The Spitalfields Roman Woman

With seven days to go, thanks to generosity of 132 donors, we have raised £14,081 towards our target of £25,000 to publish Women at Work, Sarah Ainslie’s East End Portraits 1992-2025. If you have not contributed please consider doing so at this crucial moment. If you have contributed please help us by persuading your friends, family and workmates to do so too. Click here to visit the crowdfund Curator of Human Osteology, Rebecca Redfern watches over her charge (Portrait by Sarah Ainslie) In his Survey of London 1589, John Stow wrote about the discovery of pots of Roman gold coins buried in Spitalfields and it had long been understood that ancient tombs once lined the road approaching London, just as they did along the Appian Way in Rome. Yet it was only in the nineteen-nineties, when large scale excavations took place prior to the redevelopment of the Spitalfields Market, that the full extent of the Roman cemetery was uncovered. In March 1999, a Roman stone sarcophagus containing a…