Posted on 08/13/2015 8:49:48 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A mass burial site that may contain 30 victims of the Great Plague has been discovered in the City of London. The skeletons were found during excavation of the Bedlam burial ground at Liverpool Street, which will serve the cross-London Crossrail line.
A headstone found nearby was marked 1665. Scientists hope to establish whether bubonic plague or some other pestilence was the cause of death.
The skeletons will be analysed by the Museum of London Archaeology.
Archaeologists said the fact the individuals appear to have been buried on the same day suggest they were victims of the Plague.
Crossrail lead archaeologist Jay Carver said: "This mass burial, so different from the other individual burials found in the Bedlam cemetery, is very likely a reaction to a catastrophic event.
"We hope this gruesome but exciting find will tell us more about one of London's most notorious killers." The burial ground was in use from 1569 to at least 1738 with recent research suggesting up to 30,000 Londoners were buried there during that time.
Archaeologists have so far excavated 3,500 skeletons from the site and are expected to complete their work in September.
So far Crossrail has found more than 10,000 artefacts spanning 55 million years over 40 construction sites in London.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
I had no idea that London was 55 million years old.
Well, lets hope whatever they died of isn’t being spread now that they’ve been dug up.
Any chance it was this guy?
cue Steven King ....
Wow! They are hard on turnstyle jumpers there.
Well, lets hope whatever they died of isn’t being spread now that they’ve been dug up.
I thought of that, too.
There were some nasty maladies in those days.
Not surprising. Lots of history in London.
We're descended from the survivors....
I feel happy! I feel happy!
Just the dentition is.
Looks like someone went medieval on ‘em.
If it were typhus, it would be worth worrying about. That can persist in the soil for thousands of years, supposedly.
Yersinia pestis
http://www.cdc.gov/plague/
> A headstone found nearby was marked 1665.
The Great Fire of London was in 1666.
i seem to recall they were digging up people buried in permafrost who died from the plague for that reason, to get an active copy of the disease to provide a cure on the off chance it reappears...
also they have found people who were immune to it and , so the story goes, their offspring today are actually immune to aids also. saw an interview with a guy who lived through the aids rise in San Fran. everyone he knew died of aids...everyone. turned out his ancestors were from a village in England somewhere that the plague just didnt infect/effect.
kind of amazing when you think of it.
Oh, FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH!
***I seem to recall they were digging up people buried in permafrost***
I remember that! it was Eskimos who had died of the flu back in 1918. They were successful in finding live flu virus from back then.
If you view the site on google earth you'll see quite a lot of exposed river bank between the present day embankment and a much earlier bulkhead.
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