Aylesbury: Roman egg found in Buckinghamshire 'one of a kind'

A Roman egg dating back over a thousand years was first discovered during an excavation of the Berryfields development site near Aylesbury that took place between 2007 and 2016.

Archaeologists uncovered a "large water-logged Roman pit" containing a number of items including a cache of preserved eggs, only one of which was removed from the excavation site intact.

Now, following an investigation by DGB Conservation, the egg is believed to be the only one of its kind still containing liquid and an air bubble in the UK and, potentially, the world. 

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Edward Biddulph, Senior Project Manager at Oxford Archaeology, the independent heritage practice that published a monograph of the dig's findings back in 2019, said he believed the egg had been put in the pit between c. AD 270 and 300, making it 1,700 years old.

He added that he believed the pit had originally been used to extract water for malting and brewing before the inhabitants of the Roman roadside settlement at Berryfields began using it for ritual purposes instead, placing objects into the ground as offerings to the gods or good luck charms.

Douglas G. D. Russell, Senior Curator of Birds' Eggs and Nests at the Natural History Museum, said the egg was "the oldest surviving inadvertently preserved avian egg found in the UK - with no known equivalent globally".

He added: “Currently, we know relatively little. We do not know exactly what the overall state of preservation is, what is left in terms of contents or which species laid it.

“What is fascinating and sets these Roman eggs apart is that, as far as we can tell, they were relatively fresh and unaltered when buried and it is simply (the case) that the soil conditions unintentionally preserved them.”

The 1,700-year-old egg is currently being kept at the Discover Bucks Museum in Aylesbury as part of the archived findings from the Berryfields excavations.