A prestigious grant of over £1 million has been awarded by the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) to the University of York for a new multi-disciplinary three-year archaeological research project. The project investigates the remarkable Roman funerary custom in and around York in the 3rd/4th centuries CE of pouring liquid gypsum over the wrapped bodies of individuals in stone or lead coffins before burial.
The liquid gypsum hardened around a body as it decomposed, the resulting negative in the gypsum casing preserving the original body posture as well as the clear imprint of shrouds and clothing. The team with diverse specialisms and expertise is exploring all aspects of these burials and illuminating the nature and process of the burial rite and the social and cultural context of the people whose bodies were given this elite mortuary treatment.
We have mapped roughly 60 gypsum burials that have been found and reported since the 19th century in and around York, although far fewer of them survive today. Twenty-two complete or fragmentary casings and nine skeletons from York, Doncaster-Pollington, Castleford, and Sherburn in Elmet have been chosen for study and analysis. With this material, the team aims to determine the age, sex, health and genetic ancestry of the individuals, reconstruct their diet, and ascertain whether these people were non-locals, perhaps bringing this striking custom with them. We hope to understand the motivation for the gypsum bath, investigating whether it might be a rite related to status or geographic origin, an expression of religious belief, or a response to disease.
A particular strength of the research is the generation of new knowledge about the nature and function of burial textiles that are otherwise very rare, as they are a clear reflection of the social status of the people in them. Textile imprints and fragments will be studied to determine the quality of weaves and the types of fibres, from linen to wool and potentially gold threads occasionally. Mass spectrometry and Raman spectrometry will be applied to the surface of all the casings to detect costly aromatic resins such as frankincense from Arabia that might have been packed into the clothing or shrouds to temporarily preserve the soft tissue of the body.
The application of this method should also detect dyes that once gave the textiles colour and value, especially if costly purple dyes from the eastern Mediterranean were used. X-rays and CT-scans will detect potential grave goods embedded in the gypsum casings, and the gypsum itself will be sampled and analysed to determine where this mineral was from and how it was mixed with other substances to create the pouring mixture.
Colleagues from Heritage360 at York are 3D-scanning a wide range of the body negatives and textile imprints in the gypsum casings to produce virtual burial reconstructions in detail. These enable us in a most spectacular way to see or reimagine the dead for the first time since the lids on the coffins were closed almost 2000 years ago.