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A curious Anglo-Saxon discovery at Sittingbourne

Teachers notes

Death and Ritual: A curious Anglo-Saxon discovery at Sittingbourne!The excavation known as The Meads, Sittingbourne straddled the boundary between Sittingbourne/Milton Regis and Bobbing and took place in 2008, before construction of houses, shops and a pub at the site.

The burials

227 inhumation graves were discovered and excavated at The Meads. An osteo-archaeologist can identify the gender (principally from the pelvis) where the bones of a skeleton have survived. But due to the soil conditions at The Meads, bone preservation was very poor and only a few ‘long bones’ (of arms/legs) and teeth survived and these were in a very fragile state. Most burials contained no bone at all… Archaeologists knew they had found graves though, because they recognized the rectangular shape of the numerous holes (grave cuts), many of these containing artefacts.

The artefacts

It is the grave goods that enabled the archaeologists to date the cemetery overall to the Anglo-Saxon period and specifically from around the middle of the 6th century AD through to the end of the 7th.

The majority of the graves contained ‘finds’ of some kind and over 2,500 objects, including weapons, dress accessories, knives and pottery, were recovered. Some of the graves contained considerable numbers of objects, including several rich ‘weapon burials’ (almost certainly those of men) and 3 burials (almost certainly of women) with garnet-inlaid brooches. Many of the graves contained sets of glass, amber or amethyst beads. There were over 300 glass beads in Grave 203 alone!

A curious Anglo-Saxon discovery at Sittingbourne

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The curious Grave 184

This is a ‘weapon burial’. Although there were no bones, the finds led the archaeologists to interpret this grave as that of a high status, adult male.

An iron sword had been placed across his upper body (centre of image), a spear alongside him (no wooden shaft, only the iron spear head survives, bottom left of image) and a wooden shield probably stood against the side of the grave (the iron boss survives, to the right of the spear head). He had also been buried with a rare pair of complete glass ‘cone beakers’, which seem to have been placed one either side of his head - very unusual and very appropriate for someone buried at a place now called The Meads and the site of The Jenny Wren pub!

Perhaps this Anglo-Saxon liked a drink…

There have been many examples in Kent of weapons placed in Anglo-Saxon graves, later discovered by archaeological excavation; for example at Buckland, near Dover (1994) and The Meads, Sittingbourne (2008) – both big Anglo-Saxon cemetery sites.

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A curious Anglo-Saxon discovery at Sittingbourne

You can find out more about Anglo-Saxon life and death here.

The Meads Anglo-Saxon excavation, Sittingbourne

For more about The Meads dig at Sittingbourne see:

www.canterburytrust.co.uk/news/projectdiaries/meads/

For pictures of the burials and great variety of artefacts found at the Meads dig, plus Anglo-Saxon reconstruction images see:

www.canterburytrust.co.uk/learning/galleries/anglo_saxon_cemetery/

The Buckland Anglo-Saxon excavation, Dover

For pictures of the Buckland burials (where human bone did survive) and Anglo-Saxon artefacts see:

www.canterburytrust.co.uk/learning/galleries/discoveries-at-an-anglo-saxon-cemetery-near-dover-kent/

Life and Death in Anglo-Saxon times

The Ashmolean Museum has a child and teacher-friendly website about Anglo-Saxon Life and Death at:

http://anglosaxondiscovery.ashmolean.org/index.html