Pagans of Roman Britain Stories from the Dark Earth: Meet the Ancestors Revisited

Right across Britain,

archaeologists are unearthing the relics of ancient lives.

But so much of modern archaeology is what happens after excavation.

Today, forensic analysis and cutting-edge science,

as well as brand-new finds,

are overturning what we once thought

about entire eras of our ancient history.

I'm Julian Richards, and over the years

I've been lucky enough

to have taken part in some of our most important digs.

You've not! A lead coffin?

Now I'm going back to some of my favourites

to discover the very latest stories of our most ancient ancestors.

No period of Britain's deep history

has left a greater legacy than the centuries of Roman rule.

Right from the moment of their violent invasion,

the Romans left their mark on this island,

shaping who we are today.

Even giving us our name - Britannia.

What often doesn't spring to mind

is late-Roman Britain, the fourth century AD,

when Rome had started to decline,

the world's greatest empire heading for extinction.

Now, as an archaeologist, it's these hidden bits of history

that really fascinate me, and the questions that they raise -

what was life like in the cities of Roman Britain

on the edge of a dying empire?

More than a decade ago, I took part in two remarkable discoveries

which offered the chance to find out more.

In 1998, I helped reveal a burial from Roman Winchester -

a local man who died early in the 4th century AD.

Now, over a decade later,

new science has challenged long-held assumptions,

changing our understanding of the world he lived in.

I've looked at a lot of decapitated burials,

and it's much more common

to find individuals where they've had their head chopped off.

Then, just a year later, a fantastically rich burial

of an aristocratic woman from 4th-century London.

Back in 1999, she seemed to be foreign,

a holder of unusual new beliefs.

But it's only now that new studies and a decade of research

have finally solved the mystery of just who she was.

It was just so exciting, I was...I was dancing around the room,

much to the amusement of the builders who were on the opposite roof.

Together, these two burials

have opened up windows into the lives and beliefs

of people who were living through some turbulent times.

It was an era of political instability

where usurpers and rebels vied for power.

And also, a time of spiritual uncertainty

where Christianity - a new religion from the East -

challenged traditional Roman values.

So I'm returning to these two finds

to see what science and archaeology have revealed

in the dozen years since they were unearthed.

By the 4th century, Roman influence had spread throughout Britain.

Roads had brought prosperity,

linking the countryside with its abundance of food

to the new towns and cities.

I've always been aware of one of those Roman towns in particular -

Winchester.

It's a civitas, or regional capital,

and one of the largest towns in Roman Britain.

So when, in 1998, I heard about excavation starting up

at the Eagle Hotel just to the north of the city,

I was very keen to get involved.

And now, more than a decade on from that dig,

I'm heading back to the city

to find out how our understanding

of 4th century Roman Winchester has moved on.

This is where we were digging all those years ago,

where we found our Winchester man.

The weather's certainly nicer than it was then

because it hailed, it snowed.

On top of that, the back wall of the hotel

threatened to fall into the site.

It was...quite challenging.

But I do remember being down one of the graves and getting very excited

about finding some Roman coffin nails,

when suddenly, we heard this shout

from over the other side of the site.

Let me take you back 15 years to 1998.

-Oh, wow!

-You've not!

A lead coffin!

Oh, you're joking!

'That shout was to mark the discovery

'of something very special.' Oh!

Just uncovering...what appears to be a lead coffin.

Just removing...

some of the stained chalk from around the edges.

-Does this mean you're working over the weekend?!

-Guess so!

This is a really great discovery, so I'm excited about it, yeah!

Despite well over a century of excavations,

only one lead coffin had previously been found in Roman Winchester.

But with a grave this deep,

we needed something bigger than our trowels.

After the JCB had done the heavy work,

we finally exposed the whole coffin.

It was aligned north-south, a Romano-British pagan tradition.

And there, in the gloom, was the rounded shape of a skull.

A week after it was first discovered,

the heavy coffin was finally lifted from its chalky resting place.

Now this is the moment of truth.

We peeked through the lid so we know there are SOME bones.

We still don't know if there's a whole skeleton. We'll find out!

-OK. You ready?

-ALL: Ready!

-I've got it!

Oh, bloody hell!

LAUGHTER

And there he was, as daylight spilled into the coffin

for the first time since the lid was closed,

over 1,600 years ago.

The fragile bones entombed in lead were those of a well-built man.

But then we came across something else.

Halfway down where the Roman's hand had lain...

was a coin.

Hopefully, eventually, we'll be able to identify that.

Nearly 15 years after the dig,

the remains of our man are now in the care of Winchester City Council.

This is our man from Winchester.

See, I remember the state of his bones when we found him.

