The London Museum received a £20 million donation and more than 14,000 Roman artifacts from Bloomberg Philanthropies, including items from a third-century CE temple dedicated to the Roman god Mithras. The donation marks the largest private contribution to the museum to date and constitutes the largest acquisition the museum has ever had from a single site, according to ARTnews.
"These remarkable artifacts offer a unique window into the past, connecting us directly to the voices of its ancient inhabitants," said Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies and former New York City mayor, according to the BBC.
"Bloomberg has been a huge cultural champion for London, and this is a great example of public and private sectors working together to help realise bold plans for our capital's future," said Mayor of London Sadiq Khan.
"A momentous gift that ties the past to the future and which will be a lasting legacy for London," said Sharon Ament, director of the London Museum.
The trove of Roman artifacts was found during the construction of Bloomberg's European headquarters in the City of London between 2012 and 2014. A total of 14,000 objects, 81,000 fragments of animal bones, and 73,000 shards of pottery were found at the site.
Among the notable artifacts is the largest collection of 405 wooden Roman tablets found in Britain, which include the first recorded reference to the city of London, as well as gossipy messages recovered from writing tablets, as reported by The Guardian.
The Roman writing tablets reveal the earliest surviving voices of Roman Londoners. The team recovered the names of 100 Roman Londoners who had never been heard of before.
The Bloomberg site is known as home to a temple to the Roman god Mithras, located in the heart of the City, close to the Bank of England. The temple, from which many of the artifacts came, has been on public display at the London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE since 2017.
The writing tablets are wooden frames with an inset writing area about the size of a Ryvita, which would be filled with black wax and then written on, as described by The Guardian. The Museum of London's new collection offers not so much a glimpse of the past as an immersion into it, according to The Guardian.
"They were amazing bureaucrats, the Romans. And it's nice for Bloomberg, isn't it?" said Jackson, as reported by The Guardian.
Many of the bones are from cows, pigs, and sheep; there are others from chickens but fewer, as described by The Guardian.
The London Museum plans to put the artifacts on public display when it relocates to its new premises in Smithfield in 2026, following the closure of its London Wall site. The new location, being converted from the Smithfield meat market, is expected to draw more than two million visitors each year.
In September, Sadiq Khan and the City of London Corporation announced they would commit an additional £25 million to the Museum of London.
"The London Museum will be a significant addition to our capital, transforming the Smithfield area and using the power of culture to drive economic improvement, as we build a better London for everyone," said Khan.
"It will be a lasting legacy for the city, including setting high standards in sustainability, creating new apprenticeships for young people, moving the dial on digital opportunities, and involving a record number of Londoners in the making of the museum," said Ament, as reported by ARTnews.
The article was written with the assistance of a news analysis system.
