Apartment in London, United Kingdom

A modern townhouse located in the northern part of London was completely renovated by TG-STUDIO. Dark and soulless space has the new life. Architect Thomas Griem has introduced a central staircase that connects the six levels of single-parent together. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, living room, kitchen and dining room smoothly follow each other without visible boundaries. All the rooms are made in a minimalist style with a Scandinavian accent, where a bright finish of natural materials is a reflection of the Norwegian roots of the owner.

Rope-way, Thames, London

In London constantly are under construction the most modern infrastructural objects of type of new Wembley Stadium or the Big London Eye, but there never was a rope-way. However this city lack will be fast eliminated. The Mace Group has declared the intention to construct the 1st cable car in London.
Today, the capital of Great Britain actively prepares for 2012 Summer Olympic Games. All forces and all city resources are thrown on creating an infrastructure necessary for this grand action. And, if artificial clouds, most likely, are not constructed — the rope-way will appear in this city by next summer.

Legendary Mace Group Projects

Mace Group company is known in London thanks to infrastructural projects of a new formation. It has erected already mentioned big wheel the London Eye, the London City-Hall (residence of Administration of the Greater London), skyscraper «Shard London Bridge» and many other architectural objects. Thus, in a year, in the track record of Mace Group will also the first rope-way in London.

One station of this new kind of the London transport will be on the Greenwich Peninsula near huge entertainment complex «O2». The second — on other party of Thames, around the central input in the British Museum. The length of this cable car: about 1 km. There are suspicions that a cable car will use, first of all, not as public transport, and as tourist way.

New archaeological research, carried out by Museum of London Archaeology (Mola), of a previously unknown early Roman fort built in AD63 as a direct response to the sacking of London by the native tribal Queen of the Iceni, Boudicca. The revolt razed the early Roman town to the ground in AD60/61 but until now little was understood about the Roman’s response to this devastating uprising.

The excavations at Plantation Place for British Land on Fenchurch Street in the City of London exposed a section of a rectangular fort that covered 3.7acres. The timber and earthwork fort had 3metre high banks reinforced with interlacing timbers and faced with turves and a timber wall. Running atop the bank was a ‘fighting platform’ fronted by a colossal palisade, with towers positioned at the corners of the gateways. This formidable structure was enclosed by double ditches, 1.9 and 3m deep, forming an impressive obstacle for would be attackers.

The Roman army were experts in construction; proficiently sourcing local materials from nearby woods and even using debris from buildings burnt in the revolt. It is estimated that a fort of this size would have housed a cohort of approximately 500 men but could have been built by hand in a matter of weeks, perhaps with the help of captive Britons. Archaeologists uncovered a pick axe and a hammer, tools that would have been available to the army for building projects.

Within the fort, evidence for roads was uncovered alongside storage and administrative facilities, a granary, cookhouse and even a latrine. The fort was kept clean but a few fragments of armour, including part of a helmet and mounts from horse harnesses were discovered.

Only in active use for fewer than 10 years and with evidence pointing towards the use of tents rather than permanent structures for barracks, the fort was evidently erected as an emergency measure to secure the important trading post of London and to aid with the reconstruction and reestablishment of London at this turbulent time.

A number of major infrastructure projects contemporary with the fort point to the army playing a crucial role in this rebuilding, providing labour and engineering expertise for roads, a new quay and a water lifting machine, all vital for trading and civilian life to thrive once again.

Positioned over the main road into London, commanding the route into the town from London Bridge and overlooking the river, the fort would have dominated the town at this time, perhaps reflecting the absence of civilian life and the utter destruction wrought by the native Britons on Roman London.

In AD 120 the much larger Cripplegate fort was constructed and in the 3rd century a substantial wall erected around the town. Archaeologists are yet to find evidence of an earlier fort or military structures for the intervening periods but their search continues.

The research has been published by Mola in >An early Roman fort and urban development on Londinium’s eastern hill by Lesley Dunwoodie, Chiz Harward and Ken Pitt, available priced £30 via Mola's publications pages.

Source: Museum of London Archaeology [May 13, 2016]

From the Old Coal Station to the Modern Housing Complex

In many cities of the world directly in the city center there are the power stations. However, in London are going to transform old power station into quite modern multipurpose complex.

In London practically in city center directly on the bank of Thames there is an old coal power station. Because the such awful smoking monster is absolutely bad for center of London, the old station was been closed. And now, plan to convert this place into a multipurpose complex where will be: luxury apartments, hotels, showrooms, cafe, fitness clubs, fashion boutiques etc.

Modern London Apartments

Architectural company «Rafael Viñoly Architects» has received the grant from «The UK's Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment» on creation of the project of reorganization of old coal factory in the center of London in a modern multipurpose complex.
This power station, certainly, will remain, as a history monument. Here there will be the 1st non-polluting energy office-center. Thus, power station will still develop energy, truth, now by means of solar batteries and wind turbines.

Round this building will the whole micro-district of new infrastructure: modern offices, new shops, sports arenas. Besides it, in plan to create the new station of the London underground. An excellent example of the modern utilization of the old infrastructural projects.

