and Britain. The Walbrook returned to its natural course and protected what remained of the Roman occupation until these fascinating discoveries were made1700 years later.
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