COLCHESTER, ENGLAND—A collection of Roman jewelry, including three gold armlets, a silver chain necklace, two silver bracelets, a silver armlet, four finger rings, a box containing two pairs of gold earrings, and a bag of coins, was discovered during the renovation of a department store in Colchester, Britain’s oldest recorded town. The cache of jewelry had been buried in the floor of a house that had been burned to the ground at the time of the Boudiccan Revolt of A.D. 61, marked by a thick red and black layer of debris over much of the modern city. “Our team removed the find undisturbed along with its surrounding soil, so that the individual items could be carefully uncovered and recorded under controlled conditions off site,” Philip Crummy, director of the Colchester Archaeological Trust, told EADT 24. In addition, a piece of a human jaw and a shin bone that had been cut with a heavy, sharp weapon were recovered. “We also discovered food that was never eaten on the floor of the room in which the jewelry was found, including dates, figs, wheat, peas, and grain,” Crummy said. The food was probably stored in the room, and was carbonized and preserved by the fire. To read about the search for the tomb of the warrior queen Boudicca, who commanded the army that destroyed Colchester, see ARCHAEOLOGY's "Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni."