The Center of Industrial London

Architecture of London

The architecture of London is presented almost by all architectural styles: from the baroque and art-deco to a postmodernism and hi-tech. Many medieval buildings have not saved because of the Great fire of 1666 which has destroyed more than 13,000 London buildings, and air-bombardments during the Second World War.

The Norman architecture to England was brought by William the Conqueror. From constructions of Norman style is known the London Tower which has started to be constructed by William the Conqueror and was repeatedly completed by other British Kings. Besides in the same style is executed the Westminster Hall constructed in 1097. At that point in time it was the biggest hall in Europe.

Norman Architectural Style for London

One of the brightest samples of this architectural style is the Westminster Abbey. Other samples of this period in London have not remained. The XIX-century is the time of the variety of architectural styles. In the neo-Gothic Style is constructed the well-known building of Parliament with Big Ben Tower. This building has been constructed after a fire on October, 16th, 1834 on a place of the old Westminster palace.

London City Hall by Fosters + Partners

In the XX-century in a London City there were skyscrapers: the Shard by Renzo Piano, the Lloyd’s of London, a mega-complex the Canary Wharf (Docklands). Norman Foster became the leading British architect, he constructed skyscraper SwissRe or 30 St Mary Axe and the New City Hall (the mayor house).

An ornate fresco that once adorned the residence of a wealthy Roman citizen has been discovered by a team of archaeologists at 21 Lime Street, in London.

Archaeologists from the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) uncovered the fresco six metres below street level, whilst undertaking archaeological fieldwork for a new office development. Dating to the late 1st century AD, and the first decades of London, it is one of the earliest surviving frescos from Roman Britain.

Thanks to a huge Roman construction project, the fate of this rare wall painting was literally sealed in the ground. In AD 100, construction of the 2nd Forum Basilica, the main civic centre for the city and the largest Roman building ever built north of the Alps, began. In advance of construction of the Forum the area was flattened. The painted wall was deliberately toppled and the Forum immediately built over it, incredibly preserving the fresco for nearly 2000 years.

Discovered face down, the fresco was identified from the distinctive markings of the keyed daub onto which the plaster was attached. The fragile remains, surviving to a width of nearly 2.5 metres and a height of over 1.5 metres, were carefully removed from the site by archaeological conservators, who lifted the fresco in 16 sections.

Each section was supported, undercut and block lifted so that soil encased and protected the plaster. Back in the lab the conservators worked quickly to micro-excavate the soil whilst it was still damp, to expose the millimetre-thin painted surface beneath.

The painting is likely to have decorated a reception room where guests were greeted and entertained. Building materials specialists will study the elaborate fresco further to learn more about the fashions and interiors favoured by London’s first wealthy citizens.

The central section, on a background of green and black vertical panels, depicts deer nibbling trees, alongside birds, fruit and a vine woven around a candelabrum. Red panels, bordered with cream lines, surround the main decorative scheme.

The fresco was hand-painted by a skilled artist in natural earth pigments, except one area of red on the twisting vine stem which is picked out in cinnabar, an expensive mercuric sulphide pigment that had to be mined in Spain.

Fascinatingly, a slight error in the design reveals that the craftsman who painted the fresco made a mistake. It suggests that there was more than one person painting the wall and that they may have been working to a pre-prepared template. The mistake could only have been corrected by repainting the whole middle panel.  

Although small fragments of Roman wall plaster have been found in London, complete collapsed wall paintings are extremely rare and the 21 Lime Street example is one of the earliest known from Britain. This design scheme has not previously been seen in Roman Britain; the closest example comes from a Roman villa in Cologne, Germany.

Specialists from MOLA continue to study the fresco and archaeological records from the dig and hope to build a picture of what the area looked like in the Roman period and how it developed over almost 2,000 years of London’s history.

Source: MOLA [February 03, 2016]

Archaeologists announced Wednesday they have discovered hundreds of writing tablets from Roman London - including the oldest handwritten document ever found in Britain - in a trove that provides insight into the city's earliest history as a busy commercial town.

Researchers from >Museum of London Archaeology uncovered more than 400 wooden tablets during excavations in London's financial district for the new headquarters of media and data company Bloomberg.

So far, 87 have been deciphered, including one addressed "in London, to Mogontius" and dated to A.D. 65-80 - the earliest written reference to the city, which the Romans called Londinium.

Sophie Jackson, an archaeologist working on the site, said the find was "hugely significant."

"It's the first generation of Londoners speaking to us," she said.

The Romans founded London after their invasion of Britain in A.D. 43. The settlement was destroyed in a Celtic rebellion led by Queen Boudica in A.D. 61, but quickly rebuilt.

The documents show that only a few years after it was established, London was already a thriving town of merchants and traders. The records include references to beer deliveries, food orders and legal rulings.

One tablet carries the date Jan. 8, A.D. 57, making it Britain's earliest dated hand-written document. Fittingly for a city that is now the world's commercial capital, it's about money - an ancient IOU in which one freed slave promises to repay another "105 denarii from the price of the merchandise which has been sold and delivered."

