Excavation at the Bowl Hole Cemetery
A chance discovery
The presence of an ancient burial ground at the Bowl Hole, south of the castle, has been known since the 19th century. It was discovered after a great storm swept the region and blew away a huge volume of dune sand, which had buried the site, hiding it from view since the medieval period.
The 19th century accounts, which describe the event, date the storm to the winter of 1817. Modern research, however, has cast doubt on this as no large storms were recorded by the meteorological office during 1817. They did, though, record a great storm late in 1816. It seems likely, given that the event was not recorded by historians until later in the century, that they simply got the date slightly wrong.
The terrible weather during the year of 1816 was not due to chance. We now know that volcanic eruptions can affect the weather and this was the case in 1816. The eruption of the volcano Tambora in 1815 was the largest explosion ever recorded, ten times the size of Krakatoa. Its effects the following year were profound; snow fell in Europe in the summer, one of the wettest and coldest on record.
The discovery of the Bowl Hole cemetery must have been one of the few good things to have resulted from the weather during that bleak year.
The cemetery site
The historians that recorded the site's discovery describe seeing a series of cists. These are stone lined grave cuts that are sometimes covered at the surface with a stone slab, or lintel. This type of burial has been used since prehistoric times. The type described at the Bowl Hole, which were long and narrow with the skeletons laid out full length, are believed to be early medieval in date.
A number of early archaeologists are known to have excavated skeletons from the site, from the 19th century up to the 1930s. Sadly no records have survived from these excavations and by the later part of the 20th century even the exact location of the cemetery had been forgotten.
One of the first tasks that we set ourselves after starting the Bamburgh Project was the re-discovery of the exact location of the burial ground. The reason for this is that cemetery sites give us a fantastic insight into past societies by allowing us to examine the very bodies of the ancient people themselves.
Examination of map evidence and the written record led us to the area we believed the cemetery to be located. The excavation of a series of test pits confirmed that we had found the burial ground when a cist was revealed in pit 3
|
Test pit 3 and the first cist burial identified by the project. The stone has been badly eroded, but parts of two sides and the top are visible. Click to enlarge (135k) |
Having found the site, we had a great many questions to which we hoped to find some answers.
What was the date of the cemetery?
What type of people were buried there?
How many burials did it contain?
In order to provide some answers to these questions we decided to undertake a research excavation to investigate the cemetery. The excavation comprised a main trench 8m by 6m and a series of further small trenches excavated in order to identify the extend of the site.
The BBC's Meet the Ancestors filmed the excavation and helped with the post excavation process, which has produced some tremendous results.
The main excavation trench revealed up to 18 grave cuts, some of which were difficult to trace. Many of the burials were simple cut graves with no cist slabs to mark them. It was also clear that the original ground surface had been eroded at some time in the past. A number of the slabs that formed the cists had been damaged and in many cases were missing.
 |
Plan of the main trench, showing the excavated burials and the location of a number of the unexcavated graves. Click to enlarge (50k) |
All of the graves revealed within the trench lay on an approximate east-west orientation, however a degree of variation from true east-west was noted. Three of the burials (numbers 124, 129 and 131) represented a relatively standard Christian type, with the skeleton lying on its back and the head at the western end of the grave. The other three burials were more variable. Two were crouched burials, the legs drawn up towards the chest, one with the head to the east (number 135) and the other with the head to the west (number 130). The third of these burials lay on its face with the head to the east (number 134).
Three of the graves inter-cut one another so were of particular interest. In this group a single conventional west-east burial (number 131) was cut at either end by two others. At the west end by the burial with the skeleton on its face (number 134) and at the east end by the crouched burial (number 135). This clearly showed that, in this instance at least, the unconventional and probably non-Christian burials occurred later in the sequence.
Paul Budd and Janet Montgomery of Archaeotrace have conducted some fascinating scientific analysis on teeth from the skeletons. This type of investigation, at the cutting edge of scientific archaeology, has allowed them to identify where an individual spent their childhood. You can visit their site to learn more about these techniques and the results that they can produce.
The analysis has revealed that none of the individuals grew up in the immediate Bamburgh area. With the exception of one individual, all could have grown up within the wider area of Bernicia (the northern part of the kingdom of Northumbria). This would suggest that the Bowl Hole is not the burial ground for the village community. The castle rock, being a royal centre, is likely to have been occupied by the king's aristocratic warriors and perhaps some of their families. These individuals are likely to have been drawn from the wider realm. Its these people that we now think were buried at the Bowl Hole.
One individual (number 130) was of particular interest. He had been buried wearing a belt set. We know this because a knife and buckle, being metal, had survived to be found with the skeleton.
 |
The iron Knife found with burial 130. The scale is in cm. Click to enlarge (145k) |
The analysis of this persons teeth showed that he had not grown up in Bernicia. He was from further to the west. One of the possible locations for his childhood would place him in the area of Iona in Scotland. A carbon date placed his death between AD 560 and AD 670. His lifetime would be consistent with the reign of King Oswald (ruled AD 633 to 641) who, before reclaiming his throne, had been exiled on Iona. Although there are probably many other equally plausible explanations for 130's arrival and burial at Bamburgh, it is compelling to imagine him returning with Oswald from exile as his companion.
So what do we now know about the cemetery, or at least think we know?
At the present time it is believed that the long cist cemetery at Bamburgh dates from the post-Roman British period of the site's occupation. Some of the Christian style burials, such as 134, could well be from this period.
The first Anglo-Saxons to settle at Bamburgh, took over the site from the British and were pagans. This raises the intriguing possibility that the burials of non-Christian character could be pagan Anglo-Saxons. In at least two instances these burials were later than a Christian burial.
During the 7th century AD the Anglo-Saxons of Northumbria were converted to Christianity. We know from a carbon 14 date that burial 129 was laid to rest sometime between AD 640 and AD 730. He was a Christian, from one of the first generations of Christians in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria. This would indicate that the cemetery contains burials which span two important transitions in the history of Northumbria. These are the take over of the Christian British by pagan Anglo-Saxons and the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. There is no doubt that the cemetery site has a great deal more to reveal to us yet!