Roman Mural Discovered In The Centre Of London

Archaeologists from the Museum of London have uncovered an incredible section of painted wall from a Roman building in the city.

The paintings show pictures of fruit, flowers, birds and animals on a coloured background.

Here's some of the pieces they found showing a bunch of grapes.

© Museum of London

It's one of the best finds of its kind from London, which was called Londinium in Roman times.

The building the paintings are from stood next to where Leadenhall Market is today, but was damaged in a fire and demolished in about 120 AD, around 1,900 years ago.

Amazingly, lots of pieces of the wall survived - enough to fill 40 crates. The archaeologists now have to work out how they all fit together.

When they've done it they will put them on display in the museum, hopefully by summer 2007.

Here's a close-up of one of the pieces.

© Museum of London

Because of the quality of the paintings the building must have been quite an important building, and it was next to the forum, the main market place for the city.

The Romans originally came from Italy, but built an Empire that stretched from Persia in the east to Britain in the west.

They conquered Britain in 43 AD, almost 2,000 years ago, and founded the city of Londinium, which they made capital of Britain. They finally left about 400 years later.

The Museum of London has made lots of digs to find out about Roman London, like the one in the photo.

© Museum of London

The Romans loved to decorate their houses with murals (wall paintings) and mosaics on the floor.

A mosaic is a picture or pattern, made up of lots of small tiles or tesserae.

This strange picture of a man with a chicken's head was found at Brading Roman Villa on the Isle of Wight.

© Brading Roman Villa

Some excellent mosaics have also been found in London. There are great examples at the Museum of London and its Digging up the Romans site tells you all about the Roman history of the city.

We've also found some great games, like this one about Roman Design from Tyne and Wear Museums. They're also got a tricky mosaic game to try your hand at.

If you are feeling creative and want to make your own mosaic, then Show Me's guide tells you what you need and how to do it.

You can find out loads more about life in Roman times on Show Me's Romans topic page.

We'd love to receive pictures of murals and mosaics you've designed, or maybe you'd like to write a story about what it might have been like in Roman Britain - get in touch!