FULL LENGTH | TIME TEAM Roman Sarcophagus (Broughton, Oxfordshire) EXPEDITION CREW

It's a highlight of the brackets themselves, but then it's a great find, Keith. I mean, it's really nice to have two of them now. Looking at the current excavation, it is amazing how enormous that stone

sarcophagus

is. I mean, it's twice as deep as necessary, yeah, so imagine yourself in a state of mourning, in a state of contemplation with your family, the practicalities of having to bury that thing, it's quite remarkable to imagine that that process takes place in the past, yes, because it is very difficult to lift and move it. I imagine that when I think of a funeral, I imagine a fairly serene process of slowly lowering a coffin into the ground.

Reverential. Yes, but the reality would have been quite different. I think it would have been quite difficult to get that on the ground in one piece, yeah, and also the commissioning thing, are these things off the shelf, ready to go, or do you have to custom order them, right? I have to wait for someone to knock one down, how hard is it to make out where the stone comes from? And I wonder why ours is so crudely human and the extra depth of it could even be a sign that it was a bit of a hasty job, done quickly for a person who was way ahead of his

time

, one step away. unexpected, so to speak, we started to see coal while it was in every way and then it became very clean, the filling became incredibly clean after that, so it could well be that it was

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to the brim and then the banquet of kitchen nearby and some of that coal found its way there.

Yes, it's trampled, yes, yes, when you take them to your laboratory, what kind of things can we discover? I'll give them a good cleaning first so we can see the surface, because obviously they're still pretty well preserved, but they're dirty, and then we have a chance to see if there's any kind of pathology there or things like disease and evidence of disease and things like that. Yes, very often in the hands and feet we can see additional bone growth that could be arthritis. Okay, yes, of course, but this is not always the case, because for the bones to have these types of marks, the person has had to live. and they suffered enough to leave their mark, so to speak.

So yeah, but I'm going to start pretending like I don't know anything about them. Sure, let's start with aging, sex... um, we might even get a height estimate. We can take some metric measurements. Well, I'm sticking out the other half of the pelvis, so we're missing a little bit here, but I think. We have them, you know, fragments came out before, so they will fit and fit, those are the two parts that you will be able to put together, we will put them back together now, is it really the pelvis that goes? To give us a better idea because it is one of the indicators, one of the main indicators, once we put the pelvis together, you see that there is like an arch and it is much wider in women, so I already have the last piece well done, what's that?

A little Ah, this looks a little strange, but here we have it, this is your sacrum at the bottom and it's the same thing, well, you know he gave you the tailbone, you'll know if you've ever sat down and sat in a way. uncomfortable, that's really very. painful because this is the part that we have, so your pelvis comes on either side of this, so that's cool, I mean, again, another very, very well preserved once you finish looking at the bones in the lab, so this is the Do you plan to bring them back and rebury them?

Absolutely, 100% and I think it would be nice as it's been a bit confusing here to get it back into the anatomical position, yes it feels just as rough on the bottom as it does on the side, these are quite jagged, the corner edge here it is different. its opposite end has a lovely finish as do the sides where you can't see the effort has not necessarily been put into the craftsmanship at last we have our soil sample from under the

sarcophagus

ready to go to the laboratory for examination It's the end of the do interview and we know much more about our funeral.

I am particularly glad that we found bones in good condition so we will be able to confirm the age and sex of the body in the tomb and I am very glad that we can finally see the entire profile of the sarcophagus and I am amazed at how deep it is, it is almost double the depth of the Interior to have the opportunity to see the coffin in situ to understand how the tomb works. the coffin was made placed with the lid on, that is so rare for this type of Roman burials they are usually found and used as water troughs for horses in a corral mmm and working on the lid covering that there is so much extra that it could even have been a marker so you knew exactly where to return, we even managed to see the amazing iron staples that held the lid on and what is particularly lovely is that we can leave some archeology in situ for future archaeologists to investigate and the rediscovery of this burial means all an odyssey for its occupant.

She's been from here to Oxford, back to a local farm. On the way back we have examined her here and after the osteological examination we will be able to rebury her and hope

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y appease the Marinas are happy to have their ancestors back with them, yes, I think we should pour her a large glass of wine. I think that will keep her happy. Noemí has ​​continued researching our lady's biography. She has discovered what appears to be a V-shaped cut mark and a small crack on one of the bones in her hand. These types of marks often seen as a result of defensive injuries could have been caused by an impact before her death.

However, more detailed microscopic analysis is needed to be sure. He also discovered some important items that could allude to what happened to her skull after it was reinterred. If she is rediscovered, it could give us a chance to do some analysis and potentially see where she came from. Her story is far from over. Join the Time

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