There is no shortage of ancient historic sites to be seen in London, but according to Artnet News, certain parts of the city’s Roman past had been long buried and forgotten—until now.
Sections of the two-mile wall that the Romans built 2,000 years ago to protect their British outpost, then called the Londinium, have been uncovered near the Thames river by archaeologists at the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA).
Digs in the area around the river began in the 1970s. Between 2006 and 2016, the museum uncovered three large sections totaling 330-feet near Riverbank House on Upper Thames Street, Sugar Quay, and Three Quays on Lower Thames Street. Now, even more of the wall has been found.
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The wall segments, which were built from Kentish ragstone, were not the only discovery. Wooden wharfs and quays that date to 133 CE were also found during the excavations. The condition of the port structures shows how important the Londinium’s infrastructure was to a Britain under Roman rule.
These wall segments and the port structures were given “the highest level of heritage protection by England’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport,” according to Artnet News, and form the only remaining visible sections of the once 20-foot-high riverside wall along with a portion at the Tower of London.
“Even in a really dense city like London, built up over 2,000 years, there are still mysteries to be revealed right beneath our feet,” Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, told Artnet News. “The riverside wall remains an intriguing element of Roman London which raises almost as many questions as it answers.”