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Uwe Bahr · 02-28-2005, 11:01 AM

Avete omnes, 
 
interesting news from Britain: Archaeologists have unearthed a Roman cemetery in York with skeletons of 49 young men and children wherefrom 36 were beheaded - links: 
 
[url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1498756,00.html" target="top]www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1498756,00.html[/url] 
 
[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/north_yorkshire/4295653.stm" target="top]news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/north_yorkshire/4295653.stm[/url] 
contains a photo showing a skull with a loop and something that looks like textile remnants. 
 
[url=http://www.taphophilia.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2340" target="top]www.taphophilia.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2340[/url] 
 
Obviously a mystery that even baffles the experts. 
 
Greets - Uwe 
Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=uwebahr>Uwe Bahr</A> at: 2/28/05 12:45 pm

02-28-2005, 12:29 PM

Bizarre Homo Homini Lupus Every Man is a Wolf to Another Man

02-28-2005, 01:03 PM

"Patrick Ottaway from YAT said the Romans had no tradition of killing people by beheading them and the heads may have been taken from dead bodies." 
HUH??! 
And that one with the iron shackles "that may have been put to stop the dead from escaping"... 
What about a more simpler "to stop the living from escaping?" 
This looks pretty much like mass execution of rebels or enemies to me. The fact that no woman was found goes along well with the practice of killing the men and selling the women and young children. This would go along well with Septimus' Expeditio Britannica re-enforcing roman rule in the area. 
The "very sharp implement" used to separate heads from bodies used to be called a gladius, if I remember well.. 
As for the apparent care with which the bodies were buried: what if they were left there to rot by the Romans, as an example, and then buried afterwards by local people? 
I know the first statement about beheading is false. There is ample proof of that on Trajan and Marcus Aurelius' columns.. 
Why is it that archaeologist nearly always favour the "ritual" or religious explanation over simpler and more realistic ones? Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=antoninuslucretius@romanarmytalk>Antoninus Lucretius</A> <IMG HEIGHT=10 WIDTH=10 SRC="http://lucretius.homestead.com/files/Cesar_triste.jpg" BORDER=0> at: 2/28/05 2:18 pm

02-28-2005, 09:31 PM

They had probably watched the last York Roman Festival and killed themselves! 
 
John 
 
www.comitatus.net

**Robert Vermaat** · 03-01-2005, 08:22 AM

Aww, John, what a nasty thing to say! 
You know, Sandra is trying to get me to come over to visit you next year for the festival and this will hardly win me over! Valete, 
Valerius/Robert 
[url=http://www.fectio.org.uk/" target="top]fectienses seniores[/url]

aitor iriarte · 03-01-2005, 08:41 AM

Yes, we should band together in York next year and show them how did late soldiers really look like! 
We should behead 'that' Constantine, in any case! 
 
Aitor

Ebusitanus · 03-02-2005, 12:25 PM

And could they not be victims from some uprising against romans? Like roman civilians and alike? That would make more sense regarding the careful burial of the bodies. Maybe the Romans found the mutilated victims and gave them a decent burial. If they would have been enemies of rome I would say there would not have been such a quality burial IMHO.

**Robert Vermaat** · 03-02-2005, 12:32 PM

Somehow I find the circumstances of some victims (shackled) speaking against a loving burial by civilians. And I also have doubts as to why the Roman authorities would allow that to happen - I would rather have expected a mass grave. 
 
Judging from the high rate of decapitated bodies I would think this was a burial ground for executed prisoners. Is there any information available about the date these bodies went into the ground? Together at one time or individual over some period of time? Valete, 
Valerius/Robert 
[url=http://www.fectio.org.uk/" target="top]fectienses seniores[/url]

03-02-2005, 02:37 PM

According to one of the articles the burials are contemporary with Septimus Severus' campaign in Britain. 
And that, IMHO, gives a clear advantage to the mass execution theory over the "loving burial" theory. 
We definitely need to know more about the type of burial (was it a cemetery, did the bodies faced a particular direction, are they individual burials and so on..). 
And of course we need to know whether those people were Romans or Britons. 
And naturally there is the conspiration theory... 
What if those were conspirators from the Roman expeditionary force? After all, it seems Caracalla tried to kill his father during that expedition and he may not have been alone. 
So the story would go thus: Caracalla and some officers and soldiers plot Septimus' assassination. The plot is uncovered --Maybe Geta gave it away-- and the conspirators are executed the military way, with the sword, while Caracalla, being Septimus' son, gets away with his life... 
Anybody wants to write a novel?