The wooden tablets were preserved in the wet mud of the Walbrook - then a river, now a buried stream.

"The water keeps out the oxygen that would normally cause decay," Jackson said. "Our sticky Walbrook mud is like the ash of Pompeii or the lava of Herculaneum" - Roman towns in Italy preserved by volcanic eruptions.

In Roman times, the tablets were covered in wax, on which words could be inscribed with a stylus. The wax has not survived, but some of the writing penetrated to the wood and can still be read.

Classicist Roger Tomlin, who deciphered the inscriptions, said looking at the ancient handwriting had been "fun."

"You're thinking your way into the hand of someone else who lived 1,900 years ago," he said. "Your eyes are setting foot where man has never been before, at least not for a very long time."

Author: Jill Lawless | Source: The Associated Press [June 01, 2016]

The Museum of London today announced a ground-breaking research project to explore the effects of industrialisation on Londoners. The research hopes to uncover new clues about the very nature of disease and how it has affected people as Britain has moved into the age of industrialisation.

The research has been made possible by a City of London Archaeological Trust grant from a bequest made by the late Rosemary Green.

John Schofield, Secretary of the City of London Archaeological Trust, said: “The City of London Archaeological Trust is very happy that the Rosemary Green bequest is used to gather this cutting-edge data on the signs of industrialisation in the skeletal collections on the Museum of London.”

Leading the project is Jelena Bekvalac, based at the Museum of London’s Centre for Human Bioarcheology, along with her research team, Gaynor Western and Mark Farmer.

Jelena Bekvalac, said: “The most tangible evidence we have for the long-term consequences of the industrialisation process upon us is, quite simply, written in our bones. Using the very latest digital technology, we will examine the skeletal remains of over 1,000 adult men and women from industrial-era London in addition to a further 500 skeletons from the medieval metropolis.

“Modern health trends have seen a shift towards increasing life expectancy but we want to look again at what are often thought of as ‘man-made’ conditions like obesity and cancer. Given today’s more sedentary lifestyles, far removed from the physically active and natural existence of most of our forebears, there are some big questions about the origins of these diseases and how they relate to the modern environment.”

The research aims to address some of these questions by analysing diseases affecting the human skeleton. The museum will use the latest clinical techniques, including direct digital radiography, CT scanning and 3D modelling, to get a better understanding of what the bones tell us and to assess their change over time. The research aims to examine the influence of the industrial revolution, a pivotal catalyst in the formation of the modern age, on the changing nature of disease – from the medieval and post-medieval periods through to the present day.

The project offers an exciting opportunity to digitise some of London’s most important skeletal collections, while simultaneously telling a new story about the health of Londoners over time.

This work will culminate in the creation of an extensive new interactive digital resource that can be explored online. Jelena Bekvalac plans to make an immediate start on the digital scanning. She aims to publish her team’s findings as soon as possible and deliver a series of lectures about the work.

Source: Museum of London [April 24, 2015]

This special exhibition unearths the stories behind four skeletons from the Museum of London’s 20,000-strong collection and four from burial grounds across Scotland. This is a touring exhibition that, after Glasgow, will travel to Bristol and Leeds in 2017, displaying the Museum of London’s skeletons alongside bones discovered locally. In-depth analysis by experts at the Museum of London has provided insights into the health and history of each individual, helping to bring to life the stories that have long been hidden beneath the ground.

The skeletons on display in Glasgow reflect a rich and varied past, with individuals coming from diverse locations, both geographically and socially, and periods of time. Excavations have uncovered burial grounds across the UK, ranging from the Neolithic period through the Iron Age to Roman London and up to the 19th century. Each individual skeleton reveals aspects of their life and times, including fractures and trauma, multiple myeloma – cancer, the effects of syphilis, rickets or arthritis, and tooth decay.

Emily Sargent, curator at Wellcome Collection, said: “Spanning thousands of years and from opposite ends of the country and social scales, the bones of these individuals offer us a rare and special glimpse into history. Yet we identify with their rotten teeth or broken bones, and are reminded that skeletons can tell us more about what people lived with, rather than what they died from.”

Sharon Ament, Director of the Museum of London, said: “This is the first time our skeletons have gone on tour and really shows how museums at opposite ends of the UK can work together to show their joint collections. We can learn a lot from the bones of our ancestors, who all lived through very different versions of the London we know today, and this is a wonderful opportunity to share their stories alongside those of their local Scottish counterparts for the first time.”

Research carried out on the skeletons has helped shed new light on the grounds they were discovered in and the circumstances in which they were buried, from plague pits in urban London to the beaches of South Uist. Specially commissioned photographs by photographer Thomas Adank capture the sites as they are now, and will be displayed in the exhibition next to each skeleton, contextualising them as a reminder of the layers of human history all around us.