Because of the lead coffin, they were peculiarly eroded -

all the surfaces were very flaky.

And of course, when we first opened that coffin,

we were all completely covered up in masks and suits

because we weren't sure

what the effect of all that lead was going to be,

because lead's very toxic,

but we now know that it's quite safe,

although I'm still wearing gloves

because that's a good idea when handling human bones anyway.

So these are some of his long bones that are better preserved.

But they've all got this peculiar flaky surface on them.

Rather strange bone growth with them as well.

All these sort of...they remind me of just how tall this chap was.

Oh, right, here's the...here's one of the thigh bones, a femur.

It's terrible condition, but it's big.

It's very chunky.

And actually putting that together,

that was what suggested that he was particularly tall,

he was about 5 foot 9", taller than me,

and tall for the time as well.

So somebody that gave us the impression as soon as we found him

that he was strong, chunky.

In some ways, typically British.

The Britons were famed for their strength and their height.

They made good slaves.

What's this? Box three. Ah!

OK. This is the skull.

Right.

Oh, yes.

That's...that's a very male skull - strong jaw,

prominent ridges over his brows,

big muscle attachments to the back,

a strong neck, a very powerful-looking man.

And of course, what we found out since then by looking at his teeth

is that he actually came from the Winchester area.

He was born on the chalk.

He was a bit of a Roman townie really.

A very British Roman.

-It IS complete, isn't it?

-Yes.

-Isn't that nice?!

'Back in 1998, his well-preserved skull provided a good foundation

'for forensic artist Richard Neave.'

Now, out you come, young man!

Now, that is a big, powerful skull, isn't it? My goodness!

A big mastoid process.

Quite a prominent chin.

Not particularly full lips.

Not a very deep upper lip.

'It was up to medical artist Denise Smith to rebuild every detail

'of our man's face.'

He's going to have quite a wide nose,

and...

..he may have a slightly heavier brow

making his eyes look more deep set.

But...er...he's going to have quite a strong, powerful face.

The reconstruction brought the dig team face-to-face with our Roman.

A man who was local, British and physically very strong.

And here's another strong, powerful face

that can tell us something about our man -

the impress on the coin that we found in the coffin.

Now, coins are great clues because not only can they tell us

about trade and about the spread of Roman influence,

but above all, they make great dating evidence.

What we had was a coin from the reign of Emperor Constantine,

issued around 313 AD.

What this tells us is that he had to have been buried after 313 AD,

the year that the coin was minted.

But it could have been in circulation in the markets

of Winchester for years before it ended up in the coffin.

The coin though provides us with more than just a date,

it marks a landmark, because the year before it was minted,

Emperor Constantine had converted to Christianity,

paving the way for this to become the official religion of the empire.

But ironically, our man certainly wasn't a Christian.

Not only was he buried in a North-South direction,

but this was in his hand.

The fare to pay the ferryman to take his soul across the River Styx

and into the afterlife.

All this points to good, traditional Romano-British paganism.

4th century Winchester was prosperous.

Our man would have walked its neatly laid-out streets,

worshipped at its temples,

and perhaps, enjoyed the pleasures of its public baths.

The man in the lead coffin tells us that by this time,

the locals had become fully Romanised.

A Briton here could become as wealthy and successful

as anyone from the empire.

but things start to get really interesting when we look

at other burials from the cemeteries around our Winchester man.

All Roman cities by law buried their dead outside their walls.

Winchester had several burial areas.

The largest of all lay to the north of the city

along a road leading to Cirencester.

I'm now right in the middle of that huge cemetery.

Our man was found in the road over there.

And the street at the top in medieval times,

was known as Bone Street, because every time you stuck a spade

in the ground, you would unearth the remains of some poor soul.

Back in 1998, I paid a visit to Steve Teague at the Historic Research Centre

to discover the extent of Winchester's Roman cemeteries.

This is what we currently understand

about the layout of the internal Street within the town.

-Can we have a more detailed look at the town?

-All right.

So where are we digging? Somewhere around here?

-Somewhere over here, yes.

-Oh, so it's just outside one of the town gates?

-Outside the defences.

-Yes.

-Just outside the city.

How many burials have you excavated in total, then?

In total, excavated and also and observed,

we are talking about around 1,000 burials.

-So this is one big burial ground here?

-Yeah.

-Just outside the city.

-And that's the area that we were digging in.

-Yes.

-That had about how many burials in? Altogether?

-It had 35.

-35 burials?

Just within that area!

Excavations going right back to Victorian times have revealed

dazzling arrays of grave goods.

Today, the content of hundreds of Roman burials

are stored in Winchester City Council's museums, which hold

arguably the richest 4th-century collection in the whole of Britain.

