Sixty years ago exactly, a Roman God was uncovered at a London building site. The excavations for the Temple of Mithras moved around but are now going back to the original site. Tom de Castella asks: How do you reconstruct a Roman temple?
Temple of Mithras: How do you put London's Roman shrine back together?
By Tom de Castella
Magazine Monitor
A collection of cultural artefacts
BBC News
22 September 2014
The muddy find in September 1954 provoked urgent debate. Winston Churchill's Cabinet discussed it three times. A huge new office block - for insurance firm Legal & General - was being built on the site of the Temple of Mithras, described as the Roman discovery of the century. Building work was stopped. People would be able to see it for two weeks before the remains were packed up and moved.
A few hundred visitors were expected on day one. Instead about 35,000 queued round the block. Advertisers piled in: "In Londinium they believed in Mithras. In London they believe in Shell." Roughly 400,000 people saw it in all. Then the ruins began a peripatetic existence, including a stay at a builders yard in New Malden, before ending up being exhibited in the City 300 feet from where it was found.
An estimated 400,000 people visited the site in Walbrook in the City of London in a two-week period in 1954
Now the ruins are going back whence they came. Media giant Bloomberg is building its European HQ on land that takes in the original site. The Temple of Mithras will be reconstructed underneath the office block at the exact spot it was built in AD240 - ground level in Roman London is about 20 feet below today's city.
The latest recreation of the temple - packed up in 2011 - had crazy paving. Not ideal for an all-male Roman cult inspired by Persian religion, says Sophie Jackson, archaeologist at the Museum of Archaeology London. But how do you put a Roman temple back together again?
Jackson and her colleagues have good records from 1954 and a team of stone masons to rebuild the Temple using the original excavations. But they have no information about the colour of the temple, or the mortar that was used. They are calling on the people who saw the 1954 dig to help out and send colour photos, cinefilm or oral memories of what they saw.
A relief sculpture of the god Mithras
Classical scholar Mary Beard is excited, but keen to dispel a myth about Mithras. "Get ready for misinformation: Mithraism NOT secret cult," she tweeted. There is nothing cultish in the modern sense, nobody hid their allegiance to Mithra, she says. He was very popular with soldiers - it was a "very blokey" religion - and they would not have hid their allegiance. Unlike other Roman Gods, such as Jupiter, Mithraism was congregational in nature, Beard says.
There's one more thing the archaeologists want back. "When it was in the builders yard we know that a lot of items were pinched," says Jackson. So if there's a bit of Roman stone - better still mortar - in Gran's rockery, the Temple of Mithras would like it back.
If you have images or ephemera relating to the temple, contact the Museum of London Archaeology on 020 7410 2266, oralhistory@mola.org.uk or visit www.mola.org.uk
BBC News - Temple of Mithras: How do you put London's Roman shrine back together?
Temple of Mithras: How do you put London's Roman shrine back together?
By Tom de Castella
Magazine Monitor
A collection of cultural artefacts
BBC News
22 September 2014
The muddy find in September 1954 provoked urgent debate. Winston Churchill's Cabinet discussed it three times. A huge new office block - for insurance firm Legal & General - was being built on the site of the Temple of Mithras, described as the Roman discovery of the century. Building work was stopped. People would be able to see it for two weeks before the remains were packed up and moved.
A few hundred visitors were expected on day one. Instead about 35,000 queued round the block. Advertisers piled in: "In Londinium they believed in Mithras. In London they believe in Shell." Roughly 400,000 people saw it in all. Then the ruins began a peripatetic existence, including a stay at a builders yard in New Malden, before ending up being exhibited in the City 300 feet from where it was found.
An estimated 400,000 people visited the site in Walbrook in the City of London in a two-week period in 1954
Now the ruins are going back whence they came. Media giant Bloomberg is building its European HQ on land that takes in the original site. The Temple of Mithras will be reconstructed underneath the office block at the exact spot it was built in AD240 - ground level in Roman London is about 20 feet below today's city.
The latest recreation of the temple - packed up in 2011 - had crazy paving. Not ideal for an all-male Roman cult inspired by Persian religion, says Sophie Jackson, archaeologist at the Museum of Archaeology London. But how do you put a Roman temple back together again?
Jackson and her colleagues have good records from 1954 and a team of stone masons to rebuild the Temple using the original excavations. But they have no information about the colour of the temple, or the mortar that was used. They are calling on the people who saw the 1954 dig to help out and send colour photos, cinefilm or oral memories of what they saw.
A relief sculpture of the god Mithras
Classical scholar Mary Beard is excited, but keen to dispel a myth about Mithras. "Get ready for misinformation: Mithraism NOT secret cult," she tweeted. There is nothing cultish in the modern sense, nobody hid their allegiance to Mithra, she says. He was very popular with soldiers - it was a "very blokey" religion - and they would not have hid their allegiance. Unlike other Roman Gods, such as Jupiter, Mithraism was congregational in nature, Beard says.
There's one more thing the archaeologists want back. "When it was in the builders yard we know that a lot of items were pinched," says Jackson. So if there's a bit of Roman stone - better still mortar - in Gran's rockery, the Temple of Mithras would like it back.
If you have images or ephemera relating to the temple, contact the Museum of London Archaeology on 020 7410 2266, oralhistory@mola.org.uk or visit www.mola.org.uk
BBC News - Temple of Mithras: How do you put London's Roman shrine back together?
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