This sealed canister, with a tightly fitting lid still in place, was thrown into a ditch on the edge of the temple complex 2000 years ago. Remarkably, upon opening, the fingerprints of the last user were visible in the top of a white cream. Scientific analysis has shown the cream to consist of refined animal fat combined with starch and tin oxide. The researchers recreated the recipe and found that, when rubbed into the skin, it created a white layer with a smooth powdery texture. It’s likely that this was a face cream, akin to foundation, which may have been used for lightening the skin. The use of fats and starch in such products is well attested and continues today, and the addition of tin oxide would have added to the white opaque tone. Professor Richard Evershed from Bristol University, who undertook the research, said: ‘White face paint was fashionable in Roman times and normally derived its colour from a lead compound. A tin compound would have been an acceptable substitute and in good supply from Cornwall.’ As tin has no medicinal properties it must have been a pigment, a non-toxic alternative to lead; the health risks of lead were becoming known by this time. A second, similar though larger, canister was also found at Tabard Square.

The results of the analysis was published in Nature Journal and the discovery received wide press coverage in publications such as the Guardian and New Scientist.

This astonishing find is now in the Museum of London.