Table Of Contentmortuary practices and social identities
in the middle ages
This book sets a new agenda for mortuary archaeology.
Applying explicit theoretical perspectives to case studies
based on a range of European sites (from Scandinavia
to Britain, Southern France to the Black Sea), Mortuary
Practices and Social Identities in the Middle Ages fulfils
the need for a volume that provides accessible material to
students and engages with current debates in mortuary
archaeology’s methods and theories.
Duncan Sayer is lecturer in archaeology at the University of Central
Lancashire where his principal interest is in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries and
burial archaeology. He is author of Ethics and Burial Archaeology (2010)
and editor of The Archaeology of Post-Medieval Religion (2011). Duncan
has excavated a number of notable cemetery sites including the early
Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Oakington, Cambridgeshire.
Howard Williams is Professor of Archaeology at the University of
Chester. He has published widely on medieval and mortuary archaeology
and is author of Death & Memory in Early Medieval Britain (2006).
Sayer and Williams, Mortuary Practices and Social Identities paperback 2013.indd 1 19/02/2013 14:31:57
EXETER STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE
History, Society and the Arts
series editors
Simon Barton, Anthony Musson,
Yolanda Plumley and Oliver Creighton
Sayer and Williams, Mortuary Practices and Social Identities paperback 2013.indd 2 19/02/2013 14:31:57
Mortuary practices
and social identities
in the Middle Ages
Essays in burial archaeology
in honour of Heinrich Härke
edited by
Duncan Sayer and Howard Williams
LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS
Sayer and Williams, Mortuary Practices and Social Identities paperback 2013.indd 3 19/02/2013 14:31:57
First published in 2009 by
University of Exeter Press
This paperback published in 2013 by
Liverpool University Press
4 Cambridge Street
Liverpool
l69 7zu
© 2009 Duncan Sayer, Howard Williams and the individual contributors
The right of Duncan Sayer, Howard Williams and the individual
contributors to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by
them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Acts 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data
A British Library CIP record is available
isbn 978 0 85989 879 9
Typeset in Stempel Garamond by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon cr0 4yy
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Contents
List of figures vii
Preface xi
1. ‘Halls of mirrors’: death and identity in medieval
archaeology 1
Howard Williams and Duncan Sayer
2. Working with the dead 23
Robert Chapman
3. Beowulf and British prehistory 38
Richard Bradley
4. Fighting wars, gaining status: on the rise of Germanic
elites 46
Stefan Burmeister
5. ‘Hunnic’ modified skulls: physical appearance, identity
and the transformative nature of migrations 64
Susanne Hakenbeck
6. Rituals to free the spirit – or what the cremation pyre told 81
Karen Høilund Nielsen
7. Barrows, roads and ridges – or where to bury the dead?
The choice of burial grounds in late Iron Age Scandinavia 104
Eva S.Thäte
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vi Mortuary practices and social identities in the Middle Ages
8. Anglo-Saxon DNA? 123
Catherine Hills
9. Laws, funerals and cemetery organisation:
the seventh-century Kentish family 141
Duncan Sayer
10. On display: envisioning the early Anglo-Saxon dead 170
Howard Williams
11. Variation in the British burial rite: ad 400–700 207
David Petts
12. Anglo-Saxon attitudes: how should post-ad 700 burials
be interpreted? 222
Grenville Astill
13. Rethinking later medieval masculinity: the male body in
death 236
Roberta Gilchrist
Bibliography 253
Index 298
List of contributors 303
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Figures
Fig. 4.1 Germanic ‘princely’ burials of the early Roman
Iron Age 51
Fig. 4.2 Germanic ‘princely’ burials of the late Roman
Iron Age 52
Fig. 4.3 ‘Princely’ burials in the Middle Elbe-Saale region 55
Fig. 4.4 Small selection of metal objects from Neupotz 57
Fig. 4.5 Germanic invasions AD 259/260 58
Fig. 5.1 A modified skull from the cemetery of Altenerding,
grave 1108 66
