Roman "Oxford Street" Being Excavated

Archaeologists working in London have discovered an arcade of ancient shops that has been dubbed by some the "ancient Roman equivalent of Oxford Street." Remains of more than 70 shops peddling everything from jewellery to shoes have been uncovered in a massive excavation along the edge of what is now the City of London. The shops are dated to the 1st century AD.

Among the remains, archaeologists have found pottery fragments, wooden barrels and jewellery from as far away as Spain and Norway.

Dr Simon Thurley, the director of the Museum of London, which carried out the excavation, said: "Even in the 1st century AD, London was at the centre of a matrix of trading patterns. The far-reaching tentacles of these early traders had incredible parallels with the City today, except that it is not dealing with oil, grain and wool anymore but futures and securities."

Instead of Queen Victoria Street, in the City, which runs past No 1 Poultry- now an office block and Terence Conran restaurant - there was a road called Via Decumana that was 30 feet wide. It was straddled by elaborate timber drains and wide mud pavements on each side to protect the shopfronts. By the time of Boudicca's rebellion in the middle of the 1st century, this single road had been joined by two others - highlighting how business was booming.

Dr Thurley said: "What is exciting about the excavation is that for the first time we were able to look at whole shops - entire buildings - on the ground and try to get a flavour of what this Wild West frontier town was like. When you think about Romans in London, you think about people wandering around in togas, and walking up marble steps into places that look like the British Museum. But, actually, they were wandering into one-storey buildings that looked more like garden sheds."

Most of the buildings were made of timber. "There was no question of digging up stone because these early traders wanted to get their shops and warehouses built as soon as possible, so that they could start making money. In that respect little has changed." Unlike the flat terrain that surrounds No 1 Poultry, the land in the 1st century fell sharply away down to the River Walbrook, where the Bank of England is now situated, and so terraces had to be constructed to prevent buildings being washed away.

According to Hedley Swain, the head of the London Museum's early history department, residents, shoppers and shopkeepers would have shared the streets with sheep and pigs brought into the city to be slaughtered and sold. There would also have been many horses laden with goods to sell. Mr Swain also said that several amenities associated with modern city life, such as cafés, would also have been available to the early citizens of the city - even though they might have appeared more like pubs than coffee shops.

He said: "People would drink beer or wine for breakfast and probably eat bread." Given the shortage of domestic ovens in those days, one of the jobs for men was to carry dough to a central bakery where it would get cooked, he added. Exact replicas of three of the shops - a bakery, a leatherwork shop and one selling wooden objects - are being made by Sands Films for the exhibition, High Street Londinium, to be held at the Museum of London in July and sponsored by the Banco di Roma.

Mr Swain said: "I am very conscious that most people have a clichéd view of the Romans based on films such as Ben Hur - in which everyone wore togas and went to the bath house. In fact it was a very cosmopolitan place - most people working there would not have been Roman. The Romans were a small number of civil servants and soldiers. If the Romans had not come to London - it would not be the financial centre we know. It might have been in Colchester instead - God forbid."

Additional links for London story:

http://www.eng-h.gov.uk/ArchRev/rev95_6/poultry.htm

And another with good photos:

http://www.archaeology.co.uk/timeline/roman/london/poultry.htm