Mudlark's treasure Bone rosary bead among discoveries

Caroline Nunneley was mud larking along the shore of the Thames in London – inching on her hands and knees while scanning the surface of the mud – when she suddenly spotted a miniature human skull looking up at her.

- Esther Addley

She picked up the small, exquisitely carved object and showed it to a friend, “and then we turned it over and we went : ‘Whoa’. Because we hadn’t realised that there was a face on the other side.”

What they had found was a late medieval rosary bead, dating back possibly as far as 1450, that had been carved from bone and, thanks to the anaerobic river mud, perfectly preserved for five centuries.

Its twin designs, of a female face – possibly the Virgin Mary – on one side and a skull on the other were designed as a “memento mori” to remind the wearer of his or her mortality.

“She’s just a woman reminding us that one day we were young and beautiful and full of life, and that we have to be aware that time is passing,” says Nunneley, who has held a mud larking licence – as required by the Port of London Authority – for five years.