Archaeologists painstakingly reassemble ancient Roman temple

It was the Roman version of a boys’ club.

A cult where men got together and worshipped a God who killed a bull in a cave.

It happened in temples across the empire and in Roman Londinium, the Mithraeum was right in the heart of what is now London’s financial district.

It was forgotten, built upon and then in the 1950s, rediscovered when construction crews were re-building the bombed-out city.

Back then it was moved about 100 metres away and rebuilt. But the construction of the new, state of the art Bloomberg building has meant it’s been shifted back to its original site - seven metres under what is now street level.

Crews of archaeologists painstakingly disassembled and then reassembled the temple.

Now, it’s open to tourists and it’s quite an experience.

Bloomberg and the Museum of London Archaeology have developed a space that’s a mixture of old and new.

State of the art technology controls lights, pumps in haze and plays audio recreations of the Mithraeum chants.

It gives a sense of what it may have been like to worship in a dark, windowless, partially sunken temple 1800 years ago.

And now anyone, not just the men who went through initiation, can enter.