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Grisly discovery of headless bodies gives insight into justice Saxon style
Yorkshire Post ^ | Monday, December 31, 2007 | Alexandra Wood

Posted on 01/01/2008 10:59:34 AM PST by SunkenCiv

[W]ith pagan Britain's conversion to Christianity, the Bronze Age burial mounds came to be regarded with suspicion as places where devils and dragons lurked. It was at one such site in East Yorkshire that the Anglo-Saxons chose to bury the worst kind of criminals, away from hallowed ground, leaving their heads to rot on stakes... The dozen skeletons -- 10 without their heads -- were discovered by archaeologists in the late 1960s in a Bronze Age barrow at Walkington Wold... [A] new study by two Yorkshire archaeologists... Jo Buckberry, from Bradford University and Dawn Hadley, from Sheffield University have confirmed the site was an execution cemetery, maybe used for as long as 200 years... Evidence of a "botched decapitation" was found in one case where a young male, aged between 18 and 25 had suffered three blows to the back of his skull, probably when he was bent over with his head resting on his chest. Three or four others "suffered sharp force trauma to the back of the head/neck region that is consistent with the use of a large bladed weapon, for example an axe or a sword". Two suffered from cuts to the front of the neck "which can be interpreted as blood-letting, throat slitting or decapitation from the front"... Rod Mackey, who first excavated the site along with John Bartlett between 1967 and 1969, said... "When we were digging in the 60s, we spoke to an old farm labourer and told him we'd found all these bodies and he said when he was a lad he knew it as Hell's Gate -- suggesting there was a folk memory possibly even existing from that time when it was used as an execution site."

(Excerpt) Read more at yorkshirepost.co.uk ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
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The Cottage Walkington -- Two bedroom cottage situated in the town centre of Walkington. Close to Beverley, historic York and coastal areas. Well equipped with kitchen, dining area, with cooker, hob, fridge freezer, microwave, toaster, kettle, washing machine, tumble dryer.

1 posted on 01/01/2008 10:59:35 AM PST by SunkenCiv
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To: blam; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 24Karet; 3AngelaD; 49th; ...

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2 posted on 01/01/2008 11:00:08 AM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/____________________Profile updated Sunday, December 30, 2007)
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To: SunkenCiv
The terror factor of the site probably kept down crime, don't you think?
3 posted on 01/01/2008 12:12:50 PM PST by Ciexyz
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To: SunkenCiv

Pardon my stupidity, but how do you “botch” a decapitation?


4 posted on 01/01/2008 12:14:06 PM PST by rdl6989 (FRed Thompson '08)
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To: rdl6989

Failure to do it properly can keep you from getting ahead.


5 posted on 01/01/2008 12:17:38 PM PST by Rb ver. 2.0 (Global warming is the new Marxism.)
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To: SunkenCiv

btt


6 posted on 01/01/2008 12:43:39 PM PST by Ciexyz
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To: Rb ver. 2.0

Well that is true, a young aspire axeman would definitely want to get ahead, lol.


7 posted on 01/01/2008 12:49:46 PM PST by rdl6989 (FRed Thompson '08)
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To: rdl6989

aspire=aspiring. I really should proofread better.


8 posted on 01/01/2008 12:51:59 PM PST by rdl6989 (FRed Thompson '08)
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To: rdl6989

How did you know I’ve botched a- uh, I mean, I have no idea. It’s totally mysterious to me too.


9 posted on 01/01/2008 1:33:51 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/____________________Profile updated Sunday, December 30, 2007)
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To: Professional Engineer

ping


10 posted on 01/01/2008 1:56:53 PM PST by Peanut Gallery ("An armed society is a polite society.")
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To: rdl6989
A “proper” decapitation has ONE severing mark on the bone. If more than one mark is on the bones - then someone screwed up. They “hacked” it off rather than one fell swoop of the blade.
11 posted on 01/01/2008 3:14:46 PM PST by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God) .)
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To: SunkenCiv

......sharp force trauma ......

A new phrase for Ducky.

as in “Well Jethro, it appears the good fellow died from sharp force trauma to the neck”


12 posted on 01/01/2008 3:20:07 PM PST by bert (K.E. N.P. +12 . Moveon is not us...... Moveon is the enemy)
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To: bert

:’)


13 posted on 01/01/2008 3:45:51 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/____________________Profile updated Sunday, December 30, 2007)
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To: rdl6989

Could have been on purpose, as has been said about the executions of Essex and Mary Queen of Scots:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_I_of_Scotland

“In Lady Antonia Fraser’s biography, Mary Queen of Scots, the author writes that it took two strikes to decapitate Mary: the first blow missed her neck and struck the back of her head, at which point the queen’s lips moved (her servants reported they thought she had whispered the words “Sweet Jesus”). The second blow severed the neck, all but a small bit of sinew which the executioner severed by using the axe as a saw.

“It has been suggested that it took three strikes to decapitate Mary instead of two. If so, then Mary would have been executed with the same number of axe strikes as Essex. It has been postulated that said number was part of a ritual devised to protract the suffering of the victim.[6]


14 posted on 01/01/2008 4:04:56 PM PST by LibFreeOrDie (L'Chaim!)
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To: SunkenCiv

Effective - and just - if the punishment was deserved.


15 posted on 01/01/2008 4:21:23 PM PST by ZULU (Non nobis, non nobis Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam. God, guts and guns made America great.)
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To: Peanut Gallery
Evidence of a "botched decapitation" was found

That's gotta hurt.

16 posted on 01/01/2008 5:14:32 PM PST by Professional Engineer (www.pinupsforvets.com)
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To: SunkenCiv

“It was at one such site in East Yorkshire that the Anglo-Saxons chose to bury the worst kind of criminals, away from hallowed ground, leaving their heads to rot on stakes...”

I’ve tried this technique on gophers and other vermin, to mixed effect.


17 posted on 01/01/2008 10:02:01 PM PST by Pelham (No Deportation, the new goal of the Amnesty Republicans)
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To: Pelham

:’)


18 posted on 01/02/2008 3:49:54 AM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/____________________Profile updated Sunday, December 30, 2007)
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