Jelena Bekvalac, Curator of Human Osteology at the Museum of London, said: “Research carried out on these skeletons has given us vital clues into the lives of these individuals, some of whom lived thousands of years ago. Putting them in context with where they were buried and what those sites look like now will mean visitors will have a real, tangible connection to these people. It is a unique opportunity for the skeletons from London to be displayed in Glasgow alongside their Scottish counterparts, and truly demonstrates the rich diversity of burial in the British Isles.”

Professor David Gaimster, Director of The Hunterian, added: “We are delighted to be working in partnership with Wellcome Collection and the Museum of London on this fascinating exhibition. ‘Skeletons: Our Buried Bones’ offers a unique insight into the way people lived, worked and died.”

‘Skeletons: Our Buried Bones’ is a collaboration between Wellcome Collection and Museum of London, touring to Glasgow, Bristol and Leeds over 2016-2018. It’s based on ‘Skeletons: London’s Buried Bones’, originally shown at Wellcome Collection in 2008 and is curated by Emily Sargent and Jelena Bekvalac. 

Source: The Hunterian Museum [August 18, 2016]

London's relentless building boom has dug up another chunk of the city's history — one with a surprise for scholars of Shakespearean theatre.

Archaeologists are excavating the remains of the Curtain, a 16th-century playhouse where some of the Bard's plays were first staged, before a new apartment tower sprouts on the site. Unexpectedly, the dig has revealed that the venue wasn't round, like most Elizabethan playhouses. It was rectangular.

That came as a surprise, because the best-known fact about the Curtain is that Shakespeare's "Henry V" was first staged here — and the play's prologue refers to the building as "this wooden O."

"This is palpably not a circle," Julian Bowsher, an expert on Elizabethan theatres, said during a tour of the site Tuesday.

The discovery has made Bowsher rethink some of his ideas about Tudor playhouses. He suspects that the Curtain — unlike the more famous Globe and Rose theatres — wasn't built from scratch, but converted from an existing building.

"Out of the nine playhouses that we know in Tudor London, there are only two that have no reference to any construction," he said — including the Curtain. "It's beginning to make sense now."

Where does that leave "Henry V"? Heather Knight, senior archaeologist at Museum of London Archaeology , said the play may still have premiered at the Curtain in 1599, but without the prologue.

"There's a school of thought now that says prologues were actually a later addition," she said.

The Curtain's remains were uncovered in 2011 on a site earmarked for development in Shoreditch, a scruffy-chic, fast-gentrifying area on the edge of London's financial district.

Archaeologists began excavating intensively last month, before construction of a 37-storey luxury apartment tower and office complex named — with a nod to its heritage — The Stage.

They will keep digging until the end of June, and visitors can book tours of the excavations as part of events to mark this year's 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.

The site's developers have promised to keep the foundations of the historic theatre on public view and to build a visitor center to display some of the archaeologists' finds.

These include clay pipes that were used to smoke tobacco — introduced to Britain from North America in the 16th century — and a bird whistle which may have been used as a theatrical special effect. It could have featured in the scene in "Romeo and Juliet" — performed at the Curtain — in which the heroine reassures her lover that "it was the nightingale, and not the lark" that he'd heard.

Knight says the Curtain site "has probably the best preserved remains of any of the playhouses we've looked at."

The dig has uncovered the outline of a rectangular venue about 100 feet (30 metres) by 72 feet (22 metres) that could hold about 1,000 people. Workers have uncovered sections of the theatre's gravel yard, where "groundlings" who had bought cheap tickets stood, and segments of wall up to 5 feet (1.5 metres) high.

The new building that will rise on the site — where apartments are being offered starting at 695,000 pounds ($1 million) — is part of a construction boom, fueled by London's sky-high property prices, that is transforming large tracts of the city. In the process, it is creating something of a golden era for London archaeology.

Nearby, work on the new Crossrail transit line has uncovered everything from 14th-century plague victims to Roman sandals.

Knight says the Curtain dig is filling in the picture of one of the oldest and least-known London playhouses, which served as a base for Shakespeare's troupe, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, between 1597 and 1599.

"This will give us real insight into these early playing spaces," Knight said. "It will help us understand the type of building that playwrights were writing for as well as performing in.

"It will also help us understand what type of audience was attending performances in these buildings. And also it'll fill in those gaps that are missing from the historical record."

Author: Jill Lawless | Source: The Associated Press [May 17, 2016]

Scientific analysis of skeletons excavated as part of the Crossrail Programme has identified the DNA of the bacteria responsible for the 1665 Great Plague.

The discovery comes following a year-long study of skeletons found in a mass grave within the New Churchyard, the burial ground excavated by Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) during construction of the new Elizabeth line station at Liverpool Street in 2015.

The mass grave has been dated between 1650 and 1670 using fragments of pottery, glass and coffin handles found within the pit. Local burial records confirm there was a dramatic rise in burial rates in the New Churchyard when the epidemic peaked in the summer of 1665. Historic accounts, such as Daniel Defoe’s ‘A Journal of the Plague Year’ and the Court of Aldermen records, paint a vivid picture of the graveyard’s struggle to cope with a crisis of capacity at that time.

