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Here’s what you’ll learn as you read this story:
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The first excavation in a generation at the famous Tower of London has uncovered more than 20 skeletal remains.
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Excavations revealed everything from 14th– End of the century Black Death group buried 12 to three skeletonsth or early 13th It has been buried in coffins for centuries.
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The on-site chapel serves as a tell-all of London’s medieval history.
A rare dig in the soil of the famous Tower of London – the first excavation at the site in a generation – has uncovered two skeletons from around 1500. As archaeologists dug deeper into the ground, they found about 20 more graves, including a group grave possibly tied to the 1348 “Black Day” “Black Day.”
“These two excavations have provided us with a generational opportunity to increase our understanding of the development of the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula and the buildings that stood before it,” Alfred Hawkins, curator of historic buildings at Royal Palace Historic, the organization that oversees the tower, said in a statement.
Excavations began in 2019 as a trial excavation to prepare the on-site Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula for the new elevator. Archaeologists involved in the excavation found two skeletal remains. Subsequent excavations revealed everything from a 14 to 10 feet below the surface outside the chapel.th– End of the century Black Death group buried 12 to three skeletonsth or early 13th Buried for centuries in coffins—extraordinarily expensive burials for the time.
Jane Sidell, Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments at Historic England, said the team were already gaining an insight into the tower’s inhabitants in a way they had never had before. “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” she said in a statement. “There is much to be learned from further analysis of the people and buildings of one of England’s most evocative historic monuments.”
The Tower of London was built in the 1070s as a royal palace beside the River Thames. It also served as a prison for high-ranking individuals (including King Henry VI), and housed the country’s royal mint. But it almost always seems to have a chapel at its base.
The current parish church for the residents of the Tower of London was built in 1520, when the fire of 1512 destroyed the King Edward I built in 1287. A compacted layer of stone found in recent excavations may date to the 1240 project on the site under Henry III, who had a chapel there before 2871.
And since the current chapel tower sits on the same land as the previous chapel foundation, burials are expected to be plentiful. Among recent discoveries, ancient burials may also have been buried inside one of the long-destroyed chapels. “Generally, if you’re buried near the church, you’re more important, and if you’re buried inside the church, you’re more important, and if you’re buried under the altar, you’re the most important person,” Hawkins said. National Geographic.
Known burials at the site include three queens and two Catholic saints, but finding out more about the unidentified skeletons could help piece together the site’s medieval story.
“The new excavations provide an opportunity to transform our understanding of the tower’s community,” Katie Fellas of Cardiff University’s School of History, Archeology and Religion said in a statement. “Our work uses a biomolecular technique known as isotope analysis, which tells us about health, diet and mobility in the past, all from tiny fragments of teeth. This state-of-the-art method had incredible potential to reconstruct the experiences of people who lived and died in the Tower, allowing us to build a rich picture of individual lives.”
Analysis of the first two skeletons begins to develop that picture. said Richard Madwick, an archaeological scientist at Cardiff University and a member of the team. National Geographic That one person was probably a middle-aged woman who died between 1480 and 1550. Indications are that she probably lived away from Wales at one point, and had a diet that featured sugar – an expensive ingredient at the time.
The second skeleton was that of a young man who died at the same time. The details of his remains show a high-stress life that was probably played out north of London. His diet was much less exotic.
“I look forward to beginning the analysis of the other surprising discoveries we made along the way,” Hawkins said. “This is a very rare opportunity to get this information.”
Along with the remains, the team found a rare burial shroud from 12th or early 13th Centuries (fabric usually does not last for centuries), jewelry, pieces of stained glass, and rare grave goods in the form of incense vessels dated between 1150 and 1250 (they still contain charcoal).
“Now we have these two great biographies,” Madwick said. “It hints at the dynamic movement of people and the dynamic life trajectories of the people buried in the tower, but it will be really exciting to see if we’ve picked out two anomalies, or if we’ve seen a wider range of life trajectories than those buried here.”
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