These are just some of the wonderful objects that have been found

in this burial ground.

There is everything here, from whole pots, fragile glass vessels,

to all of these objects of bronze, shale, jet. Absolutely wonderful.

Things like this, a beautiful bronze strap end

with a buckle at the end of it.

This, I think is wonderful.

A beautiful, very delicate shale bracelet.

It is so shiny you can hardly believe

that has been in the ground for over 1,600 years.

And these, crossbow brooches. This is so heavy.

So beautifully decorated,

it has even got an inscription around the side of it.

There is more of these been found in the cemetery

than in any other cemetery in Britain.

Now, a lot of these objects were excavated in the 1960s and 1970s.

And the archaeologist who studied them

came up with quite a controversial theory.

What he said was that a lot of these objects appeared to have been made abroad.

And that the way that they were placed in the grave -

the burial rite - looks like graves from the Roman province of Pannonia.

That's modern-day Hungary.

So what was being suggested was that provincial Winchester

was full of foreigners.

But just because we have got lots to go on,

it doesn't mean that we can't get it wrong.

Because what we thought we knew about many of the graves

a decade ago, has now completely changed.

In 2009, archaeologist Hella Eckardt completed

the largest isotope analysis of Roman Britain ever conducted.

By studying chemicals within the enamel of human teeth,

it is possible to identify where ancient people grew up.

Taking 58 unusual Winchester graves, the aim here wasn't just to discover

where individuals came from, but to sample an entire population.

Here is an example of a girl's grave,

where we can see that some of the grave goods are unusual.

So she had some very fancy beads, some of which are exotic.

Like these ones, these golden glass beads which are quite rare

and are often thought to be indicative of an incomer.

You also have these beautiful bracelets.

And this girl was actually wearing these bracelets in death

on her left arm,

so she had multiple bronze, iron and shale bracelets on her left arm.

And again, that is not a local burial rite.

-She must have been tiny, because these are really small bracelets.

-Yes, absolutely.

I think she was only five or six years old when she died.

And that's unusual, is it? To find a whole array of bracelets?

It would be relatively unusual in Britain, it would be more

common in Pannonia.

And that is certainly what the early excavators picked up on.

And she also had this headband.

The little bronze objects fitted onto a leather band

and you can still see on her skull, where it is discoloured,

that this is what she was wearing in death.

And again, that is not a very common thing to have.

So those are all archaeological indicators of an exotic origin.

So what does the science say?

What we did is, we looked at her teeth,

to try and get an isotopic signature.

What that allows you to do,

you then compare the signature of the individual

to what we define as the local range.

So everybody in the box, isotopically, would be local.

So you might expect, given that she has these exotic grave goods,

that she would come from somewhere outside the box,

but in fact, here she is, right in the middle of the box.

-So, the science says she's local?

-It does.

So our exotic girl actually, isotopically, looks local.

And then, if we look at the other examples that we have studied,

we have some people who earlier excavators thought were local

and they come from a climate that is more continental and colder,

so they are not local.

And we have other people who earlier excavators thought

were from Pannonia, but they are not, they are from all over the place.

So you have got some from colder climates, could be Pannonian,

but also some which are much warmer.

And you have two that could be local.

Science has now revealed that many of those old archaeological assumptions

about the grave goods are wrong.

It seems that early 4th-century Roman Winchester was far more

culturally complex than anyone had previously thought.

Is this just a question of getting the interpretation

-of the objects wrong?

-No, I think that this is...

The relationship between your biological origin

and your social origin is a bit more complicated.

Perhaps she was a second-generation immigrant.

Perhaps this girl was buried by one parent, or two parents,

who were from somewhere else.

And they still wanted to follow certain rites, but they were able

to buy some objects locally, where they were now living.

They have settled in Winchester.

And more generally, it just tells us that people do different things.

Some people blend in, some people stick to the ideas of their homeland.

So do you get an idea of an overall figure here,

how many incomers were there to Winchester at this time?

It's difficult to be sure, but our figures suggest that perhaps

up to 30% of people who we sampled were not local to Winchester.

So, Roman Winchester was a very diverse city with a population

drawn from all over the Empire.

A place where traders, soldiers, and perhaps even slaves

could settle, marry, and raise their families in this, their new home.

In 1998, we knew the burials we were excavating were Roman, but there was

always a discussion about where exactly these people had come from.

And now we know.

Because science has shown Roman Winchester to be an incredible

cultural melting pot.

And in the middle of it all, our man.

A man whose story seems quite simple and yet successful.

Perhaps a Romano Brit who has done well for himself.

