There’s people who like puzzles and then there’s people who really like puzzles. Here’s hoping folks at the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) are the latter, as that’s who is tasked with the painstaking reconstruction of a huge installation of Ancient Roman frescoes unearthed in central London.
The thousands of fragments come from an early Roman building believed to have been demolished before 200 CE in present-day Southwark, where excavation has been active since 2021 in preparation for the Liberty redevelopment, a mixed-use commercial and residential complex. It has taken months of meticulous work to piece together some 20 walls worth of painted plaster described by MOLA as the “world’s most difficult jigsaw puzzle.”
The decorative plaster was found in an ancient disposal pit as a jumble of fragments whose historical significance could only be ascertained once they began to be reassembled. MOLA’s Senior Building Material Specialist, Han Li, worked extensively to lay out all the pieces and start to put them into a semblance of order, allowing their various motifs — birds, fruits, flowers, lyres, and other details — to emerge.
“This has been a ‘once in a lifetime’ moment, so I felt a mix of excitement and nervousness when I started to lay the plaster out,” Han said in a statement. “The result was seeing wall paintings that even individuals of the late Roman period in London would not have seen.”
The so-called “Liberty Wall” was likely last seen intact some 1800 years ago and represents a considerable discovery. Some of the motifs employed in the decorative elements of the murals indicate a high-class dwelling for its time; others, such as the panels painted to imitate the expensive stone material porphyry, imply that there was still some upward mobility to which the homeowners aspired. In terms of indicating the Roman cultural investment in London, the murals are outstanding examples for their time, reflecting the influence of surrounding regions on decorative trends.
MOLA cites exceptional elements among the fragments, including rare evidence of a painter’s signature and the Latin word “fecit,” which translates to “has made this,” though unfortunately, the name itself remains obscure. There is also highly unusual “graffiti” in ancient Greek — the only known inscription of a nearly complete Greek alphabet to be discovered within Roman Britain — executed in a practiced hand that indicates a “proficient speaker,” according to MOLA, rather than simple writing practice.
“These discoveries act as a window to the everyday past,” Han said.
