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The vast scope of the Roman Empire, which at its peak stretched on to three continents and contained an estimated population of 55-60 million, means that its territories encompassed many different cultures and diverse local practices. In 3rd- and 4th-century Yorkshire, this included a distinctive burial rite in which a shrouded or cloth-wrapped body was placed in a coffin, and liquid gypsum was poured over the deceased, drying to create a hard, white coating.
White substances appear to have had a special significance in funerary customs across the Roman world. Graves containing plaster, chalk, lime, or gypsum – often in the form of powder or paste, used as packing or ‘bedding’ – have been found from continental Europe to North Africa, spanning the 2nd to 5th centuries. The particular practice of mixing gypsum with water and using this mineral ‘bath’ to cover the entire corpse is much rarer – but it appears to have been especially popular with the inhabitants of Eboracum (Roman York). Since the 19th century, at least 72 examples have been recorded in and around the modern city, mainly from the cemeteries that lay immediately outside the Roman settlement, with 40 discovered during the construction of York’s railway station alone.
While Victorian excavators were unfortunately inconsistent in retaining the contents of these burials, surviving gypsum casings do not only represent intriguing echoes of an enigmatic ancient practice: they are also invaluable sources of archaeological information. When a body decays inside its gypsum coating, it leaves behind a cavity that preserves its contours as a negative image, literally fleshing out the form of an individual who without the gypsum would be represented only by their skeleton, and revealing physical details and the way that the person had been posed even when no human remains have survived, as is often the case here. The hardened gypsum also occasionally contains imprints (and even mineralised fragments) of textiles and organic artefacts that had accompanied the deceased, providing rare details of burials that seldom survive elsewhere.
Diverse disciplines
To learn more about these practices and the individuals who were buried in this way, 23 gypsum casings and nine associated skeletons, mostly housed within the collections of the Yorkshire Museum, are currently being examined by ‘Seeing the Dead’, a three-year, interdisciplinary initiative based at the University of York. Funded by the AHRC and working in collaboration with York Museums Trust, Heritage Doncaster, Wakefield Museum, and MAP Archaeological Practice, the project team hope to shed light on cultural, ritual, and practical aspects of Roman gypsum burials, and to find out whether the people who followed these rites were linked by social status, religious belief, or heritage. To this end, the researchers are drawing together a diverse array of scientific techniques to explore the age and sex of each individual and (where skeletons survive and isotope and aDNA analyses are possible) their health, diet, ancestry, and where they lived at different points of their life.
The gypsum casings themselves are being X-rayed and CT-scanned as a non-invasive way to reveal whether any grave goods had been placed inside coffins or tucked within shrouds, while the team are also carefully documenting any textile imprints or remains surviving on their surfaces, examining microscopic traces of weaves and fibres to help identify which materials were being used for funerary wrappings (from wool and linen to more prestigious fabrics incorporating gold threads). Although this work is still ongoing, the level of detail preserved by the casings has already proven to be remarkable, including clear evidence of linen bands and string ties that had been used to secure shrouds, as well as decorative elements on some of the fabrics, such as fringing.
Meanwhile, chemical analyses, including mass spectrometry and Raman spectrometry, are being used to find out whether any of the textiles had been dyed (and, if so, to identify their colour), and to look for traces of aromatic resins that may have been applied to the body or its wrappings. Imported substances like frankincense and pine are known to have been used in other burials in Roman Britain (see CA 312). These may have had practical purposes, such as helping to mask odours or aid temporary preservation during the display or procession of the body. Alternatively, there could have been a ceremonial significance to their use – or perhaps these fragrances were simply intended to show off the wealth of the individual and their family. For the ‘Seeing the Dead’ team, the presence of such substances, and of any expensive dyes, would be a clear signal about the social standing of the deceased.
Complementing these studies, colleagues from Heritage360 in York are using 3D scans to turn the negative images into positive representations of the deceased individuals, drawing on physical information about their bodies and any surviving objects and textile evidence to create detailed digital reconstructions of each burial (see CA 402 for a pilot study relating to this work). Maureen Carroll, Professor of Roman Archaeology at the University of York and the Principal Investigator of ‘Seeing the Dead’, commented on the impact of the resulting images: ‘The scans have been heart-stopping. You do the 3D scans, and when the positive image comes up, it looks as if the body is still fleshed. You can see how the body was positioned, if the limbs were individually wrapped, or if the hands were crossed. It is much less abstract than looking at a skeleton – and you realise that you are the first person to see them like that since their family viewed them in their coffin 1,700 years ago.’
