A Parable of Parabolas: Graveyards with Evidence for Early Enclosure (original) (raw)
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This paper examines the results of archaeological excavations within Irish Dominican Priories, specifically evidence for burial practice. It focuses on the use of space for burial within the Medieval Dominican Blackfriary in Trim, Co. Meath, using preliminary data accumulated over four field seasons (2010–2013) and comparative data from other excavations. Sixty-six burials have been identified at Blackfriary in the nave and cloisters of the church. Within a relatively confined area of the nave, two apparently discreet zones of use have been identified, characterized by varying burial patterns. To the west, burials consist of fully articulated, extended inhumations moderately spaced out. Less than a meter to the east, fully articulated extended inhumations are tightly packed, overlapping, and overlain by a dense deposit (30–50cm) of disarticulated human bone. This paper examines the skeletal remains in the context of their location and associations, considering the location of the burial in relation to the friaries layout, evidence of standing structures, and other burials. Data from other Dominican friaries is used as a comparison. Finally, the paper discusses contemporary social contexts which may explain the variations observed.
Cremation and contemporary churchyards
The Routledge Handbook of Memory and Place, 2019
Cremation is a complex and variable fiery technology. Across the human past and present, fire has been variously deployed to transform the dead in a range of spatial and social contexts. Often operating together with other disposal methods, cremation has risen and fallen in popularity in association with many shifts in mortuary practice since the Stone Age (Cerezo-Román & Williams 2014;Williams et al. 2017).Yet ‘cre- mation’ is far more than just the fiery dissolution of the human cadaver: in the human past and present it is often part of a multi-staged mortuary process that can afford a range of distinctive spatial and material possibilities for the translation and curation of the ‘cremains’ or ‘ashes’ together with a range of other mate- rial cultures and substances. By rendering cadavers fragmented, shrunken, and distorted, burning bodies not only denies decomposition and speeds corpse transformation, it renders the dead portable and partible. In a range of subsequent post-cremation practices and beliefs, ‘ashes’ from pyres can be considered a versatile mnemonic and numinous substance which might be consigned to graves and tombs, but also readily strewn over land and water or integrated into above-ground architectures and portable material cultures. Hence, not only does cremation involve fiery transformation, it facilitates the creation of varied and distinctive landscapes of death and memory through the deposition and commemoration of the dead in which ashes facilitate remembering and forgetting through their presence and their staged absence.
Excavation of a pre-Conquest Cemetery at Addingham, West Yorkshire
Medieval Archaeology, 1996
EXCAVATIONS at Addingkam in Whaifed11k uncovered part of a cemetery which, on the tlJidmce ofradwcarbon ana{ysis, can be daud to the 8th to 10th centuries A.D. At that ptriod Addingham was an estAle oflht archbishops oIYor!, and it was to here tluJtArchbishop Wuiflure jied in 867 to escape the Da11lS. A wlQl i.if55 grlllN!S were investigated, yielding the rtmains of perhaps 80 indWiduals. OfJhese, about 40 wert undisturbed primary inlmnents; the rut had hun reburUd in whole or part, !Laving some graDeS empty and olhus containing several individuals. lAter flatuns in.clutkd a ditdl and a drying kiln whit:h belonged to a post-Conquest manorial complex. Further delaiis on the 16yout and com/xmenls ofthe seukmmt Juwe bun gkanedflom earthwork survey, gtojJhysical prospection and documentary research, as well as from earlier excavations which until now remained unpuhlishLd. ADDINGHAl\I 155 Addingham written by Henry johnston, brother of the antiquarian Nathaniel johnston, who visited the place in july 166g. He recorded that 'the maner house stood neer the church, upon Wharfe Brow, and the land being warne away by the River, the Hall fell, so that there is nothing now remaining ofit'.l9 The old 'parsonage house', which formerly adjoined the W. end of the present rectory barn, seems also to have suffered from erosion of the river bank; it is sketched (with prominent cracks in its walling) on a plan of 1808 showing its proposed replacement on a site to the SE.20 Johnston's observations in the church and churchyard are also ofinrerest. In both places were 'severall stones with crosses upon them, but wore of, though they be on very hard stone'. He noted and illustrated the Norman chevron-decorated voussoirs, then built into the church porch, and finally, he described and sketched two stones in the churchyard, 'placed about 2 yards asonder. one of them to the eastard, a flat stone and rough. and the other allmost halfe round with a hole in the midst ... a quater of a yard deepe'.2l The socket stone, probably a cross base, remains in situ; it has one well-dressed flat face with spirals carved in it, possibly the result of re-use. The socket itself is very worn and rounded, as if used for a water trough, but in its unworn state it would have been an appropriate size to house the extant cross shaft. It was investigated in Ig74 by Mrs May Pickles, and was found to be set o.6lm into the ground; some sherds of Igth-century pottery were recovered from close to the base of the stone, but these must be the result of soil disturbance, in view of johnston's testimony. The other stone described by Johnston, the flat stone c. 2.8m to the E., measuring 1.16m by o.95ill by o.15m 'with some signs of rough dressing' was removed before I974;22 its present location is unknown. Finally, there are some valuable records relating to the westward extension of the churchyard in the Igth century. The plan for the purchase of part of Church Orchard shows the pre-existing W. wall of the burial ground. 23 The wall ran approximately on the course of the earthwork bank (Fig. 2). Allowing for probable riverbank erosion on the N. side of the church, and for the conversion of a curvilinear bank to a largely polygonal wall line, the pre-1869 burial ground was oval in shape. Churchyards of this shape have been considered to be candidates for early ecclesiastical sites. It is, therefore, even more interesting to read a report that many human bones were discovered when the churchyard was extended in 1869: that is, the remains were, presumably, discovered outside the western end of the oval churchyard. 24 Such a report might seem questionable were it not for the discovery, in Ig8g, of pre-Conquest burials even further to the W. A former sexton has reported finding skeletons aligned N.-S. rather than E.-W., though whether these were within the oval or in the extension remains unknown. 2 !' > THE 1971-75 EXCAVATIONS: A SUMMARY REPORT By STUART WRATHl\IELL The gravel ridge occupied by the medieval manor, church and parsonage house ends in a steep slope c. 35m E. of the present Rectory (Fig. 2; PI. V,A). In '9'
In October 1992 dwing reclamation work on farmland a number of human burials were discovered near Mount Nugent, Co. Cavan. The site consisted of a low rise, approximately 2m above the surrounding surface and approximately 20m in diameter at the top. The bones were recovered at a depth of 0.15-0.2m when the bulldozer driver dug into the centre of the mound.