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Temple of Mithras community archaeology oral history project

With Bloomberg, we undertook an oral history project to capture memories of the discovery of the Temple of Mithras. The greatest archaeological discovery of its time, the temple captivated public imagination with an estimated 400,000 people flocking to the site to catch a glimpse of the remains as they were excavated.

The project aimed to capture the personal experiences of this important event in London’s history, whilst it was still in living memory. The project began on the 22 September 2014, 60 years after the original discovery. As well as capturing oral histories we also collected copies of images, letters, newspaper clippings and other ephemera relating to the discovery of the temple.

The oral history participants were invited to view the reconstructed remains of the temple of Mithras at London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE in 2018. This moving film captures the project and their visit.

The Archaeology Audience Network

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Archaeology and Public Benefit UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship

‘Measuring, maximising and transforming public benefit from UK Government infrastructure investment in archaeology’ is a four year UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship led by MOLA archaeologist Dr Sadie Watson. The project focuses on ensuring that public spending on archaeology for infrastructure projects leads to meaningful and relevant research and genuine community participation.

Currently there is no established way to assess the social impact derived from the many millions of pounds invested in archaeology programmes for publicly-funded infrastructure projects. The outcomes of the Fellowship will include best-practice guidance and a tool-kit that will be used to inform future policy and practice.

Research will take place within the framework of professional archaeology, with project partners including HS2 Ltd,  Historic England, the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists and the Europae Archaeologiae Consilium.

Sign up to receive email updates from the project team here.

Community dig at Arnold Circus in London

MOLA organised a one week community excavation at Arnold Circus, in the Boundary Estate, Shoreditch, Tower Hamlets. The archaeological brief was designed in conjunction with English Heritage and the Friends of Arnold Circus and funded by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

The children were excited to work alongside professional archaeologists, to learn about archaeological techniques, and find out the history of the site.

Children from Virginia Primary School participated in the community dig, which aimed to excavate a large mound with a Victorian bandstand on the top, as did groups from the St Hilda's East Community Centre (Bengali Women's Group and Bengali Boy's Group). The aim of the community dig was to investigate what was in the mound and what the original ground surface would have been ahead of renovation work on the bandstand, organised by the Friends of Arnold Circus.

The children gained practical hands on experience and the project engaged with members of the local community, attracting hundreds of visitors over the week.

View photos from the community dig on the Museum of London's Flickr photostream.

Digitised Diseases osteoarchaeology project

Warning: this page contains images and discussion of human remains

Please note, the Digitised Diseases website is currently down. We were involved with the creation of the website, but not its ongoing management. Please click here to contact the project lead at Bradford University for further information.

Digitised Diseases www.digitiseddiseases.org  is a unique online resource that brings together 1,600 specimens of diseased human bone. The collection offers trainee medics, clinicians and medical historians the chance to study the effects of chronic diseases on the skeleton.

"This will be a unique resource both for archaeologists and medical historians to identify diseases in ancient specimens, but also for clinicians who can see extreme forms of chronic diseases which they would never see nowadays in their consulting rooms. " Dr Andrew Wilson, University of Bradford

The online resource contains 3D models of bones affected by over 90 chronic pathological conditions, ranging from common complaints such as osteoarthritis to rare bone cancers and conditions that are often considered to be diseases of poverty, such as tuberculosis.

Layers of London: Mapping the City’s Heritage

Layers of London is a ground-breaking interactive online mapping project led by the Institute of Historical Research’s Centre for Metropolitan History, part of the School of Advanced Study, University of London.

Virtual visitors to London can peel back layers of the city’s history to discover information about the landmarks, events memories and stories of London’s diverse people and places, going as far back as Roman times. Contributions so far range from conscientious objector historical accounts from Haringey, to Windrush stories from Lewisham.

Using expertise honed through two previous mapping projects with the Institute of Historical Research - Locating London’s Past and Mapping London - our geomaticians have georectified and digitised a framework sequence of significant historic maps of London from the late 17th-century onwards, so that contributions can be placed in their context.

