Anglo-Saxon burial suggests pagan cult

British archaeologists have excavated a woman’s body adorned with jewelry and laid on a special bed in a site in Yorkshire. The woman’s body was buried in a grave at the center of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery.

Her jewelry includes a huge shield-shaped pendant, mounted by central blue gemstone; the pendant has scalloped-shaped carving with 11 separate lobes and a scalloped lower edge. Surrounding the central blue stone were small red gems latent in gold foil. Other artifacts that were two gemstone pendants, gold and glass beads, a hairpiece or jet pin. The burial bed was decorated with iron and consists of a wooden bed held together.

Both her jewelry and the placement of her grave suggest scientists that she should have been a member of the royal family who led the Pagan Cult.  Archaeologist Stephen Sherlock believes that it is a cult because of the arrangement of graves, the short period of the cemetery’s use and the bed burial mound that is in the center of a regular cemetery.

The cemetery, named Street House, consists of 109 graves, most of which were dug in a square around the bed burial.”This square formation is unparalleled in Anglo-Saxon England,” Sherlock said.

Although the site’s acidic soil eroded the woman’s remains, the age of the cemetery and its location provide clues to her identity. Sherlock believes “likely suspects” include Ethelburga, the wife of King Edwin of Northumbria, who converted to Christianity and was made a saint. Other possibilities are Eanflaed, the wife of King Oswiu, or Oswiu’s daughter, Aelflaed.