Back in December, I lectured the great Tim Schadla-Hall’s Public Archaeology course on the work that I and others do with digital technology. One of his students, Lorna Richardson, works for L-P Archaeology, which is run by some of my contemporaries from UCL (Guy Hunt and Matt Williams for example) and they have produced a website to coincide with their excavations at Prescot Street, E1 in late February 2008. I used to cycle past this site every day until last month when I moved to SW11 instead of E14.
The Prescot Street site lies at the centre of what is known as the East London Roman cemetery. This was one of several cemeteries serving the Roman settlement of Londinium and it’s suburbs. It is one of the largest areas of undeveloped land within the area where the Roman cemetery once existed.
Today, the site is undergoing it’s first redevelopment since the Second World War, when most buildings were bomb damaged. It has most recently been used as a car park, and is being developed by Grange Hotels.
The map below shows where the dig is happening:
Their website invites social interaction and is a community centric affair, so have a look and see if you can contribute a bit to their record. The site will allow you to watch the dig unfold, and how they are working with schools in the local area; through text, photos, video, webcam etc ( a total mashup!) Also have a look around at the LP sites and read about their ARK system.
The seal matrix has a circular die and a tapering handle which is hexagonal in cross-section. The handle terminates with a suspension loop which has a circular perforation of about 2.0mm diameter. Between the hexagonal part and the suspension loop is an indistinct groove. At the centre of the cut die is a device, possibly a bird which is enclosed by an inscription. The inscription is incomplete due to damage and corrosion and the only letters that can be positively identified are the letters “SV”. Possibilities for the complete inscription are: ALAS IE SV PRIS (alas I am taken) or * I[E] SV A TI (I belong to you) or IE SV SEL DA (I am the seal of love) or * IESVS MERCI (Thank you Jesus) or PRIVE SV (I am private).
I’ve been sitting on these newsletters for rather a while now because we can’t afford to print them due to our financial situation being so precarious. These two newsletters were written by our staff in the regions, and then my fabulous intern Virginia Sasser (University of North Carolina, Chapel-Hill) who worked for us from October – December 2007, helped me to design these.
The second newsletter, for the South West region contains features on finds days from around their areas, an article by 
