Posted on 05/10/2016 8:41:51 AM PDT by BenLurkin
A braided head of hair found buried beneath a medieval abbey in England has given up some of its secrets, thanks to a scientist's curiosity about the relic, which he first saw when he was a schoolboy. Jamie Cameron, an archaeological research assistant at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, first visited Romsey Abbey, near the city of Southampton, on a school field trip when he was 7 years old. Cameron said he became curious about the abbey's display of a brightly colored and braided head of hair, which had been found in a lead casket buried beneath the abbey floor. But at the time, nothing was known about the identity of the hair's owner.
In 1839, gravediggers found the mysteriously preserved head of hair, with small pieces of scalp still attached, beneath the abbey floor, inside a wooden chest within a lead casket and lying on a "pillow" of oak wood. One of the gravediggers, a Mr. J. Major, later wrote that he had found "a scalp of female hair as bright as any living ladies' hair I have ever seen," while a finger bone also found in the chest "became dust immediately the air came to it." Romsey Abbey dates from the year 907, when the Saxon King Edward the Elder, a son of Alfred the Great, built a home for a religious community of nuns that included his daughter, Elflaeda. Two Christian saints are linked to Romsey Abbey: Saint Morwenna, an Irish nun who reformed the abbey under Benedictine rule around 960, and the Saint Ethelflaeda, who re-established the abbey after it was burned down by raiding Danes in 994, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a record of events in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms written by monks from the 9th to the 12th centuries.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
I'm guessing this is he hair. Thinking she was probably quite popular back her day.
A braided head of hair found buried beneath a medieval abbey in England is thought to belong to an individual who died between 895 and 1123 A.D. Credit: Jamie Cameron
ping
Or Lady Godiva.
I invite any lovely Freeperettes to come and sing naked in my stream at night and see how saintly you look!
Quick! Kiss and fondle it! It has powers over baldness!
Too late for me I’m afraid.
All the Freeper ladies are lovely.
He was appropriating Rasta culture.
Was that the first English white wig?
A peruke? Interesting suggestion but in this case there is parts of her skin still attached.
It looks like she was scalped. Hopefully post mortem.
Looks redish to me, my vote is on the Irish nun.
bump
Thanks BenLurkin.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
