Groovy Grottos

Watching BBC News 24, I saw that an underground cavity decorated with seashells, mosaics and pumice stones was discovered near the ruins of the palace of Emperor Augustus on the Palatine hill. I was struck by the shell panels in the newly revealed grotto, where Romulus and Remus were allegedly suckled by their adoptive wolf mother. The panels (you see better views in the video clip on BBC News 24) seem to bear an uncanny resemblance to the panels in our local Shell Grotto in Margate. The Roman grotto panels included marble mosaics, so they're not identical, but they may at least be of a similar age perhaps (Roman one seems to date from about 700BC). Oh well, I thought it was interesting...