Anagni - A proposito dei morti di Villa Magna di epoca medievale

Articolo dalla rivista Day of Archaeology
"Ma nell'archeologia non si sa mai quello che stai per scavare, e nel mio ultimo scavo, c'erano molti cadaveri - alla fine sono stati rinvenuti circa 500 scheletri medievali nella zona intorno alla chiesa di Villamagna, nei pressi di Anagni."

DEALING WITH THE DEAD OF VILLAMAGNA, MEDIEVAL ITALY

July 12, 2014Caroline GoodsonDay of Archaeology 2014, Excavation, Finds, Italy,Medieval, OsteologyAnagni, Bioarchaeology, Cemetery, Central Italy, Francesca Candilio, Italy,Lisa Fentress, London, medieval, Natural Disaster, Patrick Beauchesne, Rome, Sabrina Agarwal,Skeletons, southern Italy, Teeth, University of Michigan

I really don’t like dead bodies. But the thing about archaeology is that you never really know what you’re going to dig up, and in my last major dig, there were lots and lots of dead bodies – in the end the team excavated nearly 500 medieval skeletons from the area around a church at Villamagna, near Anagni in central Italy. The results of that excavation (the cemetery and all the rest of the large-scale multi-year project) are now being published; interim reports can be found here. Our book includes an inventory and preliminary discussion of the skeletons, the demography of the cemetery and basic paleo-pathology, a discussion of the isotopes and discussions of the topography and chronology of the cemetery, the burials and the finds. But these dead people won’t lie down and I keep finding myself dealing with them, now well after we’re finished digging. Because ours is the largest collection of excavated skeletons from medieval Italy, I’m hoping that these bones can be further studied by bioarchaeologists who are going to be more able to design and carry out a programme of scientific research that will benefit from such a large sample size, from clearly defined and meticulously recorded stratigraphic contexts. I’m in Rome this week trying to help this project along.....segue

Scavo presso la chiesa di San Pietro a Villamagna (2009).Wikipedia