[hardy-l] Iron Age War Grave found on Wessex Ridgeway Hill

[Rebecca Welshman]

In digging in preparation for the Weymouth relief road for the 2012 Olympics archaeologists have found a mass war grave containing 50 headless bodies.  The site is near Maiden Castle. I wonder what Hardy would have had to say?

"The Iron Age victims are thought to have been slaughtered by the invading Romans in about 43AD.

The ancient burial pit was discovered on Ridgeway Hill near Weymouth, Dorset, close to Maiden Castle, Europe's largest Iron Age hill fort.

The site is being dug to make way for the so-called Olympic Highway, an £87m relief road for the 2012 Olympics.

Dave Score, project manager for Oxford Archaeology, which is managing the dig, said it was a "remarkable and exciting" discovery.

He said: "We have counted 45 skulls so far, these are in one section of the pit, and several torsos and leg bones in separate sections of the pit."

Archaeologists are waiting to carry out radio-carbon testing on the remains but believe the skeletons were local men, killed by Roman soldiers.

The burial pit is around six metres in diameter.

All of the bodies inside had been decapitated and some had their limbs cut off.

Mr Score said: "At the moment we don't fully understand how or why the remains have come to be deposited in the pit.

"But it is clear some kind of catastrophic event such as a major conflict or mass execution has taken place and this is a war grave of some kind.

"The heads have been removed and other body parts have been chopped up. We don't yet know if this was before or after death or was some kind of ritual."

Maiden Castle is where a local Celtic tribe staged its last stand against General Vespasian and his Roman legion.

Mr Score said it was unlikely the victims were Roman as there were no hobnails from shoes or other artefacts archaeologists would normally expect.

"It is rare to find a burial site like this one," he said.

"A pit like that with so many bodies and treated in that way and all piled up in one is very unusual.

"There are lots of different types of burial where skeletons may be aligned along a compass axis or in a crouched position, but to find something like this is just incredible."

The skeletons will be recorded and taken to Oxford for analysis.

Archaelogical finds from the relief road project will eventually be displayed at Dorset County Museum.

Dorset Country Council urged visitors to stay away from the works which is under 24-hour security.

Weymouth and Portland will host all the sailing events at the 2012 Olympics."

--- On Tue, 9/6/09, hardy-l-request at coyote.csusm.edu <hardy-l-request at coyote.csusm.edu> wrote:

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> Subject: Hardy-l Digest, Vol 45, Issue 6
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> Date: Tuesday, 9 June, 2009, 8:00 PM
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