Abstract :
The left hand and forearm from a slightly over life-size bronze or copper-alloy arm was excavated
during 2001 at 20–30 Gresham Street, within the City of London. It was discarded in a quarry
pit, which flooded with groundwater turning it into a pond and was subsequently backfilled c.
a.d. 60–70. The arm was presumably part of a public statue, perhaps of an emperor or god, which
had been deliberately broken up. The Boudican revolt of a.d. 60/1 is one possible context for the
destruction of Roman statuary in London, but the end of Nero’s reign, some ten years later, is
another period when any statues of this very unpopular emperor could have been broken up.
The article includes a catalogue of previous finds of bronze statuary from London (where more
fragments of arms and hands have been recovered than anywhere else in Britain), the results of
metallurgical examination of the arm, and a discussion of iconoclasm in Roman Britain.