Although the project is currently only halfway through, the team have already reported significant early findings. Poignantly, some of the most important discoveries announced so far relate to the burials of children, shedding important light on Roman attitudes towards their loss, and highlighting how Eboracum’s inhabitants responded to the deaths of the youngest members of their community.
Evidence of emotion
The statistics are stark: in the Roman period, it is estimated that around a third of children died before reaching their first birthday. How did their parents cope with so much loss? If you rely on written sources alone, you might come away with the impression that high infant mortality had left Roman populations desensitised to such deaths: legal texts indicate that formal mourning periods were determined by the age of the deceased, with those aged three or younger commemorated for strictly limited terms (one month for every year of the child’s life), while those who had not survived their first year were allowed no public mourning at all. Writers like Cicero and Plutarch also suggest that mourning for infants was seen as inappropriate, while the advice given by Seneca in a letter to a friend who had lost a baby boy seems callously pragmatic today, stating that only ‘a fragment of time has been lost’ with his son’s death.
Texts like these hint at a certain emotional detachment during a child’s precarious early months, while established Roman customs such as not naming a baby until they were eight or nine days old have led some to speculate that infants were thought of as not fully human, or held low social value during the Roman period. Yet it is important to note that these writings were all produced by elite men who lived in the heart of the Empire: we cannot expect every community to have thought and behaved in the same way, particularly in provinces that lay on the fringes of the Roman world like Britannia. The Stoic philosophy that influenced individuals like Seneca was far from universal in its uptake, too – and, one might argue, if everyone was already effortlessly nonchalant in the face of child-loss, the Romans would not have needed rules insisting on self-restraint from bereaved families.
There is a vast difference, however, between public mourning and expressions of private grief, and archaeological evidence offers a completely contrasting perspective on how Roman families responded to the deaths of the very young. Grave goods, carefully arranged burials, and funerary monuments (some of them depicting swaddled babies or little children) attest that they had their own identities, and were loved and valued even in their first weeks and months of life. While it is true that commemorative carvings reflect the views of those who had the means to pay for them, surviving infant epitaphs express emotions that surely cut across all class barriers. In defiance of social and legal expectations, these inscriptions include babies who had died at only a few months old, and the use of adjectives such as dulcissimus, innocentissimus, and desiderantissimus – ‘the sweetest’, ‘the most innocent’, ‘the most wanted’ – offer a powerful and undeniably public demonstration of their parents’ grief. The age of the deceased is given not only in years and months, but also in days and sometimes even in hours. Every moment counted in honouring the entire existence of the lost child, poignantly emphasising how little time some had been granted.
Across the Roman Empire, young children are found interred in the same extra-mural cemeteries as their older contemporaries, though of course funerary customs varied from province to province. Particularly (though not exclusively) in Roman Britain, infant burials are often discovered in domestic settings, such as under the floors of houses or in boundary ditches. As Roman law forbade the burial of adult bodies within settlements, this has sometimes been interpreted as reflecting a lesser status for babies, perhaps indicating that their remains were disposed of without care or ceremony, or even representing evidence of infanticide (CA 260). In many cases, however, these infants were clearly deliberately placed and sometimes laid in a container such as a wooden box or pottery vessel. Rather than reflecting a lack of respect, Maureen suggests that the prevalence of domestic burials in Britannia more likely represents a continuation of pre-Roman practices by some communities, with numerous examples known from the Iron Age as well. This custom, while clearly popular in some regions, was not universal, however, and some Romano-British babies were laid to rest in communal cemeteries, as in the wider Empire. Two such examples, recently highlighted by ‘Seeing the Dead’, offer vivid insights into the effort and expense that some people from Roman York were prepared to invest in infant burials.
Tyrian textiles
The burials in question were both discovered during 19th-century investigations of York’s Roman cemeteries. One of these was found on the site of the city’s railway station; although the child’s skeleton was not kept by the original excavators, the length of the surviving gypsum casing has led the ‘Seeing the Dead’ team to estimate their age at just 1-2 months old. While the infant’s life had been very short, however, their family had spared no expense in their funerary rites. The baby had been placed in their own small lead coffin, and analysis of the gypsum indicates that their body had been wrapped in two different textiles. The first, which had been placed directly on top of the body, was probably made of wool, with a tasselled fringe, and it is thought that the child had been warmly bundled in a cloak or shawl. Covering this tender gesture, though, was something that was surely intended to impress observers: a much finer fabric shot through with gold threads and coloured using Tyrian purple.
