Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — Archaeologists have announced that an analysis of the remains of a young medieval girl, who was found buried face down with the possibility of her ankles shackled, suggests that additional measures were taken at the time to ensure she could not “return” from the grave.
The Museum of London Archeology reported that the body of the 15-year-old was found inside a pit in an early medieval settlement, near the village of Kennington in south-east England, in the county of Cambridgeshire.
The excavation was carried out between 2016 and 2018, and the girl’s remains are currently being studied.
And the London Museum of Archeology said in a press release, Monday, that there were no burial rituals followed at the time in England in the early Middle Ages, but it was customary to place the body of the deceased on his back.
A statement from the London Archeology Museum read: “Face burial is believed to have been a social expression of ‘otherness’, a burial practice reserved for people considered outside early medieval society, including those who looked or acted differently from the rest of society, and those who suffered of low social status, as well as individuals who have suffered violent or unexpected deaths.
Osteologists at the Museum of London Archeology have found evidence that the girl was from a lower social class, and suspect she died suddenly or unexpectedly, as her bones showed no signs of a long and serious illness.
There was evidence that she suffered from childhood malnutrition, and a spine analysis revealed that she had a spinal joint disease that would have been made worse by doing heavy manual labor from a young age, the statement said.
It was almost certainly seen as different.
Burying someone face down “was a social expression of ‘otherness’ in early medieval England, according to the Museum of London ArcheologyCredit: MOLA Headland Infrastructure
“This burial provides an interesting, albeit tragic, opportunity to examine the realities of the life and death of those seen as intruders in the past,” Don Walker, senior human bone specialist at the London Archeology Museum, said in the statement.
He continued, “We may not know exactly what the society in which this young woman was brought up and viewed her, but the way she was buried tells us that she was almost certainly seen as different.”
In addition to the fact that she was buried face down, the position of her ankles indicates that they were bound together, and this means that the community took extra measures to ensure that she could not return from the grave.”
The statement also stated that the girl’s body was placed in such a way as to make her burial place look meaningful, as it was placed inside a pit that previously hosted a large wooden post for a guard gate.
This had parallels with the burial of a woman also face-down, in a ditch on the boundary of the settlement, in the late eighth to ninth century, about 30 miles from where this case was buried. That woman, who is believed to have been executed, was missing her arms, head, neck and part of her spine.
She was buried in a pit that was used to place an early medieval gatehouse post at the settlement of Connington.Credit: Oxford Archeology
While burials in church-related tombs were not standard practice at the time, borders appear to have been used for “significant or unusual” burials in England during the period, according to the London Archeology Museum.
Radiocarbon dating was used to reveal the death of the child between the years 680 and 880 AD, and archaeological work at the site indicates that activity in the settlement there ended during the eighth and ninth centuries.
2023-08-18 08:40:44
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