Fig. 5.2 Location of modified skulls across Europe 70
Fig. 5.3 Distributions of age at death among individuals with
modified skulls from different parts of Europe 74
Fig. 5.4 Grave goods of individuals with deformed skulls
from Altenerding and Straubing-Bajuwarenstraße 75
Fig. 5.5 The skull and eagle brooch of the adult woman from
Oßmanstedt, Thuringia 76
Fig. 6.1 The Lindholm Høje cemetery seen from the
northeast 83
Fig. 6.2 The thick sand-layers which covered the cemetery as
seen during the excavation 87
Fig. 6.3 Cremation grave 1755: a small tumulus 91
Fig. 6.4 A selection of pots from cremation graves 92
Fig. 6.5 Secondary fire in grave 1362, an oval stone-enclosure 93
Fig. 6.6 Cremation grave 1685, a rectangular enclosure 95
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viii Mortuary practices and social identities in the Middle Ages
Fig. 7.1 The frequency of the late Iron-Age reuse of earlier
funerary monuments 106
Fig. 7.2 The reuse of funerary monuments in south
Scandinavia in the Viking Age 107
Fig. 7.3 Monument reuse sites related to other aspects of
topography 107
Fig. 7.4 Single topographical categories compared to reuse
sites in the catalogue 109
Fig. 7.5 Plan of the late Iron Age cemetery of Tollemosegård
in Denmark 115
Fig. 7.6 Plan of the cemetery of Fjäll Kronoberg in Småland 116
Fig. 7.7 Combinations of topographical categories of
Scandinavian cemeteries in the catalogue 117
Fig. 9.1 Location map: Mill Hill, Deal and Finglesham in
Kent 155
Fig. 9.2 Plans of the chronology and relative wealth of the
inhumations at Mill Hill 158–59
Fig. 9.3 Plans of the chronology and relative wealth of the
inhumations at Finglesham 162–63
Fig. 9.4 Plans of the grave structures and skeletal pathology
present at Finglesham 164–65
Fig. 10.1 Illustration of an early Anglo-Saxon weapon burial
unearthed at Chatham Lines 172
Fig. 10.2 Illustration of an early Anglo-Saxon weapon burial
from Ozengall, Kent 172
Fig. 10.3 Plan of a seventh-century weapon burial excavated at
Lowbury Hill 173
Fig. 10.4 Annotated plan of a seventh-century furnished
female bed-burial together with a sketch-restoration
of the bed, excavated at Shudy Camps 173
Fig. 10.5 A close-up plan originally reproduced at a scale
of 1:5 of a rich adult female grave excavated at the
Butler’s Field cemetery 177
Fig. 10.6 A schematic grave plan of poorly-preserved weapon
grave 147 from Croydon, Surrey 178
Fig. 10.7 Section drawing of early Anglo-Saxon inhumation
grave 9 from Snape, Suffolk 179
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List of Figures ix
Fig. 10.8 An isolated seventh-century furnished grave of an
adult, probable female, excavated at the Eton Rowing
Course 181
Fig. 10.9 The reconstruction by Faith Vardy of the chamber
grave uncovered at Prittlewell, Essex 183
Fig. 10.10 The reconstruction of the wealthy female burial with
the burial of a child at the foot of the grave from
grave 205 from Kingston Down, Kent, by Simon Bean 184
Fig. 10.11 A grave reconstruction by artist Victor Ambrus,
from Breamore, Hampshire 185
Fig. 10.12 An artist’s impression by Mike Codd of a funerary
scene surrounding a wealthy female inhumation
grave of the sixth century ad 187
Fig. 10.13 A reconstruction of a graveside scene based on the
Time Team excavations at Breamore, Hampshire 187
Fig. 10.14 The funeral culminating at mound 2 at Sutton Hoo
by Victor Ambrus 189
Fig. 10.15 A night time view of the funeral associated with
mound 2 at Sutton Hoo by Kelvin Wilson 190
Fig. 10.16 An artist’s reconstruction of a funerary scene by
Aaron Watson 191
Fig. 10.17 Reconstruction of a seventh-century weapon burial
depicted as discovered during excavations at Ford,
Laverstock 192
Fig. 10.18 A mock-up weapon burial ‘during excavation’ at the
Corinium Museum, Cirencester 193
Fig. 10.19 The wealthiest female grave excavated at the Lechlade
early Anglo-Saxon cemetery 194
Fig. 11.1 Early medieval cemetery, Kenn (Devon) 215
Fig. 11.2 Early medieval cemetery, Plas Gogerddan
(Cardiganshire) 216
Fig. 11.3 Iron Age enclosure reused for early medieval
cemetery, Bromfield (Shropshire) 219
Table 12.1 Later Anglo-Saxon field cemeteries from southern
England 226
Fig. 13.1 Plan of the excavations in the nave at Lichfield
Cathedral in 2003–4 245
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