Samples from 20 individuals were tested for traces of the plague pathogen Yersinia pestis, and five were found to have been exposed to it before they died. Due to the disease’s virulence it is likely that this exposure was the cause of death. This is the first identification of plague DNA from 17th Century Britain. The bacteria itself perished days after the individuals died 351 years ago and is no longer active.

The Great Plague of 1665 was the last major bubonic plague epidemic in Britain and killed an estimated 100,000 people in London, almost a quarter of the population. Despite its scale, the pathogen responsible has eluded detection as the fast-acting disease left no traces on skeletons and the DNA has a low-survival rate when buried in the ground for hundreds of years.

Modern scientific techniques have allowed scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Jena, Germany, to isolate this DNA from teeth extracted from the skeletons. The enamel on the teeth acted as protective capsules, preserving the DNA of bacteria that was in the person’s bloodstream at the time of death.

Molecular palaeopathologists are now attempting to sequence the pathogen’s full DNA genome. In doing so they hope to be able to compare the 1665 Great Plague to the 1348 Black Death epidemic as well as recent modern outbreaks. This will allow scientists to further understand the evolution and spread of the disease.

Jay Carver, Crossrail Lead Archaeologist, said: “The Crossrail project has given archaeologists a rare opportunity to study previously inaccessible areas of London. The discovery of the ancient DNA, which has eluded scientists for so long, is yet another piece of the jigsaw that we are piecing together to learn more about the lives and deaths of 16th to 18th Century Londoners.”

Don Walker, Senior Osteologist at MOLA, said: “This is a hugely significant discovery as it is the first identification of ancient DNA from the 1665 Great Plague in Britain. This discovery has the potential to greatly enhance scientist’s understanding of the disease and coupled with detailed research of the skeletons reveal more about this devastating epidemic and the lives of its victims.”

Vanessa Harding, Professor of London History, Birkbeck, University of London, said: “This is a very exciting finding, for the history of London, the history of disease, and the history of burial. It confirms thatYersinia pestis was present in early modern London plague epidemics, and links them epidemiologically with the 14th-Century Black Death and the 1720 Marseille plague. We still need, however, to understand why the disease manifested itself in so many different ways, and whether other pathogens made a significant contribution to these epidemics.

“The excavation also underlines the strength of custom and order in time of crisis, showing that plague burial, even in mass graves, could be controlled and orderly, with bodies in coffins laid neatly on each other – not quite the shambolic ‘plague pit’ of popular discourse.”

In total 42 individuals were excavated from the mass grave but archaeologists estimate that it may have contained as many as 100 people. The predominantly coffined burials were tightly packed in orderly rows that, over the centuries, collapsed in on each other as the coffins decayed. Although contemporary Plague Orders dictated that burials sit a minimum of 6ft from the surface, the top of the mass burial was only about 2ft from the surface. This was perhaps a matter of practicality for the gravediggers but ‘noisome stenches’ were reported, eventually leading to burial restrictions being placed on the New Churchyard.

Further scientific analysis of the skeletons will continue over the coming months. Isotopic analysis may reveal where these people grew up and if they moved in their lifetimes, and examination of the material trapped within the plaque on the teeth may show what they ate, and what diseases and pollutants they were exposed to.

In 2014, skeletons excavated during the construction of the Elizabeth line station at Farringdon were found to contain traces of the DNA of the Yersinia pestis bacteria from the first major plague epidemic in Europe, the 1348 Black Death.

Crossrail’s extensive archaeology programme is the largest in the UK. To date it has found more than 10,000 artefacts and fossils spanning 55 million years of London’s past at over 40 construction sites. Full findings from the archaeological excavation at Liverpool Street will be published in early 2017.

Author: Andrew Dempsey | Source: Crossrail [September 10, 2016]

In one of the biggest operations of its kind, archaeologists have succeeded in lifting a perfectly preserved 17th century English gun-carriage from the bottom of the Thames estuary.

It had been discovered in the wreck of the English warship, the London, built by Oliver Cromwell’s government in the 1650s.

The  1.6 metre long, 70 centimetre wide piece of artillery equipment would originally have held a 9 foot long cannon, capable of firing 24 pound cannon balls up to two miles.

The gun carriage has just been recovered with the help of a crane on-board a giant barge. The operation has been funded by Historic England.

Archaeologists will now study the carriage to try to determine whether the gun it held is one of those still believed to be on or under  the seabed or whether it is one of the few that have already been brought to the surface.

Specialists will also examine the carriage  to discover what wood it was made of. Elm was preferred by the navy because it splintered less in combat and therefore reduced casualties. However in the 1650s, Dutch elm disease massively reduced the availability of elm wood in England – and naval carpenters in the late 1650s and the rest of that century  were forced to use oak instead when making gun carriages.

The London broke in two and sank when the vessel exploded two miles off Southend, Essex in 1665.

“The newly raised gun carriage is a very important find and  in remarkable condition” said Charles Trollope, a leading expert in 17th century naval artillery.

Apart from a naval gun carriage at Windsor Castle, the newly raised artefact is the only known well-preserved example in existence. However it is  possible  that other well-preserved gun carriages still survive buried on the wreck site.

