21st May 2026
Dr Sam Moorhead
About 18 miles west of Rome, at the mouth of the River Tiber, stand the impressive ruins of Ostia, Rome’s most important port. With wonderfully preserved streets, massive granaries and warehouses, tenement blocks (the best anywhere in the Roman Empire), grand town houses, bath-houses and taverns it was a city bustling with activity, attracting people from all over the Empire. This is shown by temples dedicated to numerous gods and goddesses, including the oriental deities Mithras, Cybele and Serapis. With many fine mosaics and wall paintings, the site rivals Pompeii and Herculaneum in its preservation.
Dr Sam Moorhead is the retired National Finds Adviser for Iron Age and Roman coins in the Portable Antiquities and Treasure Section at the British Museum. Before joining the British Museum in 1997 as Staff Lecturer for Archaeology, he taught Classics and Archaeology; he is an Honorary Lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. He has excavated widely in the Mediterranean and Britain, concentrating on the Roman and early Mediaeval periods. Serving on numerous councils, he has been Chairman of the Palestine Exploration Fund and Honorary Secretary of the Roman Society. He has lectured to numerous organisations in Britain, including learned, literary, historical and archaeological societies, and has been a Guest Lecturer on many cruises. He was voted Archaeologist of the Year by readers of Current Archaeology in 2011 and was awarded the Medal of the Royal Numismatic Society in 2019. He has written or co-written The Roman Empire (2008) and The Frome Hoard (2010), AD 410 – The Year that Shook Rome (2010), The Romans who shaped Britain (2012), 31 BC, Antony, Cleopatra and the Fall of Egypt (2012), A History of Roman Coinage in Britain (2013) and Rebel Emperors of Britannia (2023) He is currently rewriting the standard reference for the coinages of the emperors Carausius and Allectus and is working on numismatic material from excavations at Ipplepen (Devon), Richborough (Kent), Butrint (Albania) and Sidon (Lebanon).
