Excavations at the Roman town of Wroxeter have uncovered a remarkable 2,000-year-old Roman mosaic, as well as an ancient building and shrine.

The Roman presence in Britain is often described as the high point of the Roman Empire, while its decline and eventual abandonment is something like the ebbing of a tide.

As the tide of empire receded from Shropshire, England, near Wales, it left behind a stunning mosaic of fish and other sea life made of green, blue, yellow and red tiles, seen for the first time in centuries.

Recent excavations in the still largely unexcavated Roman town of Wroxeter have uncovered the foundations of the settlement’s main building.

“One of the best-preserved examples of a Roman town in Britain, Wroxeter (or Viriconium, as it was known), founded in the 90s AD, was a thriving city of the Roman Empire, once as large as Pompeii,” English Heritage said in a statement.

“At its peak, the town included over two hundred houses, a municipal bathhouse, a marketplace, a county hall, and a courthouse.”

The trenches were dug near the Town Forum to search for a building called the Civic Temple. The trenches along the main street revealed this “particularly rare” mosaic depicting marine life and a painted plaster wall, the lower part of which has remarkably survived to this day.

A mausoleum and a shrine were also discovered, which may have housed the remains of an early community leader, such as a mayor.

Wroexeter is home to Britain’s largest free-standing Roman wall and remains of the public baths have survived the centuries. The entire site, which involved 20 aspiring archaeologists, has been reburied to protect it from oxidative damage and the elements.

OTHER MUST-SEE MOSAICS: This 2,300-year-old mosaic of shells and corals was just found buried under Rome

AND: Stunning ancient Roman mosaic found in the sea off Naples

Fish and marine life were common subjects in mosaics by the Romans and some of their contemporaries, such as those at Carthage. The museum in Monastir, Tunisia, contains one of the most impressive collections of classical mosaics outside the Roman world, and many of them depict marine life.

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