Buried early in the fourth century in an expensive Roman coffin.

Back in 1998, though,

our excavation didn't just find the remains of only one man.

Just yards from the lead coffin, we unearthed other burials.

And they were very strange indeed.

Unlike our man, these people had been buried in very different ways

and perhaps has also ended their lives in different ways, too.

First, there were the remains of a child,

lying in a very unusual position.

You can tell this child is lying face down

because that's the back of the skull

and you can see the jaw coming down here, and the teeth.

So we know the face is down.

And also, if you look here, there is the backbone, and the arm bones.

But that is the shoulder blade there.

And you can see that the ribs are going underneath the shoulder blade.

So that must be the child's back.

But perhaps the oddest thing was the grave of a man whose head

had been removed and placed by his knees.

Archaeologists have been finding decapitated Roman skeletons

for years and the thinking had been

that they had their heads removed

after death as part of some murky ritual.

But new research is suggesting that things might not quite be what they seem.

Across town, osteo-archaeology is getting to grips with these strange

decapitation burials found not only in Winchester, but all over Britain.

When I was digging at the Eagle Hotel, Katie,

I remember digging a very odd burial.

-Somebody with their head by their knees.

-Yeah.

It's quite a common minority burial rite in Roman Britain,

they are called decapitated burials,

or decapitation burials.

Where you have the head not in the correct anatomical position,

but it has been placed elsewhere within the grave.

So as you can see, we have got a number of plans of burials here.

These are all from Winchester. Also you can see here...

That was where the one that I dug was. It was right down by...

It is, it is quite common between the lower legs

or the knees is quite a common position.

You can see again here, it's higher up, it's on the femur.

-So it's on the thigh. This one is by the knees.

-How widespread is it?

There's a handful of cases outside of Roman Britain,

but when we come into Britain itself, there's hundreds of examples.

Back in 1998, we thought this peculiarly British practice

was a burial rite.

But Katie's new study has revealed that many heads were removed

for more practical, earthly reasons.

So you can see, this individual here, this is from St Martin's Close.

You can see here there is a chop mark which has removed

the top of the second cervical vertebra and has also removed

part of the arch and facet of the first cervical vertebra.

So you can see the chop mark here. This is actually coming from behind.

You can tell this because the side of the bone where the blow has

actually come in, it is nice and clean in appearance.

And the opposite side, the bone has broken away as the blow has

-gone through the neck.

-So that is more of a distinct chop.

-Yes, this is a chopping blow.

-Right.

And do you know whether that happened

when that person was alive, or whether it was after they had died?

In this individual, I think this was probably how they died.

-This is what killed them.

-How can you tell that?

-Well, you can see...

This is all the same chop mark which has affected both vertebrae.

But in order to get those two cuts to line up,

you have to actually move the first cervical vertebra upwards,

-so the head would have been down onto the chest.

-Right.

But this is impossible to produce in a corpse

lying face down on the ground.

So this individual would have had to have been alive at the time that this was done.

So, does this imply execution?

I would think in this individual,

it is a good indication that this is probably an execution burial.

This research is suggesting that executions were more common

than we once thought.

But there is still the intriguing question of why the executed corpses

were buried in such unusual ways.

From the ethnographic evidence and from later medieval sources

and from evidence elsewhere in Europe, the most likely explanation

seems to be that it is a way of preventing hauntings.

Stopping undesirable individuals from being able to come back after they were dead.

Roman Winchester, with all its strange beliefs,

still lies hidden beneath today's modern streets.

But since our excavation over 15 years ago, new scientific

studies have transformed our understanding of this ancient world.

Back then, it seemed such a simple story.

Our wealthy man from Winchester was a classic Romano-British pagan

who died early in the 4th century AD. He was buried with

a coin to pay the ferryman to

take his soul across the River Styx into the next world.

But that coin had on it a portrait of the first Christian emperor.

A sign that our man's world was changing and that very soon,

Christianity would become the Empire's official religion.

Now we have discovered that late-Roman Winchester was

a place of extraordinary diversity.

People from all over the Empire came here and enjoyed its splendour.

As long as they toed the line.

The Empire ruled and those who broke its laws could expect to be

punished, sometimes severely, perhaps even by execution.

But in the background,

cracks were starting to appear in the Empire's authority.

The first signs that within a century of our man's death,

once-proud Winchester would start its slide into ruin.

For all the fascination of Winchester's Roman cemeteries,

I am leaving our pagan man behind.

Winchester might have been important, but it was Londinium that

was the commercial and administrative heart of Roman Britain.

And it was 14 years ago, at Spitalfields in east London, where

I took part in one of the most exciting discoveries of my entire career.

