Imagine London, not just as a bustling modern metropolis, but as a giant historical lasagna, with layers of time baked into its very core. This is the fascinating reality for archaeologists in the UK's capital, where every dig unveils a new slice of history. As Professor Alice Roberts, a TV presenter and academic, aptly puts it, excavating in London is like navigating this layered Italian dish, with everything from prehistory to Victorian times buried beneath our feet.
Thanks to the constant evolution of London, with buildings constantly being replaced, archaeologists are granted brief windows into the past. Recent years have been particularly fruitful, with discoveries including what's believed to be London's earliest theater and the city's first basilica. But here's where it gets controversial: A dig in 2021 near the Shard revealed a rare mausoleum and a luxurious Roman villa.
This is just a glimpse of what's featured in the new BBC Two series, Digging for Britain. The show highlights the exciting discoveries as they emerge. One of the most captivating finds was 20 colorful frescoes, shattered into 10,000 pieces, unearthed from a Roman pit.
"We're seeing these new discoveries as they emerge out of the ground," Roberts explains. "We seem to have some quite rare pigments [on the frescoes] and there is a unique feature on one of the pieces, which is a signature, we think, of the artist who actually painted the fresco, so those details are always beautiful and extraordinary".
The Museum of London Archaeology (Mola) team carried out the dig. Sophie Jackson, the group's director of development, says that even though they knew they'd be working between two Roman roads, the pit and wall plaster came as a surprise. She says, "Working in London is just fantastic... it becomes very addictive because the sites are so brilliant."
But this is where the complexity of archaeology comes into play. Digging in London is unlike anywhere else. Centuries of history are piled on top of each other, forcing archaeologists to "undo time" and "unpack the site in the reverse order that it happened."
And this is the part most people miss: The waste discarded by people 2,000 years ago can be incredibly valuable. The construction of the European headquarters for the media corporation Bloomberg unearthed thousands of Roman artifacts, including what's thought to be the UK's oldest handwritten document. The site's richness was due to its location near a waterfront where Romans continuously dumped layers of landfill. "From that rubbish we were able to tell a huge amount about the changing population in London; that the earliest people tended to be coming from Gaul, from what is Germany and France now... you could tell by things like the brooches they were wearing," Jackson explains.
These discoveries, along with the one near the Shard, have sparked new ideas about Roman London's layout, suggesting it was divided into zones or quarters, with different nationalities residing in specific areas. "So there's a Gaulish tradition in north Southwark, while there are different groups to be found in different parts of the city," Jackson points out.
The sites for these digs are determined by development plans. Unsurprisingly, the historic core of London, within the Square Mile, is often the most productive area for archaeologists. Jackson says there's still so much she'd love to explore, like beneath Upper and Lower Thames Street. "It sits above Roman waterfronts so that road effectively protects a whole massive swathe of wonderful archaeology - and that would be early Roman waterfronts, medieval buildings, everything," she says.
Unfortunately for history enthusiasts, there are no current plans to dig a tunnel through that area. However, a recent Mola team excavation in Wapping revealed what senior archaeologist Alex Banks calls a "little microcosm of a whole community." The team uncovered building foundations, a school, houses, and even almshouses and a chapel floor.
In the former cesspits and brick-lined wells of the homes, they found countless objects, from glassware to pottery and clay pipes, spanning from Roman times to the Victorian period. These finds have offered new perspectives on an area once known as Sailor Town, which was previously thought to be overcrowded and dangerous. Instead, it was home to people from all walks of life.
Banks notes that archaeology isn't always as it's portrayed on TV. "Archaeology is often seen as being very nice, with excavations perhaps being a little bit slower and research-based... but we're not always using little brushes, we're using diggers, we're directing big machinery."
In 2024, Banks and his team made an extraordinary discovery: what is believed to be the first Roman bed found in Britain, unearthed during a dig at an ancient cemetery in Holborn. "We don't really have anything like it from Britain and even the Roman Empire in general... Finding furniture like that is very rare outside of somewhere like Herculaneum or Pompeii so to have it in a very muddy building site in central London is pretty amazing," he says.
The bed, after surviving in the dirt for almost two millennia, is now being carefully treated for further study and display. Jackson emphasizes the importance of this work. "Archaeology does lots of things: it gives a sense of perspective, it allows people to connect with the past in a very visceral way; you can see it and touch it... It's to make people aware of their place in London; it's a place that's existed for 2,000 years and we're part of this continuing story."
What do you find most fascinating about these discoveries? Do you think the way we dig up the past changes how we understand it?
