Found: Earliest Roman plaque of London

CNN.com ^ | October 11, 2002

[Korth]

Archaeologists excavating an ancient site in London said on Friday they had unearthed the oldest known plaque inscribed with the city's Roman name.

"This is hugely important," Francis Grew, curator of archaeology at the Museum of London told reporters. "It is the first real monumental inscription with the word Londinium on it.

[Korth]

There is a photo of the plaque with the original article. If anyone knows how to post a picture here, please post a picture of the plaque on this thread.

[Sloth]

[Constitution Day]

The approximately 2000-year-old Italian marble plaque is dedicated to the Roman emperors and the god Mars.

[Constitution Day]

Oops... you beat me! :)

[onedoug]

"Ah, Julius Caesar, Thou art mighty, yet."

Southwark and Shakespeare's Globe bump.

[Consort]

The marble is 2000 years old. The inscription could be 20 years old.

[SkyPilot]

"Spitutus et Caesar - Smooth like buttah!"

Barbbrara Streisand

[Eowyn-of-Rohan]

"...the importance of the man who [in] Rome would have been treated as a yokel but who had made it in London"

From Rome to England, from England to America...the story of our struggle for freedom and individual expression! What an exciting and fascinating discovery, and thank God they got to this before the "housing project" covered it up for another couple hundred years

[Fides et Ratio]

"'This is hugely important,' Francis Grew, curator of archaeology at the Museum of London told reporters. 'It is the first real monumental inscription with the word Londinium on it.'"

Londinium? Quick, someone call Venerable Ireland Yard!

Can Lord Marmaduke Fogg and Lady Penelope Pea Soup be far behind?

[FormerRep]

The marble is millions of years old (geologic time)- neither the cutting of the stone nor the inscription can be dated - no carbon to measure decay rates.

[Consort]

...neither the cutting of the stone nor the inscription can be dated...

That was my point. It doesn't matter how old the marble it. The inscription could be very recent.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Carbon-dating is hardly the only way of dating objects, especially objects only a couple of thousand years old -- was it located under an ancient building foundation or road that had clearly lain undisturbed for centuries? was there build-up of mineral and/or organic residue on the surface (including the indentations of the inscriptions) that would have taken centuries to reach its current condition? etc., etc.

[blam]

Thanks for the ping. Didn't we cover this last week without the picture? (BTW, thanks for the picture.)

[LostTribe]

Existing thread with the Same Topic

[null and void]

The marble is millions of years old (geologic time)- neither the cutting of the stone nor the inscription can be dated - no carbon to measure decay rates.

No, but you can get a pretty good idea of the age of a surface by how deeply oxidation and staining penetrate the rock...

[Constitution Day]

You're welcome.
I must have missed it... had just back from out of town.

CD

[blam]

"Existing thread with the Same Topic"

Strange. I did a search on 'London' and it did not pick up that title. Hmmmm

[LostTribe]

>Strange. I did a search on 'London' and it did not pick up that title.

That's the problem with the current search engine. It does not seem to cover all posts, just those in a single specific category at a time. Bummer.

[lepton]

Bookmark bump

[Korth]

Thank you, Sloth.