I have come 60 miles east to catch up with the latest developments

surrounding a remarkable grave,

this one dating from the middle of the 4th century.

About a generation or so after our Winchester man died.

In 1999, a team from the Museum of London started excavating

a huge medieval cemetery hidden beneath present-day Spitalfields.

But it wasn't only medieval mass graves that the team discovered.

There were earlier, Roman burials.

Including a massive stone sarcophagus.

LOUD BEEPING

-It's a pretty big signal, isn't it?

-It is.

Is it all the way along?

Yes.

I still think that's a good indication of a lead lining, don't you?

-It's possible.

-What else could it be?

This is the first time I have been back to Spitalfields since 1999.

I'm used to things changing a lot, but this is...very puzzling.

I'm trying to work out where the hell I am.

That's Bishopsgate down there so on that basis,

the old market must be behind that building.

So if that's the case,

and that's still there,

the burial must be somewhere underneath that!

People have been finding Roman skeletons at Spitalfields for centuries.

Now here, we are just outside Londinium.

But Roman burial law didn't allow anybody to be buried

inside the city walls.

So what happened, the cemeteries grew up alongside the roads

that led out in all directions.

This one is by the Northgate.

We're now trying to get the lid off without the thing falling to bits.

It's quite fortunate that it's cracked,

cos this smaller end will lift off, it only weighs about 200 kilos.

But the other bit will be a problem. That could involve the car jack.

Finding a sarcophagus was one thing, getting it open was quite another.

Can you get it up any higher on that side? ..There we go.

Is there a joke about how many archaeologists it takes to lift a sarcophagus?

What's the answer?

About 30 at the moment, I think.

29 to put the scaffolding tubes in and one to lift up the jack.

Finally, 30 archaeologists managed to move the lid.

Oh, look at that!

Can we get this back one out?

-Isn't that fantastic?

-Unbelievable.

I've never seen anything like this.

Not only is there this stone coffin, but a lead one inside it as well.

No wonder the metal detector gave such a strong signal. Fantastic.

I'm dying to see what's underneath...

'The signal had hinted at a major discovery.'

Now, that had been confirmed.

No sarcophagus complete with lead coffin had been

excavated in London since Victorian times.

But who had it been made for?

This is pretty exceptional,

probably someone important, and if we know who he is,

it fills a gap in our knowledge.

You're making the assumption that it's a HE. How can you be so sure?

I don't think we have any evidence

that women held high positions

in Roman society in England

in that period,

-so I slightly doubt it.

-Yeah.

But one has to keep an open mind,

because if I say, "It could never be a woman," it'll be a woman, won't it?

We did need to keep an open mind because there, from the earth

next to the sarcophagus, mysterious objects began to emerge.

These are objects made of jet

which are in the soil fill around the outside of the sarcophagus.

I'm not quite sure what they are yet,

but I suspect that they might be cosmetic implements,

which might give us an indication of the sex of the coffin's occupant.

It might be that we have a lady and these were objects she would've used.

It seemed that the Spitalfields discovery wasn't just

the burial of a high-ranking Roman but unexpectedly,

that of a woman who had lived and died in Londinium around 350 AD.

Coming back here again took me straight back to the dig,

the feeling of excitement and the sense that this was

one of those finds that would contain as many secrets as answers.

Finding that intact sarcophagus was one of those moments that

makes archaeology really magical for me.

Because suddenly, there is that immediate,

intimate contact with the past.

And as the lid came off and we saw that decorated lead coffin

and we found the objects of jet and glass,

suddenly we realised that we were on something really big.

Here, we had something that was so rich,

so special, that we thought we had a much better chance

of understanding not only the person but the world that they lived in.

And here, we had someone from a particularly interesting place and time.

Roman London, 4th century AD.

So I couldn't wait to see what happened when we got the coffin lid off.

Back in 1999, that huge, two-tonne sarcophagus

was lifted from the place where it had rested for the last 1,600 years.

Its next stop was the Museum of London and a meeting with the press.

We're very relieved that we've got it here in one piece.

It's been reasonably flat, with minimum disturbance to the coffin,

so we're hoping that it won't be disturbed too much inside the coffin.

Once safely in the museum, conservators began

the delicate task of removing centuries of stubborn London clay.

No-one could have guessed what it had been hiding.

The exciting thing was when we started to clean it and we saw what was underneath the soil.

We were so surprised, really.

We had no idea we'd get something as fabulous as that

on our coffins.

Revealed for the first time was extraordinary decoration.

Intricate patterns of rope and scallop shells.

At the time, the scallop shells, as well as the east-west alignment of

the grave, was suggested as evidence that this was a Christian burial.