**Robert Vermaat** · 03-02-2005, 04:17 PM

Hi Antoninus, 
 
I agree with most of what you say, even though Quote:<hr>According to one of the articles the burials are contemporary with Septimus Severus' campaign in Britain<hr> 
IMHO holds not much water. 
I mean, sure, the period could fit the campaign, but we can't have a clue about the exact date of the burials. And even if the burials and the campaign would coincide, normal events such as crime continued to happen even when there 'was a war on'. 
 
Having said that, I continue to agree with you that this looks more like something violent than something loving. Valete, 
Valerius/Robert 
[url=http://www.fectio.org.uk/" target="top]fectienses seniores[/url]

Vincula · 03-02-2005, 04:50 PM

Roman citizens were executed by beheading. That's why it's called "capital" punishment. 
 
(This is different than the head hunters on Trajan's Column, who are following a Celtic tradition.)

03-02-2005, 04:59 PM

Why do you believe everything that newspapers say? My experience is that they exeggerate everything that we tell them. None of my colleagues would say that " It was unusual for children of that age to receive elaborate funerals, so this could be a much-loved child, or one from an important family" or "Burials near settlements were forbidden under Roman rule so most cemeteries were located alongside roads into towns such as York". This sentence means nothing. 
 
For your info in Viminacium (one of the largest roman necropolises in the world) there is a funeral of more than 170 heads.

03-02-2005, 08:30 PM

It would be great to have lots of Late Romans in York next year. The Yorkshire Museum are developing a Constantine exhibition. 
 
This year Comitatus are camping and displaying outside the museum, overlooking the river. Hopefully the arrangements will be the same next year. The belly-dancers, man-portable Pretorian Gates etc. will be elsewhere. 
 
Hopefully we can beat the 50 pedes and 6 horse I hope to see at the Festival of History this August. 
 
John 
 
www.comitatus.net

Nathan Ross · 03-03-2005, 12:16 AM

Obviously, it would be impossible to make any real guesses about the possible story behind this discovery without knowing more about the skeletal remains, but the date given (approx 200AD) does suggest some interesting possibilities. 
 
As far as I know, Severus' British campaign was confined totally to the territory north of the wall, the lands of the Caledonii and the Maeatae. The area around York had been largely pacified in the northern war of Julius Verus (against the Briganti) in the 150s. However, I did think of a couple of other possibilities: 
 
1. Dio (I believe) describes an uprising of the northern tribes (Caledonii and Maetae) in 197. Peace was purchased by the governor Virius Lupus, who appears to have received captives from the tribes as hostages. These captives would, perhaps, have been the sons of the tribal chiefs, therefore young men of high status. When the northern tribes refused to abide by the treaties and once more rebelled (as suggested by Dio) c.205, could it have been that these hostages paid the penalty for the perfidity of their people? High status victims might explain the care taken in their burial... 
 
2. Dio also mentions a mutiny by the British garrison in 186 - they raised a legionary commander (tribune?) called Priscus as emperor. The uprising was put down by Pertinax - seeing as York was a large legion base, it could be expected that mutineers from York would have executed by Pertinax - as Roman citizens, they would have been buried with some respect (perhaps by their own comrades), even if they died the traditional death of rebels (i.e. beheading - why that YAT fellow thought the Romans didn't behead people I don't know. Has he never heard of Sulla? )

Nathan Ross · 03-03-2005, 12:27 AM

Actually, considering that last point, it does occur to me that 49 beheaded corpses might be the end result of decimating a 490-man mutinous cohort...

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