Littlehampton Museum staff scour the country for missing 'star find' from Angmering Roman villa excavations

The ceramic tile featuring the perfectly-preserved footprint of a Roman child was the largest and most touching find at the dig in 1937 and the museum's creator at the time confidently expected it to draw tears.

However, the museum has moved twice since and now nobody can find the precious tile. Staff have reached out to The British Museum, Sussex Archaeological Society and many other museums along the south coast in a bid to find it but to no avail.

Lucy Ashby, museum officer, said: "The museum staff would love to find this tile so that they can display it in their Romans exhibition from June to September this year. Please help us to find this incredible artefact – we want to share this amazing and tangible link to the past, to a Roman child who ran across it as it was laid out in the sun to dry 2,000 years ago."

The tile was found during excavations at a Roman villa and bath house complex, west of Angmering village centre. During research for the upcoming Romans exhibition, current museum staff across a postcard depicting the footprint tile. The actual tile, however, was nowhere to be found, despite an extensive search – even resorting to a volunteer with dowsing rods!

Lucy said: "We need people to rack their brains, to see if they remember ever seeing the tile on display anywhere in the country, or any museum or archives who may have it in their collection. We would love to find it and reunite it with the other finds from the site for our upcoming summer exhibition."

The tile was a star find and the then curator of Littlehampton Museum, Frazer Hearne, gushed: "The latest and most touching find... is the print of a baby’s foot, tiny and naked on a large tile. We confidently expect it to draw tears.”

The excavations were carried out by Littlehampton Natural Science and Archaeology Society and the finds were added to Littlehampton Museum’s collection. The society was encouraged and advised by the famous archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler, and the excavations were managed by one of his students, Leslie Scott.

Lucy said: "It is possible that Sir Mortimer Wheeler borrowed the tile and gave or loaned it to another museum. Littlehampton Museum staff have already reached out to places who might be the current carers of the tile. No one has seen this tile!

"The museum has moved sites twice in its history, so we are also interested in anyone that might remember this tile on display when the museum was in 12A River Road from 1965 to the early 1990s, or in the back of the library in Maltravers Road from 1928 to 1965. We will be contacting previous curators to pick their brains, too."