And at last, after weeks of waiting, it was time to come face to face

with the occupant of this elaborate tomb.

Everyone ready? Lift on three.

-After one, two, three. Is everyone happy with that?

-Yup.

One, two, three.

And lower.

The bones are much better preserved that I'd have expected and quite small and slim.

What's your immediate impression?

My immediate impression is what's all the wet material?

Maybe this silt in the bottom has fixed the bones in position.

With such well preserved remains, forensic experts could create

a fittingly lavish reconstruction of our woman.

We can get some idea about the shape of the nose

from the shape of the bones around the nasal aperture.

For example, on this particular skull,

the nasal spine slopes slightly downwards,

so the base of her nose will slope slightly downwards.

First clay.

Then wax.

And all the skills of a make-up artist were used to

painstakingly reconstruct the features which would last

have been seen by Roman Londoners.

And finally, we got a glimpse of what she might have looked like.

Today, 14 years later,

our Spitalfields lady still lies in the Museum of London.

This takes me right back to the time when I first saw her.

And strangely, it wasn't out on an excavation site with bones

being revealed one by one as the soil was gently removed.

It was here, in the Museum of London.

And just like with our man from Winchester it was

when the lid of the coffin came off and suddenly there was a revelation.

Here, though, it was in the full glare of publicity.

What we realised as soon as the lid came off was that

it contained a woman.

The shape of the skull, the shape of the pelvis,

the slenderness of the bones, all pointed in that direction.

What we now know and what we didn't know then

was that she was about 25 years old

when she died, about five foot four tall, which is above average.

There are no signs of her having had any children.

But what was, and still is a mystery, is what she died of.

So what we have here are the bones of a young,

very wealthy Roman woman, from the middle of the 4th century AD.

But there are still questions remaining.

Who was she? And what was her place in this late Roman world?

Roman London was a changing city.

In its glory days of the second century,

it had a population of around 45,000.

Britain's very first metropolis.

But by the time of our Spitalfields lady, that population had halved.

In the early part of the 4th century AD,

the population of London might have shrunk

but life was still pretty good for most people who lived here.

There is plenty of evidence of wealth

and those that lived in the countryside in rich villas

were still enjoying a fairly opulent lifestyle.

But in the second half of the 4th century, Roman Britain,

with London at its heart, was going through some fairly turbulent times.

And wasn't just a time of political instability.

It was a time of changing beliefs.

Our woman, walking the streets of the city, might have caught

a glimpse of a new arrival, Roman London's first Christian bishop.

A decade ago, and just a year apart,

we had unearthed two very different burials.

One, a successful Winchester man from the start of the 4th century.

A Briton who had embraced Roman culture. And a pagan.

The other, a fabulously rich young woman,

someone who had lived in London a few decades later.

Someone who could, possibly, even have been a Christian.

And since our Spitalfields lady was living through

a time of religious change, it was possible that her burial

contained secrets that could reveal her personal beliefs.

It is going to be an interesting evening...

Back in 1999, with the world's press watching,

unusual objects began to appear from the silt inside her coffin.

-Can you see, Simon?

-What is it?

It looks like there is a group of leaves, or the casts of leaves.

-It is, absolutely!

-You can see it very clearly.

You can see the stem along there

and there are actually veins coming off it.

It's incredibly clear.

-That is very, very extraordinary.

-Incredibly exciting.

Look at the whole bit along there.

-That all looks like leaf, doesn't it?

-I think it's a whole group.

It's quite astounding.

Lying undisturbed for over 1,600 years,

it seems as though some of the leaves had almost turned to stone.

Others looked as if they had just fallen from the tree.

Microscopic comparison identify them as bay leaves.

It seemed as if they had formed a pillow

as she drifted through eternal sleep.

And then, another incredible find.

Tiny fragments of gold thread.

Is some of this textile, with the gold thread in it?

That's right. This is one of the pieces of textile that we found.

We're really not sure whether this is something she's lying on

or whether it is some kind of a garment.

Preserved in the silt at the bottom of the coffin

were the rare and delicate remains of Roman fabric.

-Have you seen anything like this before?

-No.

-So, everybody's very excited?

-Yeah!

Where that textile was, you can see

all the little tiny fragments of gold thread,

just sitting right on the bottom of the coffin.

This unique discovery was a purple damask silk,

embellished with a delicate gold thread.

The silk would have been cultivated in China,

embroidered in the Middle East and, finally,

used in London, as a funeral shroud,

ending an extraordinary global journey.

And then, a final surprise.

In the narrow gap between the outer stone sarcophagus

and the inner lead coffin - glass.

This is an amazing glass vessel,

-that we found.

