The eastern cemetery of Roman London: analysis and publication project

Publication of Roman burials, particularly those in large urban cemeteries, has often lagged behind their excavation, and they have therefore been relatively unstudied by comparison with cemeteries of other periods. An opportunity to redress this balance has arisen for Roman London. Between 1983 and 1990 11 excavations and watching briefs took place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, immediately to the east of the modern City of London, in an area where antiquarian observations of Roman burials have been made since at least the late sixteenth century. These were rescue investigations in advance of commercial redevelopment, conducted by the Museum of London's former Department of Greater London Archaeology (DGLA), now incorporated in the Museum of London Archaeology Service (MoLAS). English Heritage has funded post-excavation assessment and analysis of the results of these excavations which are expected to be ready for publication next year, as part of a programme to assess and publish an accumulated backlog of work by the DGLA.

Roman London: excavations by MoLAS archaeologists at Prescot Street, London E1, the site of the eastern cemetery of Roman London

London was the largest, richest, and most populous settlement in Roman Britain, and its size and status ought to be reflected in its cemeteries. There were three principal places of burial outside the town, near the main roads to the west, north, and east on the north bank of the River Thames, as well as, more scattered, on the south bank of the river. The recent excavations uncovered a total of 672 inhumations and 134 cremations, forming the largest single sample of Roman burials in London, and one of the largest known in the country. They come from an area of about 21 hectares (51 acres), extending to the east of the town, south of the main road between London and Colchester. Analysis has demonstrated that they probably all belong to a single cemetery, the full extent of which cannot be estimated exactly, but could have contained well over 100,000 dead. This was in use from the first century AD to at least the end of the fourth century. The dead were buried in a series of enclosures or plots to either side of a minor road, which ran south-eastwards out of the town and through the cemetery. The excavations uncovered all or part of 29 such plots, divided by ditches, some of which predated the cemetery, enclosing fields and sometimes quarries for extracting the local brickearth.

The first burials can be dated to the end of the first century AD and seem to be well distributed among the excavated plots. The best evidence for a definite boundary to the cemetery suggests that burials did not extend uniformly up to the main London-Colchester road. In addition, the minor road through the cemetery is in line with a road inside the town, on a grid established in the late first century. This indicates extensive surveying and a degree of planning in the apportionment of land, as well as the existence of alternative land uses nearer the main road.

Roman London: examples of well-preserved glass vessels of first to third century date, from different graves in the cemetery

About one-third of the burials can be dated by the artefacts associated with them, and many of the rest can be assigned earlier or later dates by stratigraphic extrapolation from the dated burials. The earliest burials are mainly, but not exclusively, cremations. There was no dramatic change in burial practice, and cremation persisted for a considerable time alongside inhumation. Dating and phasing all the burials is problematical, but has been facilitated by developing a database of all information about the burials, such as osteology, associated artefacts, layout and other physical characteristics, and, to a lesser extent, associated animal bones and botanical remains. These data are themselves often the product of specialised analysis and interpretation. The distribution of the burials through time has been plotted as a cumulative frequency curve, and it has been possible to divide the burials - or more properly their respective date ranges - into successive discrete groups. For the purposes of this study the burials have been divided and their date ranges distributed among four successive periods, and by this means it is possible to trace broad trends in burial practice.

Roman London: a motto beaker from an adult's grave, which reads `utere' (`use me'), and is the only complete vessel of this type to have been found in London

Plans of every burial and of other features such as the road and plot ditches have been digitised in CAD, enabling their position to be plotted as an adjunct to the output of the database. It is possible to search for, and compare, evidence of spatial patterns and associations among the burials; for example, fowls buried with inhumations (recorded as chicken bones) were always put on the left side of the body. Other items, such as food vessels, hobnailed boots, coins, jewellery, and mirrors, may have been placed with a dead person as a sacrificial gift, marking the esteem in which the deceased was held and the social position of the bereaved, or to provide for the dead person's own wants on the journey into the afterlife and propitiate forces encountered on the way.

Most of the plots contained a remarkably heterogeneous assortment of burials, with a preference for certain rites being visible in only two or three plots. Again, most plots were used throughout the life of the cemetery and many of them were used intensively. In one plot a large spread of cremated bone and debris was recovered, dated to AD 90-120. This does not appear to have been the site of any actual cremation, but rather a special dump onto which the remnants of cremations conducted nearby were swept, after the material for burial had been extracted. This debris contains the very partial remains of at least 20 individuals, together with fragments of food and objects of metal and glass burned on the pyre.

Occasionally substantial tomb structures survived, at least at the level of their foundations. Elsewhere, certain cremations were surrounded by postholes, indicating the existence originally of some protective or commemorative structure. The original ground surface in the cemetery almost never survived, and evidence for the appearance of the cemetery above ground, or for post-burial rites, is either missing or much disturbed. Fragments of funerary inscriptions were found, broken and reused in a later structure.

About 75 inhumations contained a deposit identified as crushed chalk, of uncertain significance. These burials are among those orientated north-south as well as west-east, and include grave goods, so they are not interpreted as Christian. One or two were enclosed in lead coffins, like some of the burials that had come to the notice of antiquarians. Among the many objects interred with both inhumations and cremations, to be displayed in a redesigned Roman gallery in the Museum of London opening at the end of 1995, are examples of glassware of high quality, as well as several other notable objects, including a bone pyxis, a motto beaker, pipeclay figurines of Venus, and pendant heads of Medusa. The pottery includes many excellent examples of third-century wares that are rarely found in excavations of the Roman town or elsewhere.

Roman London: a bone pyxis and a glass bowl, in an unusual combination of form and colour, both from a child's grave of late Roman date. The pyxis is 40mm high

A great deal of information has been extracted from the cremated remains as well as from the inhumations, but the demographic and pathological evidence must be interpreted with caution, as it comes from a very small sample of the total population and it is by no means certain that only the inhabitants of the town were buried here. At least as many females as males were buried in the final period of use, for instance, contrary to initial assumptions. As the cemetery may have continued in use into the fifth century AD, it therefore constitutes some of the latest evidence for life in London in the Roman period.