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Scottish Sun
5 days ago
- Scottish Sun
Chilling execution of ‘washed up' Medieval woman revealed as experts say brutal punishment was a ‘warning to others'
Her body was laden with fractures resembling that of a car accident victim, according to experts THAMES DIG Chilling execution of 'washed up' Medieval woman revealed as experts say brutal punishment was a 'warning to others' THE remains of a roughly 1,200-year-old woman found on the shores of the River Thames have exposed the brutal punishment practices of early Medieval Britain. London between 600 to 800 AD, or Lundenwic as it was then known, was a very different place than it is today. Advertisement 3 The woman, whose remains have been categorised as UPT90 sk 1278 in museum records, was between the ages of 28 and 40 when she died Credit: Museum of London 3 The River Thames near Blackfriars Bridge, London Credit: Getty The settlement, which covered the area of modern-day Covent Garden, was made up of narrow, winding streets and buildings made of timber and straw. It had a population of roughly 8,000 people - a far cry from the 9.26million residents that live there today. The remains of one Londoner, believed to have lived during the early medieval period between 680 and 810 AD, act as an example of these practices. Lawbreakers appeared to be executed in the streets, according to experts, and their bodies were left to decompose for all to see as a warning to others. Advertisement READ MORE ON ARCHAEOLOGY DEEP DIG Ancient burial of 'Ice Prince' uncovered alongside dismembered sacrifice The woman, whose remains have been categorised as UPT90 sk 1278 in museum records, was between the ages of 28 and 40 when she died. She was not buried, but rather sandwiched between two sheets of bark, lying on a mat of reeds with moss pads placed on her face, pelvis, and knees. When the woman was first excavated in 1991, archaeologists noted that she was likely placed on the foreshore of the Thames where her remains were in public view. "The burial treatment of UPT90 sk 1278 lets us know that her body was meant to be visible on the landscape, which could be interpreted as a warning to witnesses," said Dr. Madeline Mant, who studied the remains once they were moved to the London Museum. Advertisement Dr. Mant and her colleagues published their findings in the journal World Archaeology. Biggest burial site in Greek history guarded by two headless sphinx unearthed and it could be tomb of Alexander the Great "We can tell from the osteobiography of this individual and their burial treatment that they were executed, but the specific offense is impossible to know for certain," she added. "We can only infer from the law codes of the period." Just two weeks before her death, the woman was subject to torturous beatings and an eventual execution, researchers wrote. Advertisement Her body was laden with over 50 individual signs of injury, with fractures on her shoulders and spine resembling that of a car accident victim, according to experts. The researchers believe the 9th-century woman may have been beaten or flogged - where a victim is repeatedly hit with a whip or a stick. The second round of injuries on her torso and skull suggest the woman was punched or kicked repeatedly, in what experts have likened to torture beatings. Her execution was a final blow to the left side of her head. Advertisement Dr. Mant said her death was likely a form of capital punishment, which were becoming increasingly common in the period the woman is understood to have lived. "Early Medieval England was a time of change regarding law codes - the law code of Æthelberht (c. 589–616) did not include corporal punishment, but that of Wihtred of Kent (690–725) outlined specific punishments, for instance, beatings for those who could not pay fines," explained Dr. Mant. "Capital punishments were also included when willed by the king. "As time passed, more crimes were associated with the death penalty under King Alfred (871–899). Advertisement "Crimes such as theft, treason, witchcraft, and sorcery could be met with the death penalty, which could be brought about by stoning or drowning." 3 An illustration of London in the early Medieval period Credit: Mola The woman's diet consisted of terrestrial foods, like grains, vegetables, fruits, meat, dairy, and eggs. However, her remains show a period of increased stable nitrogen values sometime after she turned 5-years-old. Advertisement This could mean the woman either began eating more meat, or she suffered a period of starvation, during which her body began breaking down its own fat and protein stores. Starvation was a significant threat in early Medieval London, particularly for those who migrated to the city.