Its recovery has saved it from being destroyed by changing currents and sea worms that are increasing in English waters because of climate change.

Much of the archaeological investigation of the London wreck site has been carried out by volunteer divers from Southend. The newly raised gun carriage will now begin a long period of conservation.

Alison James, a Historic England maritime archaeologist, said: “This 350 year old gun carriage is in near-perfect condition. It’s a national treasure and the key to new knowledge of our social and naval history. We had to recover it quickly or it would have broken up and been lost forever.

“It’s complete with all the implements that the gunner would have used to make the cannon fire – all the archaeological material is there with it so it’s hugely exciting. Until now, it’s been well preserved, enclosed in an anaerobic environment, oxygen-free mud, safe from all the creepy-crawlies that would normally erode it.  We’ve even got the 350 year old rope going through the pulley block. But as parts of the gun carriage recently became exposed, we had to act fast to save this rare piece of our history from the ravages of the waves and biological attack,” she said.

Author: David Keys | Source: Independent [August 14, 2015]

Basketball Arena in London

To the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London have constructed the portable basketball arena.

The 2012 Olympic Games which will take place in London, will be rather burdensome for the British budget. For example, for the Olympic Stadium are invested more 500,000,000 pounds. Besides it, in plans the tens of Olympic objects, sport arenas, and infrastructural complexes. Among the Great Olympic objects is possible to name the Center of Water-sports (by Zaha Hadid), and the 1st Cable Car in London.

Portable Olympic Arena

The project of the Basketball Arena which can accept simultaneously twelve thousand spectators, will be developed by the architectural and engineering companies: Sinclair Knight Merz, Wilkinson Eyre and KSS. The main feature of this arena consists that arena will be created from easily erected elements that has allowed to erect all complex for 15 months.

Thus, after the termination of the Olympic and Paraolympic Games this basketball stadium will be quickly disassembled. But not for ever. Further, the basketball arena can be collected again in any place.

Interior of Basketball Arena

Such portable arena will allow to save ten millions pounds. And, if it will be possible to sell this stadium it's even better.

Archaeologists in London believe they may have uncovered a mass grave of plague victims buried beneath one of the city's busiest train stations.

The find at Liverpool Street Station is part of one of Britain's most important archaeological digs, with a team of more than 60 scientists working double shifts since March to excavate around 3,000 skeletons.

The bodies were interred in a cemetery attached to the notorious Bedlam mental asylum, with the site being used for burials for at least 170 years.

The name Bedlam, the byname for the Bethlehem Royal Hospital, became synonymous with disorder and confusion and its horrific conditions struck fear into the heart of Londoners.

The burial ground was used from 1569 to the mid-19th century for Bedlam's patients and local residents when other cemeteries became overcrowded.

Beneath the burial ground lies a Roman road where archaeologists have also uncovered a selection of Roman graves.

Jay Carver, the lead archaeologist on the dig, said the potential plague pit within the cemetery contained at least 30 bodies.

He said the mass grave showed signs of being from the time of the great plague of 1665, in which more than 100,000 Londoners died.

"Well the clue is we're certainly in an area of the burial ground that was definitely in use in the 1660s. Thereby we found a small headstone dated in 1665," he said.

"The scientific tests we can do on some of these individuals should tell us what they've died of. If it's bubonic plague and we get some other evidence in terms of dating these layers, we could well have an example of a plague pit from that great plague episode."

The remains interred at Bedlam cover an era of civil wars, Shakespeare, the Great Fire of London and numerous plague outbreaks.

Many of those buried were poor and parish records listed them as servants and apprentices.

None were wearing clothes but several coffin plates found indicate there were some more well-off people buried at the site.

>Crossrail archaeology: 360° video of suspected 1665 plague pit uncovered> at Liverpool Street [Credit: Crossrail Project]
Mr Carver said many of the remains had been disturbed because the burial ground was so crowded.

"There's so many on the site though that they are all intercutting and very often the grave digger was cutting across the remains of some previous victim, so there's a lot of disturbance to all the graves," he said.

While some remains had obvious injuries like blows to the skull, most causes of death had to be established in a laboratory.

"There's a huge amount of work to wash and prepare each skeleton and then inspect it very carefully for injury and disease," he said.

"You can sometimes see very obviously when someone's suffered from an infectious disease like syphilis which has affected their bones, particularly their legs."

He said the archaeologists working on the dig had been moved by many of the stories of those who they had unearthed.

"We've seen burials here of mother and child, very young infants [who] probably died in childbirth in fact. It's extremely poignant to see that stuff," he said.

The remains were initially discovered as part of construction work at the station and so once they are excavated they will be re-buried on an island in the Thames.

Source: ABC News Website [August 14, 2015]

A DNA analysis of four ancient Roman skeletons found in London shows the first inhabitants of the city were a multi-ethnic mix similar to contemporary Londoners, the Museum of London said on Monday.

Two of the skeletons were of people born outside Britain -- one of a man linked genealogically to eastern Europe and the Near East, the other of a teenage girl with blue eyes from north Africa.

