Chest Burial: A Middle Anglo‐saxon Funerary Rite From Northern England

Abstract

Summary Chest burials, in which the body is interred in a wooden chest with a hinged lid, are one of the most characteristic funerary practices of the middle Anglo‐Saxon period in northern England. The majority are dated to between the seventh and ninth centuries, and are found at 19 different sites located within the contemporary early medieval kingdom of Northumbria. The collation of a corpus of chest burials, and examination of their form, context and the identities of the individuals they were afforded to, have revealed that these interments seem to have been made in reused pieces of domestic furniture and provided to both sexes, but rarely afforded to infants or young children. The individuals buried in chests also shared an extremely physically active lifestyle and in some cases met a violent death, further distinguishing them from their contemporaries.

A biocultural analysis of mortuary practices in the later Anglo‐Saxon to Anglo‐Norman Black Gate Cemetery, Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne, England

“…The latter consisted of earth‐cut graves containing pillow stones (one or more stones placed below the skull, upon which it rests), earmuffs (large stones placed adjacent to the head, occasionally on both sides), and head‐cists (partial or total enclosure of the skull within a stone slab structure). Wooden chest burials (Figure ), identified by iron locks in the grave, were classified as elaborate grave types due to their association with higher‐status cemeteries, such as at York Minster and Ripon Cathedral (North Yorkshire; Kjølbye‐Biddle, ; Buckberry, ; Craig‐Atkins, ). When features of both elaborate grave type and variation were present, such as stone‐built cist burial 482, which also contained a head‐cist (Figure ), the burial was documented as an elaborate grave type acknowledging the greatest labour and material investment.…”