The Irish Sun
5 days ago
- Science
- The Irish Sun
Chilling execution of ‘washed up' Medieval woman revealed as experts say brutal punishment was a ‘warning to others'
THE remains of a roughly 1,200-year-old woman found on the shores of the River Thames have exposed the brutal punishment practices of early Medieval Britain. London between 600 to 800 AD , or Lundenwic as it was then known, was a very different place than it is today. 3 The woman, whose remains have been categorised as UPT90 sk 1278 in museum records, was between the ages of 28 and 40 when she died Credit: Museum of London 3 The River Thames near Blackfriars Bridge, London Credit: Getty The settlement, which covered the area of modern-day Covent Garden, was made up of narrow, winding streets and buildings made of timber and straw. It had a population of roughly 8,000 people - a far cry from the 9.26million residents that live there today. The remains of one Londoner, believed to have lived during the early medieval period between 680 and 810 AD , act as an example of these practices. Lawbreakers appeared to be executed in the streets, according to experts, and their bodies were left to decompose for all to see as a warning to others. READ MORE ON ARCHAEOLOGY The woman, whose remains have been categorised as UPT90 sk 1278 in museum records, was between the ages of 28 and 40 when she died. She was not buried, but rather sandwiched between two sheets of bark, lying on a mat of reeds with moss pads placed on her face, pelvis, and knees. When the woman was first excavated in 1991, archaeologists noted that she was likely placed on the foreshore of the Thames where her remains were in public view. "The burial treatment of UPT90 sk 1278 lets us know that her body was meant to be visible on the landscape, which could be interpreted as a warning to witnesses," said Dr. Madeline Mant, who studied the remains once they were moved to the London Museum . Most read in Science Dr. Mant and her colleagues their findings in the journal World Archaeology . Biggest burial site in Greek history guarded by two headless sphinx unearthed and it could be tomb of Alexander the Great "We can tell from the osteobiography of this individual and their burial treatment that they were executed, but the specific offense is impossible to know for certain," she added. "We can only infer from the law codes of the period." Just two weeks before her death, the woman was subject to torturous beatings and an eventual execution, researchers wrote. Her body was laden with over 50 individual signs of injury, with fractures on her shoulders and spine resembling that of a car accident victim, according to experts. The researchers believe the 9th-century woman may have been beaten or flogged - where a victim is repeatedly hit with a whip or a stick. The second round of injuries on her torso and skull suggest the woman was punched or kicked repeatedly, in what experts have likened to torture beatings. Her execution was a final blow to the left side of her head. Dr. Mant said her death was likely a form of capital punishment, which were becoming increasingly common in the period the woman is understood to have lived. "Early Medieval England was a time of change regarding law codes - the law code of Æthelberht (c. 589–616) did not include corporal punishment, but that of Wihtred of Kent (690–725) outlined specific punishments, for instance, beatings for those who could not pay fines," explained Dr. Mant. "Capital punishments were also included when willed by the king. "As time passed, more crimes were associated with the death penalty under King Alfred (871–899). "Crimes such as theft, treason, witchcraft, and sorcery could be met with the death penalty, which could be brought about by stoning or drowning." 3 An illustration of London in the early Medieval period Credit: Mola The woman's diet consisted of terrestrial foods, like grains, vegetables, fruits, meat, dairy, and eggs. However, her remains show a period of increased stable nitrogen values sometime after she turned 5-years-old. This could mean the woman either began eating more meat, or she suffered a period of starvation, during which her body began breaking down its own fat and protein stores. Starvation was a significant threat in early Medieval London, particularly for those who migrated to the city.
Daily Mirror
03-06-2025
- General
- Daily Mirror
'I found priceless treasure on a muddy riverbank - and there's more out there'
A treasure trove of rare artefacts unearthed by mudlarkers on the River Thames on display at London Museum Docklands reveals fascinating stories about London's ordinary people through the centuries A tiny piece of leather poking out of the shore and fluttering in the warm evening air turned out to be the find of a lifetime for a mudlarker on the banks of the Thames. Unsure of what he'd seen, Tom Coghlan got down on his knees in the mud at Wapping in East London to have a closer look. 'It was an incredibly fragile looking little piece of leather with what looked like an etching of a flower. I thought maybe it was a purse.' Knowing leather survives in the anaerobic clay of the Thames, Tom cut out a block of mud around the object, and took it home in a plastic bag to keep in the fridge until he could have it identified by Stuart Wyatt, the finds officer at the Museum of London. 'When I got home, I started to wash the mud off it. And as I did, this knight in armour appeared. That was just a really kind of extraordinary moment. This was the stuff I dreamed of as a six-year old boy obsessed with treasure hunting. 