The injuries to the man's skull suggest that he may have been killed in the city's amphitheatre before his head was dumped into an open pit.

Both the man and the girl were suffering from periodontal disease, a type of gum disease.

The other two skeletons of people believed to have been born in Britain were of a woman with maternal ancestry from northern Europe and of a man also with links through his mother to Europe or north Africa.

"We have always understood that Roman London was a culturally diverse place and now science is giving us certainty," said Caroline McDonald, senior curator of Roman London at the museum.

"People born in Londinium lived alongside people from across the Roman Empire exchanging ideas and cultures, much like the London we know today," she said.

The museum said in a statement that this was "the first multidisciplinary study of the inhabitants of a city anywhere in the Roman Empire".

The Romans founded Britain's capital city in the middle of the first century AD, under the emperor Claudius.

Britain's University of Durham researched stable isotopes from tooth enamel to determine migration patterns.

A tooth from each skeleton was also sent to McMaster University in Canada for DNA analysis that established the hair and eye colour of each individual and identified the diseases they were suffering from.

McMaster University also examined the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to identify maternal ancestry.

The exhibition of the four skeletons, entitled "Written in Bone", opens on Friday.

Source: AFP [November 24, 2015]

A piece of broken pottery, newly identified 40 years after it was found as important evidence of an early Christian community in Roman London, is going on display for the first time at the Museum of London, over the Easter weekend.

A sharp-eyed volunteer, sorting through hundreds of pieces of pottery shards found in the 1970s in an excavation on Brentford High Street, west London, noticed one fragment inscribed with the chi rho, the first two letters of Christ in the Greek alphabet, which was a common symbol in the early Christian church.

The pottery was made in Oxfordshire in the 4th century, rather than imported, so the symbol suggests a very early Thames-side Christian community.

Adam Corsini, the archaeology collections manager, said it was a very rare find. “Although we can’t say from one object that Roman London and its hinterland were practising Christianity, it does suggest that Christians were at least present at some point in 4th-century Roman Brentford.

“Christian symbols from the Roman period are rare, especially from sites within Londinium’s surrounding hinterland, and there are only a few examples in our collections relating to London.”

Although Brentford is now a nondescript suburb, carved up by main roads and scattered with tower blocks, it has a long and distinguished history. From prehistoric times it was an important river crossing, where the Thames could be forded at low tide. The museum has a wealth of material from Brentford, including beautiful bronze age metalwork believed to have been thrown into the river as ritual offerings.

There was a Roman settlement, and possibly an even earlier encounter with the invaders. A large pillar made from recycled stone was erected by an amateur historian in 1909, recording the belief that the local tribesmen fought Julius Caesar there in 54BC. Although historians doubt the story, the pillar still stands, though it has been moved from its original riverside site. There is better evidence for the battle in 1016 between King Canute and Edmund Ironside, which the pillar also marks.

Author: Maev Kennedy | Source: The Guardian [March 24, 2016]

They came from every parish of London, and from all walks of life, and ended up in a burial ground called Bedlam. Now scientists hope their centuries-old skeletons can reveal new information about how long-ago Londoners lived - and about the bubonic plague that often killed them.

Archaeologists announced Monday that they have begun excavating the bones of some 3,000 people interred in the 16th and 17th centuries, who now lie in the path of the Crossrail transit line. They will be pored over by scientists before being reburied elsewhere.

One recent workday, just meters (yards) from teeming Liverpool Street railway station, researchers in orange overalls scraped, sifted and gently removed skeletons embedded in the dark earth. In one corner of the site, the skeleton of an adult lay beside the fragile remains of a baby, the wooden outline of its coffin still visible. Most were less intact, a jumble of bones and skulls.

"Part of the skill of it is actually working out which bones go with which," said Alison Telfer, a project officer with Museum of London Archaeology, which is overseeing the dig.

Due to open in 2018, the 118-kilometer (73-mile) trans-London Crossrail line is Britain's biggest construction project, and its largest archaeological dig for decades. The central 21-kilometer (13-mile) section runs underground, which has meant tunneling beneath some of the oldest and most densely populated parts of the city.

For Londoners, that has brought years of noise and disruption, but for archaeologists it's like Christmas. Almost every shovelful of earth has uncovered a piece of history, or prehistory: bison and mammoth bones; Roman horseshoes; medieval ice skates; the remains of a moated Tudor manor house.

Chief archaeologist Jay Carver says the Bedlam dig could be the most revealing yet.

"It's going to be archaeologically the most important sample we have of the population of London from the 16th and 17th centuries," Carver said.

Bedlam cemetery opened in 1569 to take the overspill as the city's churchyard burial grounds filled up. It is the final resting place of prosperous citizens and paupers, religious dissenters including the 17th-century revolutionary Robert Lockyer and patients from Bedlam Hospital, the world's first asylum for the mentally ill. The hospital's name, a corruption of Bethlehem, became a synonym for chaos.

Tests on the bones by osteologists may reveal where these Londoners came from, what they ate and what ailed them - which in many cases was the plague. There were four outbreaks of the deadly disease over the two centuries the cemetery was in use, including the "Great Plague" that killed 100,000 people in 1665.

