The Earliest Known Purposefully Collected Ichthyosaurian Fossil: A Vertebral Centrum from a Second-century a.d . Roman Pit in Colchester, Essex

This article discusses the noteworthy discovery of an ichthyosaur vertebral centrum from a Roman pit dating to the third quarter of the second century a.d . at the site of the former Essex County Hospital, Lexden Road, Colchester. The pit also yielded a toilet spoon ( ligula) and a potentially disparate associated animal bone group which could indicate the structured deposition of the centrum. The reason it was collected and then curated may have involved Greco-Roman folklore or mythology. Alternatively, it might have been a curio. The east Kent coast between Folkestone and Hythe is suggested as the most probable source of the fossil. This find represents the first ichthyosaur remains found in a Roman deposit and the earliest known instance of the deliberate acquisition of an ichthyosaur fossil.