'As I washed, two knights appeared, one of whom was standing on a dragon. I thought, 'Oh, maybe that's St. George.' By that time, my heart was pounding.' Next morning Tom, 49, who lives in Kennington, South London, found a very excited Stuart waiting for him at the front door of the museum. 'The museum was able to learn a lot about the book from the wooden binding inside it. They discovered it was a cheap, mass-produced little tiny book of hours from when Caxton was starting to crank out books in real numbers during the reign of Henry VIII.' 'I imagine that somebody was reading it while being rowed back and forth across the Thames, and it went overboard and lay in the mud for 500 years until I happened along.' The Thames has been a rich source of history from the first settlers and the Romans, to the Normans and Tudors, then London in the time of the Frost Fayres, The Great Stink and The Great Fire of London. Tom's primer along with a medieval gold ring revealing a centuries-old love and a menacing Viking dagger engraved with the name of its owner are some of the beautiful yet macabre finds that have been unearthed in what is England's longest archaeological site. Poor Victorian mudlarks once scraped a living scavenging on the capital's shingle beaches, but now a treasure trove of 350 objects found by 21st century mudlarks, including a rare Tudor headdress, 16th century ivory sundial and Iron Age Battersea Shield, have gone on display at the new Secrets of the Thames exhibition at the London Museum Docklands. 'Mudlarks have made a huge contribution to archeology,' says the museum's curator Kate Sumnall. 'We are lucky in London to have this amazing tidal river environment that has preserved so much of our past.' So much of history books is about kings and queens and people with money and power but mudlarked items found at low tide on the muddy banks of the Thames tidal foreshore – which runs from Teddington in Richmond to the Thames Barrier – tell us about the ordinary people who lived in the city through the centuries. 'All the finds give us little clues about their lives,' says Kate. 'It's the potential for time travel knowing that you are the first person to pick up and touch an object since the person lost it, whether they're Roman, medieval or Victorian. 'By studying Tom's artefact we know that the leather is a cheaper leather – either coarse sheep or goat – so it's not from a library in a monastery but possibly from a home of a merchant as it was found near to the docks. 'For many merchants, it was the women who did the finances and the books for their husbands. So this primer gives a little insight into the literacy level among women in their role of teaching children how to read.' And mudlarking doesn't seem to happen anywhere else in the world. 'It does seem to be specifically a London thing because the Thames is tidal, so twice a day it exposes its own banks, and those banks are stable enough to be walked on,' explains Kate. 'The Severn in Bristol is also tidal but its banks are thick mud, so you get mired in. And at a site in the River Tees near Darlington in County Durham they are having to dive to find Roman artefacts. 'Paris has displayed its finds from the Seine but it's not tidal so they don't have mudlarking. And Amsterdam has dredged its canals and found some fantastic items, but it's all about that movement of the water and how you discover the finds.' Unlike detectorists who hunt hoards of priceless Anglo-Saxon gold and silver, mudlarkers certainly don't do it for the money. 'Mudlarking has yet to make me a single penny,' laughs Tom, 'But it's given me great spiritual riches and lots of intellectual stimulation.' Tom started mudlarking when walking along the South Bank back in 2015. 'I saw a bloke sort of grubbing around on the beach. He gave me a few pointers, saying, 'Look, that's a clay pipe from the 17th century. This is medieval pottery and this is a bit of Staffordshire slipware from 1700. 'I thought, 'This is unbelievable. It's stuff from a museum lying in front of you. Although you do have to have a fairly powerful imagination to get it. It is essentially other people's rubbish, you know, the antiquated version of cigarette butts.' Among all the rare secrets given up by the 8,500-year-old river are also many everyday objects such as clay pipes, 18th century false teeth, medieval spectacles, 16th century wig curlers, and a Roman badge – naturally decorated with a phallus. Artist and writer Marie-Louise Plum, who has also been mudlarking since 2015, posts her finds and the stories behind them on TikTok at @oldfatherthamesmudlark. The 43-year-old who lives in West Hampstead, London, says, 'I like to find stories through alternative ways. At the time I was searching history and trying to find a more hands-on approach, which is how I came to mudlarking. 'It's a hobby but also another artistic practice for me and the three strands of writing, art and mudlarking all intertwine and inform each other. 'One of my favourite finds is a lump of old clay that has a fingerprint in it. But I have also dug up silver coins, Henry VIII coins and a medieval cauldron, and I discovered a pilgrim badge known as the Vernicle – or the Veil of Veronica – that had been bought at the shrine at the Holy See in Rome and it had ended up thousands of miles away in the Thames. 'We used to assume people just dropped things in the river by accident, but then as I started to research more about spiritual connections to the river, it could have been thrown in as an offering.' Rivers have always been considered sacred. 'Human life settles close to rivers because they're transport, fresh water and food,' explains Kate. 