Sherds has often wondered why graves containing valuable materials were not more routinely robbed in the past – after all, recently filled graves are highly visible. Was it respect for the dead, fear of being caught, fear of the spirits of the dead and the revenge they might wreak? Perhaps grave goods were seen as being far too personal. It has been theorised that early medieval jewellery, for example, was made for the individual – given as a parental gift, perhaps, to a daughter on her marriage, or made for an individual by an itinerant bronze-caster to the wearer’s own specification.
Clearly Sherds is not alone in speculating along these lines, because a paper in the June 2021 volume of Antiquity looks at the evidence for the practice of reopening graves in the early medieval period. ‘Grave robbing’ is a misleadingly simplistic term for what they find. It implies illicit robbery or desecration for economic gain unconnected with the original burial rite. Instead, the authors argue that ‘the practice of reopening and manipulating graves soon after burial and the removal of selected artefact types’ was a widespread ritual practice.
Led by Alison Klevnäs, of Stockholm University, Sweden, the researchers looked at the ‘row-grave’ cemeteries dating from the 5th to 8th century and found all over western and central Europe. Such cemeteries are characterised by single inhumations arranged in loose rows orientated east to west. The clothed body is placed in a wooden container with dress accessories, jewellery, and weapons. Visual display prior to the closure of the grave is probably part of the ritual, but one that is followed at a later date by the reopening of the grave and the removal of some of the contents. The intriguing question is why are some objects retrieved and others left in the grave?
Mobility in mortuary contexts