Necropolis: London & it's Dead Read Free Page A

over 200 burials, the most spectacular of which consisted of a stone sarcophagus, dating from the fourth century AD . One of four high-profile burials, it had been placed on a raised area of the cemetery, designed to be seen from the main road. This feature had its drawbacks. Two of the tombs had been broken into, probably during the Late Roman period, and grave robbers had even created a ramp to make it easier to steal the sarcophagus. The latter had been enclosed in a timber mausoleum, long since rotten, although traces of the joists remained. Nearby were the remains of a child.
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    Unlike the other three, this sarcophagus had never been tampered with. Distracted, perhaps, by another find, or interrupted in their work, the grave robbers had left it intact. Perhaps they intended to return at a later date.
    By the thirteenth century, the graves had been built over, which had preserved the sarcophagus for posterity. After scanning with a metal detector indicated that there was something precious inside, the lid was raised to show an elaborately decorated lead coffin, surrounded by mud. Inside was an intricate hair ornament made of jet, and a beautiful glass perfume bottle, suggesting that the inhabitant was a woman.
    When the coffin was opened, it revealed the skeleton of a young woman, perfectly preserved, lying on a pillow of bay leaves and wrapped in an elaborate robe of Chinese silk, decorated with gold thread from Syria.
    The Spitalfields Woman had been prosperous. She came from a wealthy family, the wife or daughter of a senior Government official. DNA testing revealed that she was probably of Spanish origin. Her sarcophagus was limestone, quarried in the East Midlands, possibly selected from a number of sarcophagi kept on hand for important burials by the precursors of the London undertaking trade. Tall for her day at five feet four inches, she showed little evidence of injury or disease; the cause of death was thought to have been an infection. And she had never given birth. DNA testing indicated that the child buried nearby was not related.
    The Spitalfields Woman now resides in her coffin, at the Museum of London, for all to see. Reconstruction techniques, pioneered in the discipline of forensic science, have allowed experts to recreate her face. For all the Roman horror of the dead, there is nothing to fear here. We can look into her eyes, and consider the details of her short life, and gain some insight into what it was like to live and die in London, almost 2,000 years ago.
    An earlier version of the bustling commercial melting pot that it has become today, London flourished under the Romans. However, as the Roman Empire declined, so did London. In AD 410 the Emperor Honorius withdrew his army from Britannia, abandoning London to a wave of barbarians from Denmark, Germany and the Lower Rhine. These new arrivals, who displaced the Celts and Romans, became known as the Anglo-Saxons. Like the nomadic tribes which had roamed London before the Roman invasion, the Anglo-Saxons were pagans, their religious beliefs shaped by Nordic mythology. Although many Roman buildings fell into disrepair–like their predecessors, the Anglo-Saxons preferred to live in simple village settlements–the newcomers made good use of the existing cemeteries.
    The most spectacular and elaborate of all Saxon burials was not in London at all, but at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, where, in the seventh century AD , an entire ship was dragged up from the river and equipped with priceless treasures for a king’s last voyage to Valhalla. This is echoed in the epic poem Beowulf , believed to have been composed in the eighth century AD Beowulf’s father, Scyld, was carried down to the shore and placed in ‘a ring-prowed ship, straining at anchor and sheeted with ice’, filled with battle armour, swords and gems. In keeping with tradition, Scyld’s ship was launched into the ‘unknown deep and trackless seas’ 12 ; but the ship at