Around 1,800 years ago, a fossilized spinal bone lay on the windswept beaches of Roman Britain until a curious passerby picked it up and carried it far away, only to drop it in a pit.
The Colchester fossil was discovered in 2024 at the former Essex County Hospital, at the site of the first provincial Roman capital of Britain. It was found in a mysterious pit together with an array of artifacts, including possible cat remains, a horse tooth, pottery shards and a Roman toilet spoon called a ligula, dated to around the second century A.D.
WTF is a “Roman toilet spoon?”