On his father’s farm in Rutland, Jim Irving and his family were out walking when he spotted a few bits of ancient pottery scattered on the ground. Further investigation into this led to the discovery of an extraordinary 1700-year-old Roman mosaic, depicting Achilles and the Trojan War from The Iliad, and the remains of an ancient villa. Upon finding these traces during lockdown in 2020, Irving accessed satellite imagery and discovered a cropmark, and after a preliminary search he contacted the Historic Environment team at Leicestershire County Council, who in turn reached out to the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) to excavate the area. “It was like literally within a couple of weeks before we had people on site to start working this properly,” Irving told the University of Leicestershire. He, too, was able to work along archeologists in the field. Given the nature of this exceptional find, Historic …