About Me

I'm a PhD student researching the role of the archaeological dead in contemporary British society. Think of this as a scrapbook of all the interesting links, snippets of information and random bits and bobs I come across pertaining to death, dying and the dead. Enjoy?!

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    Letter from Africa: Rites of the dead

    In our series of letters from African journalists, Sola Odunfa in Lagos pays his last respects.

    I love funerals.

    It is the only ceremony I know which confronts human beings with the stark reality of the transient nature of the individual and witnesses to the “great leveller”.

    When I sit at a funeral I look at the sealed coffin.

    I think of the body inside - former king or common citizen - and how it has become a decomposed or decomposing mass of tissue and bones which must be put deep inside earth or burnt to ashes for the sake of the living.

    Power or position has nothing to do with it.

    The “great leveller” has wrenched from the body that - call it spirit or soul - which qualified it to be regarded as a person.

    The spirit-person has flown away.

    To where - purgatory, hell, paradise or even another territory?

    I keep wondering, but I am not in a hurry to find out personally.

    Every culture has its answer.

    (Source: BBC News)

    aliasmisskat: rodmanstreet: glossylalia: nom-chompsky: lau-ra-sau-rus: missfolly: New forensic techniques in archaeology reveal existence of high status Africans living in 4th Century AD York “A picture of multi-cultural Britain in 4th Century AD has been revealed using the latest forensic techniques in archaeology. The new research, published in the March issue of the journal Antiquity, demonstrates that Roman York of the period had individuals of North African descent moving in the highest social circles. Dr Hella Eckardt, Senior Lecturer at the University of Reading, said: “Multi-cultural Britain is not just a phenomenon of more modern times. Analysis of the ‘Ivory Bangle Lady’ and others like her, contradicts common popular assumptions about the make up of Roman-British populations as well as the view that African immigrants in Roman Britain were of low status, male and likely to have been slaves.” “To date, we have had to rely on evidence of such foreigners in Roman Britain from inscriptions. However, by analysing the facial features of the Ivory Bangle Lady and measuring her skull compared to reference populations, analysing the chemical signature of the food and drink she consumed, as well as evaluating the evidence from the burial site, we are now able to establish a clear profile of her ancestry and social status. “It helps paint a picture of a Roman York that was hugely diverse and which included among its population, men, women and children of high status from Romanised North Africa and elsewhere in the Mediterranean.” The ancestry assessment suggests a mixture of ‘black’ and ‘white’ ancestral traits, and the isotope signature indicates that she may have come from somewhere slightly warmer than the UK. Taken together with the evidence of an unusual burial rite and grave goods, the evidence all points to a high status incomer to Roman York. It seems likely that she is of North African descent, and may have migrated to York from somewhere warmer, possibly the Mediterranean. The Ivory Bangle Lady was a high status young woman who was buried in Roman York (Sycamore Terrace). Dated to the second half of the fourth century, her grave contains jet and elephant ivory bracelets, earrings, pendants, beads, a blue glass jug and a glass mirror. The most famous object from this burial is a rectangular openwork mount of bone, possibly from an unrecorded wooden casket, which reads ‘Hail, sister, may you live in God’, indicating Christian beliefs.” paging glossy and nom and all black!helga haters yeah this was a major trigger for the writing of glossycanon Super major. Super flawless. Gina Torres is 1700 years old? Yes, Rodman. She’s a witch. She has had congress with the beast.

    aliasmisskat:

    rodmanstreet:

    glossylalia:

    nom-chompsky:

    lau-ra-sau-rus:

    missfolly:

    New forensic techniques in archaeology reveal existence of high status Africans living in 4th Century AD York

    “A picture of multi-cultural Britain in 4th Century AD has been revealed using the latest forensic techniques in archaeology. The new research, published in the March issue of the journal Antiquity, demonstrates that Roman York of the period had individuals of North African descent moving in the highest social circles.

    Dr Hella Eckardt, Senior Lecturer at the University of Reading, said: “Multi-cultural Britain is not just a phenomenon of more modern times. Analysis of the ‘Ivory Bangle Lady’ and others like her, contradicts common popular assumptions about the make up of Roman-British populations as well as the view that African immigrants in Roman Britain were of low status, male and likely to have been slaves.”

    “To date, we have had to rely on evidence of such foreigners in Roman Britain from inscriptions. However, by analysing the facial features of the Ivory Bangle Lady and measuring her skull compared to reference populations, analysing the chemical signature of the food and drink she consumed, as well as evaluating the evidence from the burial site, we are now able to establish a clear profile of her ancestry and social status.

    “It helps paint a picture of a Roman York that was hugely diverse and which included among its population, men, women and children of high status from Romanised North Africa and elsewhere in the Mediterranean.”

