3-011-733 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Excavations of an ancient cemetery at Helmingham, Suffolk, 1864. '...the present Rector, [Rev. George Cardew] fancying he could perceive everywhere traces of very early occupation, determined to prove the point by excavation. The result has verified his conjectures: wherever he has dug he has found ancient remains...the most remarkable of the discoveries is that of a very singular ancient cemetery...[containing] a large number of [human] skeletons of a very early period. They were lying side by side in very shallow cists in the natural undisturbed soil...[and] were in wonderful preservation...They had manifestly been buried naked, no trace of coffin or covering of any kind being discernible, nor any fragment of iron or other metal found buried with them...One or two present unmistakable evidence of mutilation or dismemberment before death or burial, one of these having bones of unusual thickness and the severed head supported by a flint...It was at first thought that these bodies were the sad memorials of a massacre at some early date, but it is now apparent that the discovery is that of an ancient cemetery, in which those who had died natural as well as violent deaths were interred'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.