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#TheDig has been causing quite a buzz this past week and we thought it would be a good time to revisit two archaeological digs that uncovered intriguing burials at our churches. So leave #SuttonHoo behind for now and come with us to Sutterby in Lincolnshire ...
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In 2015, a skeleton was found beyond the west wall of the church. Two femurs protrude, with hands clasped in front the the pelvis. These bones were radiocarbon dated to approximately 1050 - the very end of the era of Anglo Saxon rule, before the Norman Conquest of 1066.
Evidence of a church from this date hasn’t been found but it may have been a timber church of which all traces are now lost. The earliest building archaeology here dates to the 12thC - a rough stone foundation built directly on top of the older burial & an existing north doorway.
Back in 1981, archaeologists working at the late 11th-early 12thC chapel of Urishay Castle in Herefordshire would not have expected human remains, since the chapel had no burial ground ...
Urishay Chapel when we took it on.
Urishay Chapel when we took it on.
However, they discovered some surprising intramural burials: several infants had been interred in front of the stone nave altars that once flanked the rood screen.
These early medieval burials provide fascinating archaeological evidence, but on a human level they also resonate with the profound experience of loss that transgresses the passing of time.
We don’t have any big digs lined up but #archaeology is a critical part of many projects. Archaeologists are currently monitoring work at Barmby on the Marsh as we pull up a concrete draining channel. It’s not Netflix movie material, but the soil can be full of surprises ...
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