African Aristocrat in ancient Britannia.....once hidden now comes to light.

[franksterr]

One thinks of queen Sophie....and the way the have tried to bastardize her ancestry.

The fascinating study was carried out by the University of Reading's Department of Archaeology, and senior lecturer Dr Hella Eckhardt said: 'Up until now we have had to rely on evidence of such foreigners in Roman Britain from inscriptions.
'However, by analysing the facial features of the Ivory Bangle Lady and measuring her skull, analysing the chemical signature of the food and drink she consumed, and analysing evidence from the burial site we are now able to establish a clear profile of her ancestry and social status.
'We're looking at a population mix which is much closer to contemporary Britain than previous historians had suspected.
'In the case of York, the Roman population may have had more diverse origins than the city has now.
'This skull is particularly interesting, because the stone sarcophagus she was buried in, and the richness of the grave goods, means she was a very wealthy woman, absolutely from the top end of York society.
'Her case contradicts assumptions that may derive from more recent historical experience, namely that immigrants are low status and male, and that African individuals are likely to have been slaves.


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[Wahalla]

Didn't u read Ja Rogers., or J Sutcliffe's Eagle of the Ninth?

I thought this lady was a merchant not a aristocrat.....

I also wondermifmin the 1st centuary there was a white merchant living in the Congo basin?

[franksterr]

Didn't u read Ja Rogers., or J Sutcliffe's Eagle of the Ninth?

I thought this lady was a merchant not a aristocrat.....

I also wondermifmin the 1st centuary there was a white merchant living in the Congo basin?

Yes I read most of J A Rogers books but none J. Sutcliffe's.
Are Sutcliffe's books fiction or historical?

Have you read any of David MacRithie's Ancient and Modern Britons?



According to the archaeologist that is doing the study on "the ivory bangled lady" states that she is from the "top end of society" which is usually interpreted as the aristocracy.
"'This skull is particularly interesting, because the stone sarcophagus she was buried in, and the richness of the grave goods, means she was a very wealthy woman, absolutely from the top end of York society"

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[franksterr]

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/videos/africans-in-medieval-britain/

This man's chemical signature showed the diet in his first years was typical of a North African environment at the time - a good balance of fish, meat and vegetables.

Radiocarbon dating of the man's thigh bone told us that he died between 1190 and 1300, and the anthropology of his skull told us he had African traits, but they were not sub-Saharan in origin but those of someone from North Africa.

Independent of the stable isotope analysis and skull shape, the man's DNA also located him as coming from North Africa.

Small areas of the double helix in his DNA were consistent with an ethnic origin from that region of the world, or even further east towards the eastern border of the Mediterranean.

To have these different areas of science all independently confirming the same region of the world for his place of origin is compelling evidence of hi s ancestry.

However, it was a revelation for the historians - incontrovertible proof of African migration into England in the medieval times.

While he wouldn't have had the very dark skin of the sub-Saharan African, his skin colour would have been more like a modern Moroccan.

He would certainly have stood out in 13th Century Britain, where virtually everyone else would have been light-skinned.

The man's bones also told us that he was not undernourished and ate a good
healthy, balanced diet.

They told us he was a well-built, middle-aged man with strong muscles who was unlikely to have been a slave.

Where muscles join bone they leave an imprint, and the stronger the muscle the bigger the imprint.

But this man had a spinal abscess that was slowly building up pressure on his spinal cord. The first thing he would have noticed from this would have been the pain in his back and in his legs.

Then there would have been the inconvenience and social unacceptance of loss of control of the bladder and possibly the bowel. Paralysis in his legs would follow, and ultimately his confinement to bed.

We can also tell from the bones that he did not have a long illness - it was months rather than years - as there is no evidence of bone loss. And the abscess could have begun as nothing more than a simple infection for which these days we would take penicillin.

The infection could have been caused by something as minor as a graze to the skin or an ingrowing hair in his lower back.
In medieval England the only hope this man had for pain relief and medical care in his final days would have been from the religious establishments who tended the medicinal herb gardens and had some quite sophisticated and successful methods of easing pain.

The friars would have taken him into their infirmary as his condition declined and he probably paid for his ministrations as they nursed him towards his death.

For the man to be buried within the friary, he must have been a Christian. Had he converted religion? Coming from North Africa in medieval times, he would have been born a Muslim.

Did this explain his migration from his homeland to Ipswich? Were we looking at migration following the Crusades?

Unfortunately these are questions we can never realistically hope to answer to the level of courtroom certainty and we can only surmise, but the evidence is compelling.

What we can deduce further about this man from the evidence is that he was probably a trader. Ipswich was a port and it is likely that, given his foreign birth, he was involved in the shipping of materials or minerals of some sort.

The Crusades had sent Christian men from England to reclaim the Holy Land from Muslims, but one of the results of this was that more trade routes were opened up with the Muslim-dominated Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa.

This man's presence in Ipswich could well have been as a consequence of that. This man was not poor - a poor man would never have been buried in a single grave in an important part of the friary, as he was.

The poor would have been buried in common graves.

And it is most likely that he would have had to pay for his treatment at the friary.

Sometimes wealthier people at the time would actually invest in a local friary in the knowledge that the friary would look after them when they fell ill and bury them when they died.
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