The Tabard Square Canister
Edited by Graham Sherwood & Douglas Killock 3rd November 2004
(Source: Nature 2004)
The possible contents of a sealed metal cylindrical container excavated at our Tabard Square Excavations in 2003 caused widespread speculation before it was opened to an astonished media last year.
The cylindrical canister was made of tin and measured 6cm in diametre by 5cm high, it is estimated to date from the middle of the second Century AD. The white cream preserved within even contained the finger marks of the last user. But what was it used for? Speculation ranged from a cosmetic to medicinal purposes.
Chemists at Bristol University who have been analysing the cream have concluded that it was probably used as a high-status cosmetic, similar to a modern foundation cream.
The researchers report in Nature magazine that the two principal components, each constituting around 40% of the total, were starch and animal fat, the later probably derived from a cow or a goat.
However the essential component was tin oxide, which gave the cream it's distinctive white colour.
If you mix the starch and fat together, you get quite a nice hand cream, but when you add the tin you get a translucent, white cream.
Chemist Richard Evershed
Bristol University, UK
The starch was probably added to reduce the greasy feeling of fat on the skin and it is still used for the same purpose today in body lotions and hand creams.
The original cream was harder and more granular than the replicated, but Evershed suspects that this is down to centuries of microbial action; the fat is likely to have changed most.
Francis Grew, curator at the Museum of London, agrees that the tin was probably added as a pigment.
Just as we like tanned skin, in the Roman world, white complexions were what everybody sought, he says - In the Roman world, white complexions were what everybody sought.
Curator Francis Grew
Museum of London, UK
The cream is reasonably sophisticated, with coverage comparable to that of modern cosmetics, while rubbing the replica cream into his hand. A scar on his knuckle disappeared under his new, paler complexion.
The container is now housed at The Museum of London.
Article is compiled from Nature Magazine and from the Nature website.
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