The process has involved pulling the maps around in a Geographic Information System (GIS), and anchoring them to hundreds of known calibration points like old churches and street junctions, so that they can be layered on top of an Ordnance Survey map. The team has also recorded historic roads, places, ward boundaries and parish boundaries in GIS datasets, and built complex ArcGIS models to allow huge volumes of data to be processed quickly.

The resulting maps and searchable, downloadable GIS datasets will be invaluable resources for historians and archaeologists wishing to explore London’s development for years to come.

Other contributors to the Layers of London project include a wide range of individuals and groups, ranging from members of the public engaged through social media, online tools, workshops and training events, to bodies such as The British Library, Historic England, London Metropolitan Archives, The National Archives, and Birkbeck, University of London. 

The project is generously supported by National Lottery players through the Heritage Lottery Fund, and by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, the Ford Britain Trust, and the IHR Trust.

The London Evolution Animation

A digital animation showing the development of London from its Roman beginnings, in 43AD, to the present day was created using MOLA data. The London Evolution Animation uses the latest technology to bring nearly 2000 years' of  development in London to life and featured within the English Heritage “Almost Lost” exhibition.

“The animation was designed to help inform discussions regarding plans for the future of London and its historic fabric.”

Polly Hudson, Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis

Thames Discovery Programme

One of the UK’s most successful community archaeology projects.

What is the Thames Discovery Programme (TDP)?

Twice every day, the largest open air archaeological site in the UK is exposed. The parts of the Thames riverbank that are revealed at low tide contain clues about the history of London. But every high tide, these pieces of archaeology are in danger of being damaged or washed away.

The Thames Discovery Programme therefore has two crucial aims:

• To record and monitor the archaeology on the Thames foreshore
• To get Londoners involved and hands on with their heritage

Since 2008, we’ve won three awards and shared our discoveries with hundreds of thousands of people. These discoveries include finding the oldest structure in central London, and the remains of an 150 year-old warship.

In the same time, our team has trained over 700 volunteers, known as FROGs (The Foreshore Recording and Observation Group).

These FROGs join us on the foreshore to carefully record the remains of London’s past. So far, they’ve recorded 60 archaeological sites at risk of damage or disappearing into the river.

“I’ve learned more about history and archaeology within a few months of being a FROG than in a lifetime of visiting museums.”  
Thames Discovery Programme volunteer

We’ve also led school trips onto the foreshore, given talks and run other sessions to share our discoveries with local communities.

TDP is hosted by MOLA and generously supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Tideway and the City Bridge Trust.

Get involved

Check out the Thames Discovery Programme website for the latest news and to get involved in their work.

Follow @ThamesDiscovery and @MOLArchaeology on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to keep up to date with TDP and the River Recoveries project. You can also keep an eye on the hashtag #RiverRecoveries.

River Recoveries

In 2021, we started our ‘River Recoveries’ project which aims to help the Thames Discovery Programme succeed long into the future. It is also designed to support London’s communities in their recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Among other things, the River Recoveries project will:

• create a new TDP Young Archaeologists Club 
• develop a new TDP website  
• digitise thousands of records of foreshore archaeology to create an online archive 
• fundraise and plan for the long-term future of the programme 
• make the TDP volunteer training programme more flexible and inclusive

This project is generously supported by funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Historic England, the City of London Archaeological Trust (COLAT), The John and Ruth Howard Charitable Trust and the Port of London Authority. 

You can read more information about the River Recoveries project on our website.

CITiZAN (Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network)

Significant archaeological sites along our sinuous coast and on the foreshores of our tidal estuaries are continually eroded by winds, waves and tidal scour. CITiZAN (Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network) is the first systematic national response to this threat.

The project focuses on nationally important, exposed archaeological sites: the remains of prehistoric forests, Roman buildings, ancient salt-working sites, lost medieval ports, fishing settlements, coastal defences from both World Wars and countless abandoned boats, barges and ships. The CITiZAN project delivers community-based training to create an infrastructure and network of volunteers with the skills and systems to be able to record, monitor and celebrate the highly significant, but fragile and threatened archaeological sites.

