Discovering people: in detail
at Spitalfields market

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Tudor gold found at Spitalfields shows that the site has been a busy place for hundreds of years

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Map of Londinium

Where was the cemetery?

The cemetery was outside the city walls next to Ermine Street, the main road north, as Roman law demanded.

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Pots placed in the grave, possibly to contain offerings or supplies for the afterlife, Plantation Place, Fenchurch Street

What did the archaeologists find?

Most of the graves were aligned east-west in neat rows. This suggests that the cemetery was well organised with markers to show where the burials were.

Coffin nails sometimes showed where coffins had been, though the wood itself had not survived.

Archaeologists found grave goods in some of the graves. Three contained small pots, one a pair of hobnailed boots and another had shale and copper bracelets. One person had been buried with a pot containing a chicken. It's hard to know whether burial rites were due to religion, superstition, tradition or fashion. Grave goods could have been religious offerings or personal possessions.

The Spitalfields cemetery has been known about since about 1576, and many of the burials had been robbed. Archaeologists were impressed that the Roman woman in her lead and stone coffins was undisturbed.