Roman Painted Wall Plaster

Everyday life in Pontes, Roman Staines; a piece of painted wall plaster. Some people in Roman Staines did rather well out of selling provisions to passing travellers; their houses had tiled roofs, Opus Signinum (concrete) floors, hypocaust flue tiles (under floor heating), window glass and painted walls. This is one of many fragments of painted wall plaster found in Staines. If you look carefully you can see a groove on the back where the slaked lime/sand/aggregate plaster was attached to the wooden ‘wattle’ frame of the wall, and a thin fine smooth layer of crushed marble which is applied to the outer surface to provide a painting surface. Analysis of samples from Staines by the University of Leicester showed our painted plaster to be painted ‘buon fresco’, or when the plaster was still wet, meaning plastering and painting were completed in panels of one days work before the plaster dried. This fragment is ca. 2cm across and photography employed a 50mm lens at F22.