'Places of worship will be built near that water source, and so objects, like pilgrim badges, would have been put there at the end of their use.' Another mystery curator Kate is exploring is why there are so many prehistoric swords in the Thames. 'We don't exactly know why, but I love exploring the possibilities, and the connection with myth and legend that goes back to King Arthur and the Lady in the Lake. 'Swords are valuable items – you don't throw them away – so there is something deliberate happening. We've always had climate change – are these swords in the Thames a metaphorical attempt to fight back the waters?' Before modern plumbing, the Thames would have been an open sewer which made it a very dangerous place to scavenge. Early records of mudlarking date back to the early 1800s when London's poor would sift the foreshore for metal, rope and coal to make their living. Some of the stories of these characters are what drew writer Marie-Louise to the capital's muddy shores. 'You're constantly rubbing shoulders with the ghosts of the past. The Thames is a never-ending vault of stories and two who interest me are Billy and Charley and their Shadwell Shams – a pair of Victorian mudlarks who created forged antiquities. 'Antiques dealers paid good money for finds, but suspicions were aroused when Billy and Charley's forgeries had errors – they were illiterate so for example a legend around a coin didn't make any sense. 'But the dealers didn't want egg on their faces, so they backed the pair and they got away with it for years.' Another famous mudlarker was Peggy Jones who foraged at Blackfriars for coal dropped from barges. Kate explains, 'It would have been a very dangerous job in unclean water and in all sorts of weather feeling her way over the foreshore with bare feet for round lumps of coal which she'd gather up into a sort of special apron around her waist.' Happily the Thames is much cleaner now than in Peggy's time, and anyone with a fascination for digging up old clay pipes can join them by paying the £35 mudlark permit charge from the Port Of London Authority. Although numbers have been capped since it grew in popularity during Covid. The museum is also getting a glimpse of what people hundreds of years from now will be unearthing in the river banks. 'Many of the city's hire bikes end up in places they shouldn't,' says curator Kate. 'And if you go down to the water's edge on New Year's Day, you'll find all the champagne bottles and corks bobbing about.' • Visit Secrets of the Thames, London Docklands Museum, until March 2026
Telegraph
28-03-2025
- General
- Telegraph
Challenge problem of ‘whiteness', London Museum tells staff
The London Museum has urged staff to address the problem of 'whiteness' as part of a diversity drive. Employees have been requested to tackle concepts such as 'hierarchical working' under a long-term push for greater inclusion. The publicly-funded museum dedicated to the history of London has created a pamphlet to help staff to 'challenge embedded whiteness' in the workplace. It has told staff that 'whiteness' is defined by 'ideas, ways of working and normative values that can support, directly or indirectly, the continuation of racial inequalities and a lack or racial diversity in institutions'. To tackle these ideas the museum has produced a 'tool for culture change', part of its equity, diversity and inclusion strategy that aims to make the attraction become 'genuinely anti-racist'. This tool, a pamphlet for staff, states that the museum's 'culture and ways of working' support 'institutional forms of racism' and needs to change. It consists of a series of questions which staff should ask themselves in order to 'work differently' and in a way that will 'challenge inequity'. The prompts to challenge 'whiteness' include asking whether they can 'promote less hierarchical working', and whether they 'encourage everyone to bring their whole selves to work'. Others include 'how am I contributing to advancing race equity in my daily work?' and 'how will I know I am nurturing a safe space for everyone?'. A key question includes: 'Am I making space and time for important conversations about race equity? How are we continuing to challenge embedded whiteness?' The term 'whiteness' is used by critical race theorists to refer to the values of white society. It is argued that the actions of white people are taken for granted as the norm, and that this excludes or belittles the cultures of other races. Concepts such as 'punctuality' and 'hard work' have been suggested by some US institutions to be white values which exclude others. The London Museum, under the directorship of Sharon Ament since 2012, was rebranded from the Museum of London in 2024. The museum was based in the City, but will be moving its main location to Smithfield Market. Its tool for culture change was first produced in 2023 to support the museum's plans to become more anti-racist, particularly after Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. After these protests, a statue of slave owner Robert Milligan was removed from outside the London Museum Docklands site. Leaders said the statue was 'part of the ongoing problematic regime of whitewashing history' and the piece was put into storage before being added to the museum collection for reinterpretation. In 2023, Dr Rebecca Redfern, a curator at the museum, produced research suggesting that racism in mediaeval England may have contributed to black people dying of bubonic plague. A paper put forward the theory that misogynoir, prejudice against black women, created a risk of death by plague in 14th-century London. The London Museum has committed to ensuring that its research output will touch on 'the issues of diversity affecting our society, our collection and our own organisation'.
