Archaeologists have a theory about a mysterious burial
Analysis of the remains of a young medieval girl found in England, who was buried face down with her ankles tied, suggests that additional measures were taken in this way to in order to ensure that «she cannot 'return' from the grave,» the archaeologists said.
Photo: MOLA
Medieval girl buried face down, possibly with ankles tied to prevent «return» from the grave,” CNN tells.
According to the London Museum of Archaeology (MOLA), the corpse of a 15-year-old teenage girl was found in a pit in the territory of an early medieval settlement near the south-eastern English village of Conington in Cambridgeshire.
The excavations were carried out between 2016 and 2018, and the remains of the girl have now been studied.
While there were no established burial traditions in early medieval England, it was common practice at the time to lay the body of the deceased face down up, says the museum in a press release on Monday.
«It is believed that being buried face down was a social expression of 'otherness', a burial practice reserved for people considered outside of early medieval society,» the museum says. – This includes those who looked or acted differently than the rest of the community, people of low social status, and people who suffered violent or unexpected death”.
Osteologists – bone specialists – in the London Museum of Archeology found evidence that the girl had a low social status. They suspect that she died suddenly, as her bones showed no signs of long-term serious illness.
Evidence was found that the girl suffered from malnutrition as a child, and analysis of her spine showed that she had a spinal joint disease that could have been exacerbated by heavy physical labor from an early age, according to a press release. .
“This burial provides an interesting, if tragic, glimpse into the realities of life and death for those once considered outsiders,” said Don Walker, Senior Osteologist at the London Museum of Archeology.
“We will probably never know exactly how this young woman was treated by the community in which she grew up, but the way she was buried tells us that she was almost certainly considered different,” he continued.
“In addition to being buried face down at the border, the position of her ankles suggests that they may have been tied together. This implies that the community has taken extra measures to ensure that she cannot ”come back" from the grave,» the scientist added.
Photo: MOLA
The location of the child's body also gave importance to the place of her burial. According to a press release, the girl's body was lowered into a pit that previously contained a large wooden post for the pen's entrance gate.
In this, scientists have found similarities with a face-down burial of a woman, also in the border moat of the settlement, at the end 8th – early 9th century, about 30 miles from where the incident took place. The woman, believed to have been executed, was missing her arms, head, neck and part of her spine.
While burial in cemeteries associated with churches was not standard practice at the time, according to the London museum of archeology, the borders appear to have been used for «significant or unusual» burials in England during this period.
Radiocarbon analysis was used to show that the child died between 680 and 880 AD, and archaeological work at the site suggests that settlement activity there ended in the 8th and 9th centuries.