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7/8/2025, 12:23:07 PM
>In 1995, as the site [of the Gherkin] was being cleared for new construction, an archeological investigation discovered the remains of a young girl estimated to be 1,600 years old, when the City of London was the Roman settlement of Londinium.
>Rather than have her languish in a dusty storeroom, the developers of the Gherkin requested that she be reburied on site, and there was a service at St. Botolphs Church in Aldgate. A procession through the city streets followed, and a celebration with musicians approximating ancient Roman tunes. The Lord Mayoress of the City of London was there to spread rose petals on the gravesite, marked with a marble slab decorated with a laurel wreath.
>There was a dedication of a simple memorial set into the marble benches along Bury Street. The inscription reads, in both English and Latin: “To the spirits of the dead / the unknown young girl / from Roman London / lies buried here.”
>She was a teenager at the time she died, somewhere between 13 and 17 years old. There is no way to know who she was—whether she was Roman, a Briton, or someone from the empire's fringes. But every day the workers in London’s financial district rush and hustle past one of the city’s earliest inhabitants, memorialized by some of the city’s latest.
Couldn't tell you why, but reading that made me very emotional.
>Rather than have her languish in a dusty storeroom, the developers of the Gherkin requested that she be reburied on site, and there was a service at St. Botolphs Church in Aldgate. A procession through the city streets followed, and a celebration with musicians approximating ancient Roman tunes. The Lord Mayoress of the City of London was there to spread rose petals on the gravesite, marked with a marble slab decorated with a laurel wreath.
>There was a dedication of a simple memorial set into the marble benches along Bury Street. The inscription reads, in both English and Latin: “To the spirits of the dead / the unknown young girl / from Roman London / lies buried here.”
>She was a teenager at the time she died, somewhere between 13 and 17 years old. There is no way to know who she was—whether she was Roman, a Briton, or someone from the empire's fringes. But every day the workers in London’s financial district rush and hustle past one of the city’s earliest inhabitants, memorialized by some of the city’s latest.
Couldn't tell you why, but reading that made me very emotional.
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