The geographical focus of the project reflects the substantial numbers of gypsum burials that have come to light. They survive in a larger concentration in York and Yorkshire than anywhere else in Britain or on the Continent. An important task in the ongoing research on these burials is the mapping of their locations. Two new maps have just been created by Dr. Helen Goodchild from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. One of these shows the distribution of the gypsum burials in Yorkshire, the other presents the findspots and concentrations of such burials in York.
We do not yet know the source of the gypsum used in making the liquid mixture (see future work package 3). Gypsum, however, is known to be found geologically in association with magnesian limestone, of which there is a prominent ridge running north-south to the west of York, as shown on the map of Yorkshire below.
Overall, in Yorkshire, including York itself, we know of at least 70 gypsum burials. These include those at Pollington (found 1949), Castleford (found 1966), Sherburn in Elmet (discovered 1996), Malton and Langton (found 1929-1930), and Hovingham (found 2024), as well as Wetherby and Hunslet (found 1823); the latter two examples no longer exist. The nature and function of the non-urban sites at which these burials were found is not always clear, but they appear to have been settlements, perhaps farms, villages, or villas.
In Roman York, we have historical and archaeological evidence for at least 57 burials outside the walled city in which the clothed and shrouded bodies of the dead were covered with a bath of liquid gypsum. Many of the coffins and casings were excavated during the late 19th-century building boom, and not by archaeologists. As a result, the casings often became separated from the human remains and grave goods that were deposited in the coffins. But more recently (2007-2008), more gypsum burials have been excavated in York in The Mount area in which the human remains are preserved and have been recorded and studied.
There was a particular concentration of gypsum burials – at least 38 – in the area in which the railway station, coal depots, engine sheds, and the Royal Station Hotel were constructed in 1870-1877. This area was a very large Roman cemetery in which numerous and varied types of burials and monuments were laid out. A smaller concentration of gypsum burials comes from another large Roman cemetery in The Mount area south of the city, where a range of burials, mausolea, and elaborate tombstones were found during nineteenth- and twentieth-century construction phases of The Mount School and private houses in the vicinity. Other gypsum burials were scattered around the areas close to the Roman town, potentially on farm or villa sites, to the south and east of York.
It is an aim of the project to investigate the potential reasons for the concentration of gypsum burials in and around York, and we will report on our findings as the project progresses.
Note: this article was updated in December 2025 to reflect an increased number of gypsum burials in Yorkshire, identified by the project's research. Previously, 64 burials were known but this figure now stands at 70. The regional map of Yorkshire was also updated accordingly.