Archaeologists Say They’ve Pieced Together the Ancient Fragments of the ‘World’s Most Difficult Jigsaw Puzzle’
More than 1,800 years ago, the thousands of pieces formed colorful frescoes that covered the walls of a luxurious villa in Londinium, the precursor to modern-day London
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Between 43 and 150 C.E., colorful frescoes covered the interior walls of a luxurious villa in the ancient Roman town of Londinium, the precursor to modern-day London. But sometime before 200 C.E., the dwelling was destroyed. All that remained of the artwork was a pit full of smashed plaster fragments.
Now, more than 1,800 years later, archaeologists have put the pieces back together. Researchers spent months carefully sorting and arranging the broken shards to bring the frescoes back to life, the Museum of London Archaeology announced this month.
“It’s one of the biggest—if not the biggest—assemblages of Roman wall plaster and paintings we’ve ever found in Roman London,” says Han Li, a senior building material specialist at the museum, to BBC News’ Rebecca Morelle and Alison Francis.
Fun fact: The origins of London
The Romans established Londinium, which would eventually become the city of London, in the first century C.E.Archaeologists discovered the fragments in 2021 and 2022 while excavating the site of a future development that will include homes, offices, shops and restaurants. In addition to the fresco fragments, they’ve also uncovered large Roman mosaics and a well-preserved Roman mausoleum.
Reassembling the shattered frescoes was challenging because pieces from different walls had been mixed together when the building was torn down centuries ago. The fragments were also extremely fragile.
What’s more, researchers had no idea what the frescoes originally depicted, so the process felt a bit like putting together the “world’s most difficult jigsaw puzzle,” Li says in the museum’s statement.
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Despite these difficulties, a team of experts slowly and painstakingly matched the colors and patterns. Eventually, they were able to make out some of the designs and images, including fruit, flowers, birds, candelabras and musical instruments called lyres.
“Slowly, I realized, ‘Oh, my God.’ … The scale of what we can put back together and the amount of decorations, the diversity of motifs, it was incredible,” Li tells the Washington Post’s Victoria Craw. “Within a few days, we realized just how much potential this had in terms of telling us about Roman paintings and ... indeed Roman archaeology.”
One section was bright yellow—a rarely used hue in Roman Britain frescoes, according to Li. Some parts appear to be imitating high-status wall tiles, including red porphyry, a type of volcanic stone found in Egypt, and giallo antico, a yellowish marble found in Africa.
Taken together, these design decisions suggest that the building’s owner was probably a wealthy elite. That theory is supported by the villa’s location in an affluent suburb that’s been described as the “Beverly Hills of Roman London,” per BBC News. It was likely the home of a high-status family or a hotel for upscale travelers, according to the researchers.
The researchers also found ancient graffiti among the fragments, including an inscription of nearly the entire Greek alphabet. Based on similar etchings discovered in Italy, historians think the Greek alphabet was sometimes used as a “checklist, tally or reference,” per the statement.
This hints at the possibility that the structure may have also been used, at least partially, for commercial purposes, such as a storage facility for jars and vessels waiting to be shipped throughout the Roman empire.
Whatever its use, the building is evidence the Romans were “committing to London” at the time, Andrew Henderson-Schwartz, the museum’s head of public impact, tells BBC News.
“They’re investing in London, and they’re seeing it as a place to settle in, a place to stay,” he adds. “It’s not just a kind of provincial outpost.”
The reconstructed frescoes also revealed the word fecit, which means “has made this” in Latin. The word is surrounded by a carving of a decorative tablet, called a tabula ansata, that Roman artists often used to autograph their work.
The artist’s signature is missing. However, this section provides a tangible link to one of the individuals who worked on the frescoes nearly two millennia ago.
Though the artists’ identities remain unknown, the researchers suspect that this group also worked at another villa in Roman Britain, called the Fishbourne Roman Palace, which also has bright yellow panels. They suspect they might find even more examples of the painters’ work now that they know what to look for.
“They’ve come to Roman London where there was a building boom, with many houses and many buildings going up that required painting,” Li tells BBC News. “And they went around essentially taking on huge commissions of work.”
