The Origins of London
The Ancients
History Hit
4.7 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 6 February 2022
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
London is today one of the greatest cities in the world, and the story of its origins is fittingly spectacular. Founded by the Romans as Londinium in around 47-50 AD, the metropolis served as a major commercial hub and indeed military target until its abandonment in the 5th century. It wouldn’t be until the turn of the following millennium that London regained its eminence under the Anglo-Saxons.
Thanks to centuries of astonishing discoveries and decades of key archaeological research, we actually know quite a lot about Londinium; perhaps even why the Romans chose to found it there in what was previously a rural and peripheral landscape under the Celtic Britons.
In this episode, Tristan chats to ‘Mr Roman London’ himself Dr Dominic Perring, Professor of Archaeology at UCL, who shares incredible insights into the origins of London and what its artefacts tell us about the very first Londoners.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hits the Ancient On History Hit. |
| 0:05.8 | I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. |
| 0:07.6 | And in today's podcast, well, you're going to be blown away by this one. |
| 0:10.8 | We're talking about the origins of one of the greatest cities on earth. |
| 0:13.6 | If not the greatest city, we're talking about the origins of London. |
| 0:17.6 | Because London was originally a Roman foundation. |
| 0:22.0 | And to talk us through today the rise of Roman London from the mid-first century to the |
| 0:27.6 | mid-second century, I was delighted to get on the show Mr. Roman London. |
| 0:32.3 | Dr. Dominic Perring from UCL. |
| 0:35.4 | He knows so much about Roman London. |
| 0:37.4 | He's been studying its archaeology, its history for so many years. |
| 0:41.2 | And he's a fantastic speaker. |
| 0:42.9 | You're going to absolutely love it. |
| 0:44.6 | It was wonderful to meet up with him in person a few days back to record this exceptional interview. |
| 0:50.2 | Now we're going to be covering big names such as Udica and Hadrian and so much more. |
| 0:55.6 | So without further ado to talk all about the origins of London, is Dominic. |
| 1:00.4 | Tom, it is great having you on the podcast today. |
| 1:03.2 | It's lovely to be with you doing it in person as well, which is always a plus. |
| 1:06.1 | And London, origins of London, Roman London, because not only today's one of the greatest cities on earth, |
| 1:11.6 | I think we can all say that, but archaeologically it's been intensely studied to the decades, it's incredible. |
| 1:17.1 | We are really, really lucky as archaeologists to have been able to play here for so long. |
| 1:22.3 | I mean, firstly, London is one of the places where people started the process of exploration into ancient pasts |
... |
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