-It's incredible!

-It's about a foot long. It's really long.

What would something like this contain, though?

Well, I understand that it's an ointment bottle.

So, some sort of ointment.

Today, these incredibly fragile objects

have been carefully conserved at the Museum of London.

-What a collection, though.

-Interesting range, isn't it?

You've got these amazing glass vials here.

You've got jet objects. We think that's part of a dipper for the vial.

A couple of jet objects here, which are hair ornaments,

-we think.

-A peculiar box.

-An amazing little trinket box,

which is actually made up of three sorts of jet-like material.

It would have been lovely and black and shiny

when it was first made.

-What are these?

-These...

-It's a bay leaf!

That was to do with the wreath behind her head, wasn't it?

Quite astonishing. There seems to have been a pillow of bay leaves

-under her head.

-That's some of the textile, isn't it?

-These are part of her clothing, yes.

-With the gold thread.

'Angela Wardle, the Roman finds expert at the museum,

'has spent over a decade investigating the objects.'

This narrow flask,

this very narrow flask,

did contain oils and I suspect that the dipper here was used

to sprinkle those.

You could dip that in and flick it, during the ritual.

That is an unbelievable object, isn't it,

that delicate cagework of glass, there?

'What's more, study of the objects has provided tantalising glimpses

'of our woman's beliefs.'

I remember when that sarcophagus

was opened and we first saw the lid there

and the scallop shells appeared.

Everybody's immediate thought was that it was Christian,

because we assume that is a Christian pilgrim symbol, don't we?

-But that is not the case.

-No. That theory has been dismissed now.

The scallop shell, in fact, is a very ancient symbol.

It was used in antiquity and has been used in burials and on coffins

from quite an early period,

possibly representing the journey of the dead to the underworld,

across the seas or across the River Styx.

Erm...but it's a very ancient symbol and not Christian.

-It was adopted by the Christians later...

-Yes.

..but that came much later.

But if our high-ranking lady wasn't a Christian,

what did she believe? And do her grave goods contain the answer?

So, we seem to have got a mixture of things in here that are either

personal possessions, like the hair ornaments,

or objects that might be more to do with the burial rite,

with the ritual. Do they point us in any particular direction,

apart from the fact that they are pagan?

Quite a lot of the things do perhaps point to the idea that

the lady herself, or her family,

may have belonged to some sort of mystery cult.

The bay leaves are evergreen.

It's perhaps symbolic of life in the hereafter.

Now, it's quite likely that this was used as a sprinkler.

It's got a very constricted neck.

Whatever the contents were, they would have to be shaken out,

so it could well have been that the body perhaps

was anointed before the lid was put on.

We don't know. But what is interesting,

that although this is fairly unusual in London -

I think we've got about five examples -

they're quite well known in the Roman world,

right from the east, to Europos, as far as York,

but they've only been found in funerary contexts - in burials.

The contents of one was analysed back in the early 20th century

in Bordeaux,

-and was found to contain...

-Wine?

-Yes.

If that flask held wine,

well, wine was used by Bacchus.

Romans who followed Bacchus

believed the grapevine symbolised death and rebirth,

and that intoxication from wine was an act of godly possession.

This was one of the so-called mystery cults

that grew in popularity in the middle of the fourth century -

just when our lady was alive.

We know, for example, there were shrines

of Bacchus in the town at the time, from inscriptions.

And Bacchic symbolism is found in a lot of everyday items

throughout the Roman occupation of London.

So, if you had to, sort of, suggest what either this woman

or her immediate family believed in,

is that the direction you'd head in?

Yes. Well, I would like to perhaps think that she may have belonged

to a mystery cult and perhaps my preference would be for Bacchus.

Mystery cults involved initiations, rites and rituals.

In fourth century London,

the fastest-growing of all was an odd Eastern cult,

called Christianity(!)

Christianity preached equality before a single God,

even for slaves, hence its widespread appeal.

But it's no surprise that upper-class Roman society took to

another mystery cult, to Bacchus, which was far, far more exclusive.

It's 21st-century London,

the heart of the city surrounded by a massive building site.

This is one of the strangest Roman temples that I've ever come to,

but if I'd been here over 1,600 years ago,

and 16 feet below ground, I'd have been standing in front of an entire

Roman temple, originally built for the god Mithras,

but rededicated in around 350 to the god Bacchus.

Now, what Bacchus offered people were a lot of the advantages

of Christianity - the idea of everlasting life

and resurrection - but without the nasty bits that some people

found a bit unpalatable,

like the idea that everybody was equal in the sight of God.

And it was also something that was rather aristocratic

and exclusive, with invitation-only feasts.

