Londinium’s Glass Act

Here’s a tiny piece of Roman glass, measuring just 1.7cm across – and somehow still packed with detail.

Found on the Thames foreshore, this is the kind of mudlarking discovery often described as “eyes only”: small, easily missed, but instantly exciting once spotted. The glass is a pale, light green, and carved as an intaglio with the image of a male lion. At the upper left edge, you can also make out the sun.

Although the piece is slightly off-circular, that’s likely down to the manufacturing process. In its original life it would probably have been fitted into a mount, which would have hidden the irregular edge and allowed the design to be used as intended.

The lion and sun motif appears across many cultures, but in the Roman world it commonly represented power, strength, and divine authority – a visual shorthand for “everything under the sun”. Lions also feature heavily in Roman symbolism, with figures such as Venus and Hercules often associated with them to suggest ferocity and bravery.

It’s hard not to marvel at the thought behind it: in Roman times, the only place most people would ever see a living lion was at the gladiatorial games. Perhaps this was a souvenir from a bustling market stall in Londinium – lost, buried, and then rediscovered centuries later… before eventually making its way to Charing Cross Market. What’s certain is that the finder had very sharp eyesight…

(£1 coin shown for scale.)