St Marys's Hospital Excavation

The newly-discovered Roman road leading from the Balkerne Gate (beneath the white building in the background) to the Sheepen site (behind the photographer). The patches of gravel are surviving parts of the road. The trenches, pits and foundations cutting into the road are all later in date.

A minor street. The band of gravel is one of the surfaces of a minor street. The slot along the centre was dug to make a wall for a later building.

The well-defined foundations in the photograph are parts of the recently demolished 19th-century workhouse. The rubble foundations by the feet of people in the foreground are remains of Roman houses. The houses were generally finished to a good standard with plastered and painted walls, often with floors of plain red tesserae.

Part of the foundations of a suburban house.

An amphora embedded in the floor of a Roman building. Perhaps used for storage.

Close-up showing the threads in the cover of a burnt mattress from a roadside house destroyed during the Boudican revolt. The mattress cover was made of diamond twill cloth and the stuffing was wool.

Roman law forbad cemeteries within city limits. Over 70 late Roman graves were found on the site, including this unusual twin burial in which two adolescent girls shared the same grave. They were probably sisters who died at the same time. The girls had been buried with their necklaces and bracelets. Three glass bottles had been placed at the head and feet, presumably containing body lotion or cosmetic of some kind. Both girls had hairpins. One (metal) lay close to the top of the head of the girl on the right suggesting her hair had been pinned up in some way. The other (glass) was at the feet of the girl on the left. The three pictures immediately above show three copper-alloy bracelets, one of which has a finger-ring threaded through it, a bone bracelet (now in fragments), a simple finger- ring, and some of the tiny glass beads which made up a necklace.