Hidden London: What lies beneath

This month's theme is Archaeology

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  Feeding the babies of Roman London

  What did babies eat in Roman London? How were they fed, or weaned? Just 60-150mm tall, these tiny vessels provide a rare insight into the culinary world of Roman infants and toddlers.

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  Of Victorian cravat pins and Cleopatra’s Needle

  How did a chip off a 3,500-year-old Egyptian obelisk, braving an arduous journey across the seas, wind up encased in silver as a 19th-century fashionable Victorian cravat pin?

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  Roman rubbish reveals lost Londinium

  The Walbrook, one of the lost rivers flowing beneath London's streets, is a time capsule of Roman Londinium. For over 170 years, archaeologists have dug astonishingly well-preserved artefacts of the ancient city out of the waterlogged earth of the stream.

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  Testy teeth! Dental interventions in 19th century London

  Of the 20,000 skeletons in the Museum of London’s collection recovered from archaeological excavations, we look at three sets of teeth, which provide fascinating insights into 19th-century dentistry.

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  Vinum Sulloniacis, the first British wine — in London!

  It’s common knowledge that the Romans brought wine-drinking culture to Britain. But who would have guessed that the first attempt to make British wine dates as far back as the 1st century CE?

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  Can you identify three mystery archaeological objects?

  The Museum of London's Archaeological Archive holds millions of objects excavated across the city, many of which present a puzzle to archaeologists. What did these objects- many incomplete, broken or decayed- look like, and what were they used for? Here are three archaeological mystery objects from our collections.

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  Havering Hoard: Why so many axes?

  The Havering Hoard is the largest Bronze Age hoard found in London and the third largest found in the country. Buried on the perimeter of a Late Bronze Age enclosure in the modern-day London borough of Havering, it comprises 453 bronze items. Discover more about this fascinating collection of items right here.

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  Reading between the lines: women on Roman tomb monuments

  The stories of women are often less well documented than the stories of men, and this is true of life in Roman London. Senior Curator Francis Grew turns to an unusual source – Roman tomb monuments – to tell us more about Londinium’s female residents.

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  The triple threat: this medieval toilet seats three

  Our 2019 Secret Rivers exhibition showcased the hidden waterways running beneath London's streets, and the objects excavated from them over the centuries. The most unusual was a remarkable communal toilet seat from the 12th century.

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  Bioarchaeological evidence for Black women in 14th century London

  How much do we know about the people who lived in medieval London? Human Osteology Curator Rebecca Redfern explains what skeletal remains from a burial site in East Smithfield can tell us about population diversity in London in the Middle Ages.

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  London’s prehistoric menagerie

  Woolly mammoths, elephants, hippos, and cave lions once roamed the fields and hills of London now populated with modern skyscrapers, bustling industry, and 9 million of us humans. The Museum of London’s Archaeology collections tell the story of London’s ever-changing animal population and reveal how our early ancestors lived alongside them.

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  The medieval mystery of the man in the mud

  A skeleton found buried face-down in the Thames mud, clad in heavy leather boots. How did he get there? What killed him? Who was the booted man? Archaeologists from MOLA Headland give us clues to answer a medieval mystery.

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  Big Beasts of London

  Jackie Keily, curator of Roman and pre-history, shares stories of the extinct big beasts of London: mammoths, rhinos and hippos.

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