The internet has been buzzing recently with a photo making the rounds. The image, featuring an intact early Anglo-Saxon skeleton pierced by a modern cable or pipe, has captured public attention and sparked numerous debates. It sends out a potent message about heritage being trampled on by contemporary progress and a shocking contempt for human remains. Or does it? Let’s take a closer look.
Early Anglo Saxon burial (Oakington, Cambs) bisected by modern utility pipe
As this photo has spread across the web, the backstory has been gradually diluted. Each shared post and retweet, each time leaving out a vital piece of information, has contributed to the sensationalism and misinformation.
The skeleton, dating back to the 6th century, belonged to an Anglo-Saxon woman. She was buried with her grave goods and was discovered during the excavation of an early Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Oakington, Cambridgeshire, by archaeologists from Manchester Metropolitan and Central Lancashire universities in 2014. The excavation took place over multiple seasons from 2012-14, and was even featured in Series 3, episode 1 of “Digging for Britain”.
The presence of an early Anglo-Saxon cemetery has been known since 1938, and additional excavations in 1993 uncovered 25 more burials, along with evidence of a settlement, on a recreational ground near a minor village road. But for most of the last century, the cemetery’s full extent was not known. As a result, village residents, businesses, and utility companies lived their lives without hindrance or knowledge of the area’s historical significance.
The infamous burial, known as ‘Piper’ (Grave 116), was located very close to the modern road and the village’s modern underground infrastructure. Piper was found with a small-long brooch on each shoulder and an expensive, large cruciform brooch face-down. It indicates she had been buried in a peplos dress and centrally pinned cloak. She also had wrist clasps representing a sleeved dress beneath the peplos and had swags of glass and amber beads.
The now-famous yellow pipe is believed to be a gas line, installed using the standard practice of directional drilling. This method involves drilling a long route for the pipes, causing minimal disruption compared to the more traditional “cut and fill” pipe-laying method. Geophysical sensing methods are used to detect anomalies, hazards, or archaeological remains ahead of the drilling, but they cannot reliably detect human bone. It’s likely that the pipe installer had no idea that they were drilling through a burial site that was 15 centuries old.
The archaeologists conducting the excavation spent 13 hours carefully excavating the burial and noted how impressively the pipe had cleanly pierced through with minimal disruption to the burial itself, even narrowly missing the grave goods by mere centimeters.
Respect for human remains is of utmost importance and an evolving priority for archaeologists. No one, neither archaeologist nor engineer, would willingly damage an ancient burial site in this way. The unfortunate incident with ‘Piper’ was likely an unintended accident, not an act of ignorance or desecration.