Heritage Minister, Tracey Crouch, said: "As someone who grew up on the coast I believe this to be a hugely important project to record the fascinating history of our coastline. The 70,000 sites that are at risk tell the story of our shared national heritage, so it's vital they are surveyed before the sea takes them. No where in Britain is more than 70 miles from the coast, so I would urge anyone to take the opportunity to get involved."

The project has developed a standardised survey, monitoring and web-based recording system and delivers a national training programme to participants through three regional centres, in London with project lead MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology), in York with partner organisation the Council for British Archaeology and in Portsmouth with the Nautical Archaeology Society. A national network is being established to monitor, record, and interpret coastal and intertidal sites, and actively engage CITiZAN volunteers through the website and outreach programme.

CITiZAN is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Lottery Fund, Historic England, the National Trust and Lloyds Register Fund with additional support from The Crown Estate.

For more information on the project, or to become a volunteer, please visit citizan.org.uk or contact us at citizan@mola.org.uk.

Follow the project on Twitter, Facebook and on Flickr.

Transforming data re-use in archaeology (TETRARCHs)

Running from October 2022 to September 2025, Transforming Data Reuse in Archaeology (TETRARCHs) is a 3-year, CHANSE-funded international collaboration between MOLA, the University of York, Research Centre for the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Lund University, University of Antwerp, Ghent Centre for Digital Humanities, University of Ghent, and Vilnius University.

The project’s Lead and Investigators include:

• Sara Perry, Project Leader (MOLA)
• Holly Wright, Co-I (University of York)
• Rimvydas Laužikas, PI (Vilnius University)
• Edisa Lozić, PI (Znanstvenoraziskovalni center Slovenske akademije znanosti in umetnosti)
• Nicoló Dell'Unto PI (Lund University)
• Helene Verreyke, PI (University of Antwerp)
• Christophe Verbruggen (Ghent University)

Today many organisations collect and manage archaeological data to document and preserve our cultural landscapes, sites, and objects. Unfortunately, our current methods can make it difficult to re-use the data to tell stories and share findings in ways that are democratic, engaging and just. In fact, although a lot of work has been done to make archaeology Findable, Accessible and Interoperable (according to the FAIR Principles), little is understood about whether our data is Reusable – and who is using it.

The TETRARCHs project will experiment with approaches to collecting archaeological data and using that data for storytelling in ways that are meaningful for diverse audiences. Our experiments will help both those who preserve our heritage and the huge range of citizens across Europe who value it.

To do so, we will create new workflows for collecting and managing archaeology and heritage data. Here we’ll examine how the archaeological process in the field, the lab and the archive can be changed to support storytelling with the data. We’ll develop these workflows by partnering with an interdisciplinary team of archaeological specialists, data scientists and museum practitioners alongside three key audiences – domain experts, creative practitioners, and memory institutions.

Our project includes archaeology data collection at three different scales – from whole landscapes, to single sites, to individual objects. We’ll explore these using four increasingly common technologies for data capture: airborne LiDAR, 3D scanning, digital field drawing and photography.

Once the workflows are complete, we’ll test them by supporting people who work in creative fields from across Europe to develop new stories and other imaginative works using archaeology data.

In the end, through TETRARCHs, we will produce:

• new workflows for field, laboratory, and archival practice in archaeology
• the world’s first controlled vocabulary for cultural heritage storytelling
• the first assessments of how effectively data is reused, following ISO Standard 25022: Measurement of Quality in Use
• the first best practice recommendations for trusted digital repositories to optimise their archaeological data for re-use in storytelling

You can learn more about our work on the dedicated TETRARCH website.

TETRARCHs is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK (AH/X006980/1), alongside multiple European funding bodies under CHANSE ERA-NET Co-fund programme, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, under Grant Agreement no 101004509.