Carver says researchers will analyze DNA taken from pulp in the skeletons' teeth to help fill in the "evolutionary tree of the plague bacteria."

The technique was used to discover the plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, in 14th-century skeletons excavated at another Crossrail site, identifying them as victims of the Black Death that wiped out half the city's population in 1348.

Scientists should be able to compare the bacterium found in Bedlam's plague victims with the 14th-century samples, helping to understand whether the disease - which still infects several thousand people a year - has evolved over the centuries.

Sixty archaeologists working in shifts - 16 hours a day, six days a week - will spend about a month removing the remains. After scientific study, they will be reburied on Canvey Island in the Thames Estuary - the latest in a long line of Londoners to move east out of the congested city.

The old burial ground will be the site of a new train station, whose users will probably give little thought to the history beneath their feet.

But Telfer says she never forgets that these fragile bones were once living, breathing individuals.

"When you are doing something like this, you do feel a connection with them," she said. "I think you have a responsibility to treat them with great respect. It's quite a special process."

Bedlam burial register: http://www.crossrail.co.uk/sustainability/archaeology/bedlam-burial-ground-register

Author: Jill Lawess | Source: The Associated Press [March 09, 2015]

Giant replicas of an ancient arch in the Syrian city of Palmyra attacked by Islamic State (IS) jihadists will go on show in London and New York next year, organisers said Monday.

The full-size recreation of the arch from the 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel will reportedly made using the world's biggest 3D printer and put on display in London's Trafalgar Square and Times Square in New York in April.

IS seized Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site northeast of Damascus known as the "Pearl of the Desert", in May and beheaded its 82-year-old former antiquities chief three months later.

In September, satellite images confirmed that the Temple of Bel, the main temple at Palmyra, had been targeted by IS as part of a campaign to destroy pre-Islamic monuments, tombs and statues it considers idolatrous.

UN experts said the main building of the temple plus a row of columns had been destroyed.

Alexy Karenowska, director of technology at the Institute of Digital Archaeology in Oxford which is funding the reconstruction, confirmed a Times newspaper report that the replicas would be created for a special world heritage week.

"Reproductions/models of the structure, large and small, will be produced and installed around the world in schools, museums and prominent public spaces," Karenowska wrote in an email to AFP.

The institute's executive director, Roger Michel, was quoted in The Times as saying that the replicas standing 15 metres (50 feet) high were likely to be on temporary display.

"It is really a political statement, a call to action, to draw attention to what is happening in Syria and Iraq and now Libya," he added.

"We are saying to them, 'If you destroy something, we can rebuild it again.'

"The symbolic value of these sites is enormous -- we are restoring dignity to people."

Source: AFP [December 29, 2015]

Luxury Apartments in London

Really, there is in the world nothing original... To Take at least the project of apartment house the Whitehorse Street Apartments in London from «Studio Seilern Architects». It's the real new interpretation of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon!
It's good to have own garden? Yes! And architectural company «Studio Seilern Architects» suggests to London inhabitants to have own garden with vegetation!

Green London Apartment

In the most expensive apartments of this house there will be own terraces set with vegetation, luxury penthouse with open-air sunlight, and sign of paradise in the conservative London, standard apartments have balconies and panoramic windows.

Open-air Street Apartments

Besides, each apartment in «Whitehorse Street Apartments» will be connected to system of natural ventilation. And illumination in house premises will be made as more as possible natural — the big panoramic windows, a glass roof and open-air loggias.

A 2,000-year-old triumphal arch destroyed by the Islamic State group in Syria has risen again - in replica - in London's Trafalgar Square.

The Arch of Triumph in Palmyra formed part of one of the world's most extensive ancient archaeological sites. The ancient city, a UNESCO world heritage site, was among Syria's main tourist attractions before the civil war erupted in 2011.

IS militants overran Palmyra in May 2015, demolishing Roman-era monuments including the archway and two large temples dating back more than 1,800 years - and posting videos of their destruction online. Syrian government forces retook the city last month and authorities have begun assessing the damage to its ancient monuments.

Built under the Roman emperor Septimius Severus between A.D. 193 and A.D. 211, the arch towered over the colonnaded streets of the ancient city, which linked the Roman Empire to Persia.

The six-meter (20-foot) Egyptian marble replica - about two-thirds the size of the original - was created by the Institute for Digital Archaeology from photographs of the original site using 3-D imaging technology and computer-aided carving tools.

"When I saw the destruction, I felt like I needed to do something to try and make it right," said Roger Michel, executive director of the Institute for Digital Archaeology. The institute is a joint venture between Harvard University, the University of Oxford and Dubai's Museum of the Future.

"The first thing I thought was, when I saw Palmyra come down, is these folks are censoring history," Michel said.

London Mayor Boris Johnson unveiled the model Tuesday. It will stay in London for three days before traveling to cities including New York and Dubai - and eventually to Palmyra itself.

Source: The Associated Press [April 19, 2016]