Tyrian purple was very expensive, valued at up to three times the price of gold during the Roman period, and with good reason: the process of making it was extremely labour- and resource-intensive, requiring thousands of shells from Murex sea snails to be crushed to extract even small amounts of colour. It was produced at various locations around the Mediterranean but was particularly associated with Tyre in Phoenicia (modern Lebanon), from which it takes its name. Although known from 3rd- and 4th-century burials in Roman France and Italy (where, being closer to the Mediterranean, they presumably had better access to the pigment), it is rarely found in Roman Britain. Nonetheless, the substance clearly made it across the Channel at least occasionally. A lump of vividly coloured material, discovered in a drain during the excavation of a monumental Roman building at Carlisle Cricket Club, was proved to be Tyrian purple following analysis by Newcastle University (CA 412 and 418). In that case, it was probably intended to be used in frescoes adorning particularly high-status rooms, but purple dyes are also known from very high-status funerary contexts in southern England. These include the ‘Spitalfields Lady’ from 4th-century London, who was buried in a lead coffin and stone sarcophagus accompanied by an elaborate array of grave goods, traces of exotic oils, and textiles coloured with Tyrian purple; and a 4th-century child burial at Fordington, near Dorchester in Dorset, which had surviving textile fragments speaking of a wool tunic with purple stripes on the shoulders (CA 312). Now we know that the pigment was used in burials as far north as Yorkshire, too.
The presence of Tyrian purple in the York Station burial indicates that this baby had been given a truly luxurious send-off: a demonstration of family wealth and willingness to part with some of their riches to commemorate their short life. It is telling, Maureen added, that the mourners had made sure that the uppermost fabric was the fancy one – it would have been visible during any funeral procession and throughout the burial process up to the point where gypsum was poured over the body.
The second infant burial highlighted by the team was found in the Clementhorpe area of York, and its sandstone sarcophagus preserves the story of a family tragedy. Usually, gypsum burials only contain the remains of a single person, but this example held three: two adults laid on their sides, facing towards a swaddled baby that had been nestled into the space between their legs. Aged just 3-4 months old, this child was clearly seen as an integral part of their family unit – and, again, analysis of the gypsum covering the infant’s body suggests that the child had been wrapped in textile dyed with Tyrian purple. Samples from other gypsum burials are still forthcoming, and Maureen said that it is possible that this elite pigment will be found on some of the adult burials, too. The fact that it was being applied to very young children is significant, though, highlighting the value of their short lives.
Personal insights
Insights into the experiences of older children have also been revealed by the project team, among them a 7- to 9-year-old girl whose grave was found in Heslington, just outside the centre of York. While the girl’s skeleton has not survived, Heritage360’s digital reconstruction of the gypsum coating reveals her poignantly frail form. Perhaps she had succumbed to a chronic illness, Maureen suggested, observing that ‘the 3D positive scan of her body is so utterly moving. She is just a little girl, and her legs are so painfully thin; it looks like she was quite poorly.’
The Heslington girl had clearly come from a wealthy family, as she had been laid to rest in a carved stone sarcophagus packed with an ostentatious array of grave goods. At least two pairs of hobnailed leather boots and a pair of cork-soled sandals had been placed on top of the wet gypsum covering her body, while the child was also accompanied by jet and copper-alloy bangles; jet and silver finger-rings; a pair of gold-wire earrings; and necklaces of green glass and coral beads. Alongside these items, all of which have survived, she may have been given a wooden jewellery box as well: the object has long-since decayed, but leaves its impression in the hardened gypsum coating.
This impressive display is reminiscent of burials in Italy and other core Roman territories, Maureen noted. Young girls who had not achieved their primary purpose (in Roman culture) of becoming wives and mothers were often given particularly extravagant grave goods, representing their unfinished lives and unrealised potential, and compensating for what the family had hoped they would achieve. Their presence in the Heslington girl’s sarcophagus creates an interesting combination of very traditional practices from the heart of the Empire and a very localised rite associated with a place on its fringes where the child had lived and died. The results of chemical analyses of the girl’s gypsum casing are still to come, but, given the opulence of her artefacts, the team will not be surprised if they find traces of expensive resins and dyes.
‘Seeing the Dead’ will continue its analysis until 2027; watch this space for further updates as more insights emerge from other gypsum burials. The team are also planning an exhibition from the summer of 2027, highlighting some of the life stories that have come to light during their research. It will be fascinating to see what else they uncover as this work continues.
Maureen Carroll is Professor of Roman Archaeology at the University of York. Her research interests are Roman death and burial, Roman children, and Roman dress and identity, and she has published widely on all these topics. She has also conducted archaeological fieldwork in Italy, Germany, Cyprus, and Britain.
All images: ‘Seeing the Dead’ project, University of York, unless otherwise stated
