By: Marshall Ramsey II, Worthy News U.S. Correspondent
CAMBRIDGE, England -- (WorthyNews) The discovery of a medieval burial ground beneath the site of a modern day college is yielding some surprising finds, according to a report in the latest issue of the Archaeological Journal.
The cemetery was found underneath the Old Divinity School at St. John's College in Cambridge, England. The site contains an estimated 1,300 burials with more than 400 complete skeletons preserved in near perfect condition.
The existence and location of the cemetery have been known to historians since at least the middle of the 20th century, but the sheer scale and extent of the burial ground was unclear until now.
The bodies are burials from the hospital of St. John the Evangelist. St. John's College takes its name from there, and the hospital stood opposite the graveyard until the year 1511.
Craig Cessford of the Cambridge University Department of Archaeology and Anthropology said of the Divinity School excavation: "[It was] one of the largest medieval hospital osteoarchaeological assemblages from the British Isles."
The discovery of the complete skeletal remains was conducted by a team from the Cambridge Archaeological Unit. The bodies mostly date from a period spanning the 13th to 15th centuries. The hospital was supposedly instituted by the townspeople of Cambridge to care for the poor and sick in the community. The hospital was only a small building built on a patch of waste ground, but with financial contributions from the [Roman Catholic] Church, it became known for a place of hospitality and care for both University scholars and local people.
MEDIEVAL TORTURE CHAMBER MASQUERADING AS CHARITY HOSPITAL?
However, not all is as it seems in merry old England. Despite the similarities with many other medieval hospitals, it appears that the hospital of St. John the Evangelist had a darker side. Despite the more than 400 complete skeletal remains found at the site, fragmentary and "disarticulated" remains outnumber them, with a total number of bodies being estimated there at twice the number of complete skeletons.
The word 'disarticulated' means "separate (bones) at the joints." This is usually done either naturally or intentionally. As the word "disarticulated" is used in the source article, it would suggest that the joint separation was done intentionally, possibly while the person was still alive. A video of the site found at http://www.cam.ac.uk/ shows legs and arms removed from their bodies, skulls with holes in them as though they had been hit with something, even skeletons that look as though the walls of the Old Divinity School at St. John's College were intentionally built on top of some of the persons that supposedly were seeking help in a process known as dismemberment.
Another discovery that lends support to this hypothesis is the lack of clothing and grave-goods at the Hospital of St. John the Evangelist. While Dr. Cessford believes this was due to the Hospital being "principally...a purely lay graveyard with no clerics present," it would appear more likely due to the Church condemning men and women to death stripping them of their worldly possessions, keeping them for themselves, or forbidding relatives and friends outright from burying any objects with the deceased under the false pretense of ancestor worship.
Yet another discovery made by Mr. Cessford is the lack of sickness and disease normally associated with these types of hospitals. Local rumors stated that the Hospital cared for people with the Black Death, (a.k.a. Black Plague), a disease caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria. The peak years of the Black Death were from 1346 to 1353, a period of seven years. It is said to have travelled from central Asia along the Silk Road, reaching Crimea by the year 1343. It then spread into the regions of Mediterranea and Europe, killing an estimated 75 million to 100 million people in the 14th century.
Curiously, no trace of the plague was found on any of the remains. Neither did the team find any signs of a large burial group from that time period (1348-1350), which leads one to believe that some of the hospital entry records were made up.
The information at hand appears to get darker still. Most of the remains that were able to be identified by gender indicated a 50/50 mix of male and female bodies. What stands out is the relative lack of young women and the complete absence of infants. While a good case can be made for this being due to the Hospital's "Augustinian" ordinance in 1250 which specifically excluded pregnant women from receiving care, it seems to be indicative of ritual sacrifice, designed to "weed out" those fit for sacrifice, such as "poor scholars and other wretched persons" (persons who would not be missed if they went missing), from those unworthy such as young women and children. Typically, human sacrifice is deemed to be best if the victim is very young and sexually pure. It may be that the young women and infants were held at another location, sold into slavery, or, in the case of the missing children, sold to various families who could not have any of their own.
Wherever the missing women and children are located, it is clear that neither St. John nor Jesus would approve of what went on in that "hospital."
