LONDON, ENGLAND—The Guardian reports that archaeologists have recovered a variety of medieval artifacts from a 15-foot-deep cesspit under Somerset House, an eighteenth-century Neoclassical building in central London. The well-preserved objects, which include pottery vessels, an iron spur, a ring, a belt buckle, a bone-handled fork, a pendant, a thick chain that might have been attached to a candlestick, and floor tiles usually found in palaces and monasteries, are thought to have come from medieval mansions that previously stood on the site. In the seventeenth century, the cesspit was partially filled and used as a cellar. All four walls of the chalk-lined cesspit remain intact. To read about waste management in medieval Holland, go to "Letter from Leiden: Of Cesspits and Sewers."
