ABSTRACT

The importance of carefully excavating and analysing the evidence of human remains has increased markedly over the last few decades and is now a flourishing area of study. In the 1960s, however, skeletons were often given little attention. This was highlighted in the excavation report of St Mary Le Port, Bristol, excavated in 1962 and 1963. Not only was there limited time and money, but

in the early 1960s the importance of investigation of Medieval Christian cemeteries had hardly been realised. The general impression, including the ‘official’ view of central government and local museum sponsorship, was that we knew all we needed to know about Christian burial, that in any case they had no finds, and that there was an element of impropriety in disturbing or even looking scientifically at interments of a community whose religious beliefs and mortuary practice were at least nominally those of our own day…vaults [were] emptied by unskilled workers, [and] any coffins [were] smashed in the process. In one case a lead coffin was attacked by vandals…

(Watts and Rahtz 1985:128)

Although the official attitude may have changed, a lack of respect for the dead can still exist and the archaeological press in 1994 reported the treatment of lead coffins, which echoes that from the 1960s: ‘Subcontractors break open a 19th century child’s coffin at Sevenoaks, before reburying the body in a plastic sack in a mass grave’ (Morris 1994:9) The accompanying picture to the article shows two heavily protected people prising open the (lead?) coffin with a spade.