Angela began with the question: what can we learn from the archaeological record about religious belief in Roman London? It was of great importance: religious iconography permeated Roman life and objects found suggest a wide range of religions, what people believed perhaps depending on where they came from.

Angela then introduced us to some of the smaller figures and images found over the years. A Reading University Ph.D student is counting up the figures: the most common is of Venus. There is evidence in children’s graves of a cult of Venus, but she was also important to women, and in household shrines. She is allied to the Celtic mother goddess, often shown as a nursing mother. So, a mix of classical and Celtic traditions. Some other figures included:
A sphinx – an image associated with Bacchus, a god who was obviously very important in Roman London.
The goddess Juno, from the mainstream Roman religion: Jupiter, Juno and Minerva – the big three. There must have been a temple to them, but as yet no evidence of one, although a Jupiter altar was found reused in the London wall.
A Medusa in jet, showing a Celtic twist on a classical subject. Jet was thought to be lucky, and its electrostatic properties were mysterious. According to Pliny, ground-up jet cured toothache.
A Minerva-head pin from the Walbrook Mithraeum site, discovered in the 1950s and excavated by Grimes in 1954, and again recently the subject of a huge excavation. Quite a lot of the figures were recovered from these recent excavations. The well-known leather crescent from this site with pounced decoration showing hippocamps and a gladiator still has the experts puzzled as to how it may have been used.


Some figurines are made of pipe clay – they came from central Gaul. One statue of a goddess – with head snapped off – to break her power? is from a well. Perhaps it was the end of the use of the well. A 4th century copper alloy Gorgon head came from Syon Reach. .

A bust of Mercury in his travelling cloak – a weight from a steelyard. His symbol was a cockerel and he was amongst other things god of travellers, bankers and thieves. .
Egyptian cults (e.g. to Isis) were popular in Roman London. Hippocrates was a son of Isis and Osiris. The god Oceanus is depicted on a vessel which would have been used on a rich man’s table. Bacchus would appear on glass wine vessels.
Hercules was also venerated – another important cult - there are a lot of images of him, e.g. on samian ware, jewellery, knife handles.
A gold roundel depicts Nemesis, a winged female figure.
Lots of Phallic lucky charms. Some are in amber, which was very expensive; it came from the Baltic but may have been fashioned in North Italy. Some lucky charms were perhaps owned by children. .

Despite the plethora of religious cults, not many temples are known in Roman London, that to Mithras being an exception. The Mithras cult was exclusively for men and soldiers and was one of the most important mainstream religions, with temples all over the Empire (although as a member of the RAS audience pointed out, it may well have actually been a Brotherhood akin to freemasonry rather than a religion). There was a belief in astrology and signs of the zodiac appear quite frequently, as surrounding the well-known image from the London Mithraeum of Mithras slaying a bull. The Mithraeum later became a temple to Bacchus, where another find was Serapis, with a corn measure on his head, a consort of Isis and another Eastern god like Mithras.

Evidence of private belief can be found in the cemeteries which ringed Roman London, the Eastern cemetery being the most studied. Human jaws sometimes have coins in them to pay the ferryman for the journey across the River Styx to the underworld. Most grave goods are for use in the afterlife, such as the glass vessels, one of which may have contained perfume, found in the famous Spitalfields burial of a young woman who was buried with some remarkable grave goods in a lead coffin within a stone sarcophagus.

Yvonne Masson