Source articles: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/archaeologists-unearth-medieval-graveyard-beneath-cambridge-college, www.thefreedictionary.com/disarticulated, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismemberment, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
CAMBRIDGE, England -- (WorthyNews) The discovery of a medieval burial ground beneath the site of a modern day college is yielding some surprising finds, according to a report in the latest issue of the Archaeological Journal.
The cemetery was found underneath the Old Divinity School at St. John's College in Cambridge, England. The site contains an estimated 1,300 burials with more than 400 complete skeletons preserved in near perfect condition.
The existence and location of the cemetery have been known to historians since at least the middle of the 20th century, but the sheer scale and extent of the burial ground was unclear until now.
The bodies are burials from the hospital of St. John the Evangelist. St. John's College takes its name from there, and the hospital stood opposite the graveyard until the year 1511.
Craig Cessford of the Cambridge University Department of Archaeology and Anthropology said of the Divinity School excavation: "[It was] one of the largest medieval hospital osteoarchaeological assemblages from the British Isles."
The discovery of the complete skeletal remains was conducted by a team from the Cambridge Archaeological Unit. The bodies mostly date from a period spanning the 13th to 15th centuries. The hospital was supposedly instituted by the townspeople of Cambridge to care for the poor and sick in the community. The hospital was only a small building built on a patch of waste ground, but with financial contributions from the [Roman Catholic] Church, it became known for a place of hospitality and care for both University scholars and local people.
MEDIEVAL TORTURE CHAMBER MASQUERADING AS CHARITY HOSPITAL?
However, not all is as it seems in merry old England. Despite the similarities with many other medieval hospitals, it appears that the hospital of St. John the Evangelist had a darker side. Despite the more than 400 complete skeletal remains found at the site, fragmentary and "disarticulated" remains outnumber them, with a total number of bodies being estimated there at twice the number of complete skeletons.
The word 'disarticulated' means "separate (bones) at the joints." This is usually done either naturally or intentionally. As the word "disarticulated" is used in the source article, it would suggest that the joint separation was done intentionally, possibly while the person was still alive. A video of the site found at http://www.cam.ac.uk/ shows legs and arms removed from their bodies, skulls with holes in them as though they had been hit with something, even skeletons that look as though the walls of the Old Divinity School at St. John's College were intentionally built on top of some of the persons that supposedly were seeking help in a process known as dismemberment.
Another discovery that lends support to this hypothesis is the lack of clothing and grave-goods at the Hospital of St. John the Evangelist. While Dr. Cessford believes this was due to the Hospital being "principally...a purely lay graveyard with no clerics present," it would appear more likely due to the Church condemning men and women to death stripping them of their worldly possessions, keeping them for themselves, or forbidding relatives and friends outright from burying any objects with the deceased under the false pretense of ancestor worship.
Yet another discovery made by Mr. Cessford is the lack of sickness and disease normally associated with these types of hospitals. Local rumors stated that the Hospital cared for people with the Black Death, (a.k.a. Black Plague), a disease caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria. The peak years of the Black Death were from 1346 to 1353, a period of seven years. It is said to have travelled from central Asia along the Silk Road, reaching Crimea by the year 1343. It then spread into the regions of Mediterranea and Europe, killing an estimated 75 million to 100 million people in the 14th century.
Curiously, no trace of the plague was found on any of the remains. Neither did the team find any signs of a large burial group from that time period (1348-1350), which leads one to believe that some of the hospital entry records were made up.
The information at hand appears to get darker still. Most of the remains that were able to be identified by gender indicated a 50/50 mix of male and female bodies. What stands out is the relative lack of young women and the complete absence of infants. While a good case can be made for this being due to the Hospital's "Augustinian" ordinance in 1250 which specifically excluded pregnant women from receiving care, it seems to be indicative of ritual sacrifice, designed to "weed out" those fit for sacrifice, such as "poor scholars and other wretched persons" (persons who would not be missed if they went missing), from those unworthy such as young women and children. Typically, human sacrifice is deemed to be best if the victim is very young and sexually pure. It may be that the young women and infants were held at another location, sold into slavery, or, in the case of the missing children, sold to various families who could not have any of their own.
Wherever the missing women and children are located, it is clear that neither St. John nor Jesus would approve of what went on in that "hospital."
Source articles: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/archaeologists-unearth-medieval-graveyard-beneath-cambridge-college, www.thefreedictionary.com/disarticulated, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismemberment, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
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