The Independent
19-02-2025
- General
- The Independent
Part of 1900-year-old ancient city found under London office block
Archaeologists from the Museum of London have discovered a well-preserved part of the ancient city of London 's first Roman basilica underneath the basement of an office block. The basilica was constructed for use as a public building in the 70s or early 80s AD. In a Roman town, a basilica was a multi-functional civic building. Often paid for by leading local inhabitants, it provided a large indoor space for public gatherings. These ranged from political speeches to judicial proceedings. Along with the connected forum – an arrangement of buildings that surrounded an open courtyard space – the building formed the centre of administrative and civic life in the ancient Roman city of Londinium. Other walls of London's basilica and forum have been known by archaeologists since the early 1880s. But they were only recognised as remains of the social and civic centre of Londinium in 1923. Peter Marsden, the author of The Roman Forum Site in London (1987), compiled disconnected evidence for the different phases of London's forum basilica complex. Referring to the current area of excavations (on Gracechurch Street), he noted that: 'More than half of the archaeological deposits still remain, and should be carefully excavated when the opportunity arises, since only then will the history of the site be elucidated.' Occasional opportunities have arisen to reveal small parts of the forum basilica. For example, during construction of a shaft to install a lift at 85 Gracechurch Street, some important remains from the first century were found. But the excavated area was too small to contribute greatly to our knowledge. In contrast, the recent work is part of a major redevelopment. It has opened targeted excavation areas where walls of the basilica were expected to be found, exposing substantial parts of the building. Archaeologists have found one-metre-wide foundations and walls of the interior, some of which probably extend for more than 10 metres in length. The walls are constructed of flint, tile and Kentish ragstone (a type of limestone quarried in Kent), and some stand at four metres high. Londinium was constructed on an unoccupied site beginning in about AD47 or 48. It began to gain the trappings of a Roman-style town, including a basilica building, in the lead-up to its destruction in the Boudican Revolt in AD60 or 61. The city did not have a monumental forum and basilica complex until later, however, when a major programme of public and private construction was undertaken in the Flavian period (AD69–96). London's Flavian basilica took the plan of a long rectangle (44m x 22.7m) divided into three aisles. There is good evidence from the deeper central aisle (nave) wall foundations that the nave roof was raised to two storeys, to allow for windows to provide internal light. Shallow foundations crossing the nave are evidence of a raised dais or platform at the eastern end. The speaker or judge would sit there, elevated above the crowds, increasing both his visibility and status. This platform, or 'tribunal', is the area that has recently been revealed. The basilica would have risen above the north side of the buildings that formed the forum courtyard. It would have dominated the high ground of this monumental space at the highly visible crossroads leading straight up from the Roman Thames bridge. It would have been the largest building in the area and firmly announced that the people of Londinium were constructing a high-status Roman city. Rebuilding following the British queen Boudica's revolt had been swift. The post-Revolt fort that was built only 100 metres or so down the street had likely been decommissioned and the people were ready to embark on a new phase and a major expansion of the urban centre. The designs of late first century forum basilica complexes varied across the provinces. But generally they combined religious, civic, judicial and mercantile space. In places like Pompeii, the forum had developed over time. But, when the town was buried by the ash of Vesuvius in AD79 (approximately the same time the forum basilica of London was built), the focus of the elongated monumental space was the Temple of Jupiter, symbol of the Roman state. Although a classical temple was constructed to the west of the exterior of Londinium's Flavian forum, it was clearly separate. No forum in Britannia was dominated by a temple, setting the core of urban space in this province apart from most examples in the rest of the empire. The Flavian forum basilica at Londinium is one of the earliest examples to demonstrate this characteristic, along with that at Verulamium (St Albans). There, an inscription links the circa AD79–81 construction to the governor Agricola, who is well known among historians from the celebratory biography written by his son-in-law, Tacitus. The Flavian basilica and forum only stood for about 20 or 30 years, however. With increased prosperity in the early second century, they were demolished and replaced by a new structure which was five times larger, leaving the remains of the first basilica underneath the surface of the later courtyard space. The Museum of London will now analyse and publish the results of its find, applying modern methods to advance our understanding of the development of the first forum basilica. We can expect refined dating evidence and an improved understanding of the architecture from the post-excavation analyses. An exhibition space to make the remains visible for the public is also planned.