Now, we know that our woman was around at that time of change.

Maybe she was involved in it and perhaps she even brought

this new religion with her from somewhere else in the Empire.

One thing I'm absolutely convinced about,

it was probably a lot quieter back then in Roman London.

So, just where did our lady come from?

And might she really have brought new beliefs with her from overseas?

14 years ago, isotope science told us that our lady

probably wasn't from Britain,

but from somewhere warmer in southern Europe.

But it's only now that we've been able to solve

the mystery of exactly where she grew up.

I'm heading off up to Durham, to talk to the scientists, who,

until quite recently, had all but given up on trying to solve

the mystery of exactly where our lady came from.

But then, about a year ago, she had a chance telephone call -

a call that has led to a profound change in how we understand our lady

and the world that she lived in.

Janet Montgomery was involved in the original isotope research

done on the Spitalfields lady.

One of the tests she pioneered was analysing lead isotopes

found in tooth enamel.

She believed it could unlock the secrets of our lady's origins.

Janet, do you remember when we first looked at the woman

from Spitalfields and tried to find out where she was from?

I think we looked at oxygen isotopes

which said that she was from somewhere warmer,

but it was all a bit vague.

-Have you got any closer to where she might have come from?

-Yes.

We did strontium and lead isotopes at the same time,

but the strontium wasn't particularly diagnostic.

It was something you could get from almost anywhere.

But the lead was very odd,

because it was completely different to anything else we've had since

from burials in England. And these are all individuals from England.

They have English ore lead, which is mainly Pennines.

But the Spitalfields lady is completely different.

She's sitting up there on her own

and we couldn't find any sources that could explain that value

and explain where she came from. We knew it wasn't from England.

We knew she wasn't from England, because she would be here,

but what it was, we couldn't say.

-So, all that says is that she's not from Britain?

-Yes. I know.

Yes, we're certain that she's not from Britain.

She couldn't have grown up in Britain and had that lead isotope value.

So, that fits with your...

'So we knew that she was foreign,

'but brand-new data has brought with it a revelation.'

Last year, I had a student contact me

from America, who was working on two sites in Rome,

dating from the Roman period,

and she wanted to do some isotope analysis and I said,

-"Are you doing lead?" She said, "No." I said, "Could I do it?" "Yes."

-Yes.

And so we looked at the lead isotopes in some of the individuals

-who were from the cemeteries in Rome.

-In Rome?

-From the Roman period.

-From Imperial Rome.

-Where's this leading?

Well, we got the data and I put it on the plot.

She's from Rome. He's from Rome. He's from Rome.

And the Spitalfields lady just sits there right in the middle of them.

At this point, this is a point in your career where you go, you know,

"Yes!" It was just so exciting. I was dancing around the room,

much the amusement of the builders who were on the opposite roof.

-That must been quite a moment, then?

-Yes, it was. It was.

Archaeology doesn't get much better than that.

So, she is from Rome?

Well, yes. I think there isn't really any other rational explanation.

When you get values like that, that are so distinct, I think, yes.

I think she's the first Roman person that we've found in Britain.

-The first one?!

-Yes. Yes.

Yeah. She's somebody who moved to London from Rome.

From that moment, 14 years ago,

when I first saw the Spitalfields' sarcophagus,

I knew that we'd discovered something very, very special.

Today however, we know that of all the Roman discoveries

ever made in Britain, our lady is utterly unique.

It's impossible to exaggerate the importance of this

new isotope research, because what it shows is

that she came not from France or from Spain, but from Rome itself.

So she is now the only person from Roman Britain who can be

proved to have come from Rome, the Imperial city.

And what's even more surprising is that she chose to come here

at a time when a lot of Romans in Britain might have been

thinking about buying a one-way ticket back home.

So, did she bring with her her new beliefs,

perhaps an involvement with the cult of Bacchus?

That's a very intriguing possibility.

And her presence here does lead us to a wider understanding,

because London in the middle of the fourth century

may have been in decline, as far as population was concerned,

but it was still attracting people in

from the very heart of the Roman Empire.

Both of these people lived in Britain during the fourth century.

The last century of Roman rule.

One, a man from Winchester, was a Brit,

but one who'd well and truly bought into Roman ways.

The other, our fabulously wealthy lady,

was a newcomer from Rome, the Imperial City, bringing new gods

and new blood to Britain - that incredible cultural melting pot.

But did either of them realise that, within a few generations,

their ordered world of Roman Britain would start to crumble,

that its great cities would decay and fall,

until, 1,600 years later,

the rebuilding of those very cities would bring our man

and our woman into the modern world,

where they could start to tell their amazing stories?

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