Glossary of Latin words and technical terms

Amphora - Very large, two-handled pottery vessel for storage and transport of liquids

Forum - The civic centre in a Roman town incorporating the municipal council, courts and market

Guilloche - Decoration imitating braided ribbons

Hypocaust - Roman underfloor heating system

Imbrex (plural imbrices) - Curved ceramic roof tile

Mithras - A Persian god worshipped throughout the Roman world

Mortarium - Mixing bowl with pouring spout

Mudbrick - Hand-made clay bricks left out in the sun to dry and harden

Pelta - Shield-shaped decoration

Portico - A colonnade forming a covered passage or gallery around a Roman building

Samian - Bright red, high quality pottery made in Gaul

Tegula (plural tegulae) - Flat rectangular roof tile with lipped sides

Tessera (plural tesserae) - A small cubed block used to make a mosaic. Generally made of stone or pottery

Timber-framing - Method of construction where the structural frame is built of interlocking timbers and the spaces between are infilled with non-structural material such as wattle and daub

Tree-ring dating (sometimes termed dendrochronology) - A method of dating a timber by matching the widths of its annual growth rings with a calibrated master curve to give the felling date of a tree

Triclinium - Roman dining room

Via decumana - The main street running east-west in a Roman town

Walbrook - A small river which divided Roman London in two, flowing from the area north of Moorgate and Liverpool Street Station to join the River Thames at Dowgate

Wattle and daub - Thin branches (wattle) inter-woven and covered with mud or clay (daub)

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