    The ancestry assessment suggests a mixture of ‘black’ and ‘white’ ancestral traits, and the isotope signature indicates that she may have come from somewhere slightly warmer than the UK. Taken together with the evidence of an unusual burial rite and grave goods, the evidence all points to a high status incomer to Roman York. It seems likely that she is of North African descent, and may have migrated to York from somewhere warmer, possibly the Mediterranean.

    The Ivory Bangle Lady was a high status young woman who was buried in Roman York (Sycamore Terrace). Dated to the second half of the fourth century, her grave contains jet and elephant ivory bracelets, earrings, pendants, beads, a blue glass jug and a glass mirror. The most famous object from this burial is a rectangular openwork mount of bone, possibly from an unrecorded wooden casket, which reads ‘Hail, sister, may you live in God’, indicating Christian beliefs.”

    paging glossy and nom and all black!helga haters

    yeah this was a major trigger for the writing of glossycanon

    Super major. Super flawless.

    Gina Torres is 1700 years old?

    Yes, Rodman. She’s a witch. She has had congress with the beast.

    (via lostinhistory)

    Human zoos: When real people were exhibits

    An exhibition in Paris looks at the history of so-called human zoos, that put inhabitants from foreign lands, mostly African countries, on display as article of curiosity.

    Over four centuries from the first voyages of discovery, European societies developed an appetite for exhibiting exotic human “specimens” shipped back to Paris, London or Berlin for the interest and delectation of the crowd.

    What started as wide-eyed curiosity on the part of observers turned into ghoulish pseudo-science in the mid-1800s, as researchers sought out physical evidence for their theory of races.

    Finally, in high colonial times, hundreds of thousands of people visited “human zoos” created as part of the great international trade fairs.

    Here they could watch whole villages of Kanaks or Senegalese, with real-life inhabitants paid to act out war dances or religious rituals before their colonial masters.

    The story is told at the Quai Branly museum in Paris until June 2012, mainly through the display of paintings, old photographs, archive film, posters and postcards.

    The aim of the exhibition is explicit - to teach how Western societies created a sense of “the other” in regard to foreign peoples, thus legitimising their eventual domination.

    “What we tried to do is conduct a kind of archaeology of the stereotype,” says curator Nanette Snoep.

    Click through to read the rest of the article and to watch a video of Nanette Snoep talking about the Savages exhibition.

    African children trafficked to UK for blood rituals

    Over the last four years, at least 400 African children have been abducted and trafficked to the UK and rescued by the British authorities, according to figures obtained by the BBC. It is unclear how they are smuggled into the country but a sinister picture is emerging of why.

    Whether it is through leaflets handed out in High Streets or small ads in local newspapers, witch-doctors and traditional African spiritual healers are becoming ever more prominent in Britain.

    The work many of them do is harmless enough, but there is evidence that some are involved in the abuse of children who have been abducted from their families in Africa, and trafficked to the UK.

    According to Christine Beddoe, director of the anti-trafficking charity Ecpat UK, a cultural belief in the power of human blood in so-called juju rituals is playing a part in the demand for African children.

    “Our experience tells us that traffickers can be anybody. They can be people with power, people with money or people involved in witchcraft,” she explains.

    “Trafficking can involve witch-doctors and other types of professionals in the community who are using those practices.”

    Click the link to read more on this disturbing story.

    Via the BBC

    First out of Africa, first into Asia and Australia… The first major genome analysis of Australian Aboriginal people reveals that their ancestors took part in the first human migration out of Africa. They were the first to arrive in Asia some 70,000 years ago, roaming the area at least 24,000 years before the ancestors of present-day Europeans and Asians appeared. They were also the first to live in Australia, according to DNA results of a 90-year-old hair sample of a young man that link Aborigines to the first inhabitants of  the region about 50,000 years ago. Just…wow.

    First out of Africa, first into Asia and Australia…

    The first major genome analysis of Australian Aboriginal people reveals that their ancestors took part in the first human migration out of Africa.

    They were the first to arrive in Asia some 70,000 years ago, roaming the area at least 24,000 years before the ancestors of present-day Europeans and Asians appeared. They were also the first to live in Australia, according to DNA results of a 90-year-old hair sample of a young man that link Aborigines to the first inhabitants of  the region about 50,000 years ago.

    Just…wow.

    Dubbed the “Stone Age Embrace,” a woman and presumably her two children, ages 5 and 8, were posed in death some 5,300 years ago in the Sahara (above, a cast of the skeletons).The skeletons were found in the largest and oldest Stone Age cemetery ever discovered in the African desert, archaeologists announced in August 2008.Photograph by Mike Hettwer © 2008 National Geographic 

    Dubbed the “Stone Age Embrace,” a woman and presumably her two children, ages 5 and 8, were posed in death some 5,300 years ago in the Sahara (above, a cast of the skeletons).

    The skeletons were found in the largest and oldest Stone Age cemetery ever discovered in the African desert, archaeologists announced in August 2008.

    Photograph by Mike Hettwer © 2008 National Geographic