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Not So Much A Skeleton In The Closet ...

intaglio

Gone But Not Forgotten
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I have just been looking at reports of the Excavations at Cladh Hallan in South Uist. There are remarkable reports of burials within houses.
The most dramatic finds were four human skeletons buried as foundation deposits beneath the primary floor of each of the three roundhouses. As predicted by the sunwise model (in which sunwise passage around the house represented the cycle of birth to death), there was a burial in each northeast quarter - a partially articulated 3-year-old child in the south house, a 12-year-old in the central house and an adult male (35-39) in the northern house. The latter was tightly flexed and, like the child under the south house, was probably long dead before insertion into its pit. This unfortunate individual had no teeth at all in his upper jaw but all those in his lower jaw were present – we wonder whether his upper teeth were deliberately extracted. A fourth burial of an adult female (45-60 years old), also crouched, was placed in the south of the north house. In each hand she held an upper lateral incisor (taken from her own mouth). Since all three houses were built simultaneously, these burial events were most probably carried out together or within a short space of time - the whole terrace would have required some 7-8 individuals for the foundation event. The north house received a third human burial, a 1-month old infant buried on its front within the top of a posthole in the northeast quadrant prior to the house's renovation for a third floor. Outside the entrance to the north house there was a stone cremation platform (in use during the house's construction or earliest use) and an adjacent double pit which contained an articulating adult human knee.

The original article from archaeology@sheffield

Another report (not yet on the net) from BBC History magazine adds that the lower jaw in the adult male burial was a replacemnent from a younger man.

Were these sacrifices or just a way of remembering Aunt Flo, Uncle Joe and Little Mo. I seem to recall that burials of this sort are reported from all over the world.
 
I'm speaking from memory here, but I'm pretty sure that the builders of the Egyptian pyramids (or at least the more affluent skilled workmen) constructed fairly elaborate tombs for themselves under their homes. A quick seacrh didn't turn anything up, but I found this which makes reference to the local practice of aligning graves with the points of the compass.
 
There is a long tradition of making a sacrifice in order to make the foundations of a building safe, though, is there not?

The only example I can think of for now is the arthurian story where Merlin is going to be sacrificed to stabilise the foundations of Vortigern's castle until he points out that the real problem is symbolic dragons fighting in a cavern below the earth. There are more recent accounts of animals being sacrificed and buried in the foundation of a building to make it safe and stable, I believe. Not really sure where I read that bit, though, (Golden Bough?) so it could be complete nonsense.
 
Yes, there is good archeological evidence that some cultures buried sacrificial victims in the fabric of buildings for religous reasons. As I remember the Canaanites sacrificed children and buried the bodies in the walls of certain buildings - temples and palaces, mainly, I think.

As for the Merlin legend, I read this in a book only a few weeks ago. There was a red dragon and a white dragon fighting and the colour of the one which won was symbolic. I've gone completely blank on the title/author of the book. He was arguing that the Arthurian myth orginated among the nomadic peoples of the Black Sea region. Interesting and knowledgable book - not sure about the thesis, though.
 
Given time to reflect I am recalling the recent "Meet the Ancestors" where a young woman was excavated and I think I recall there have been excavations in South America where there have been similar finds.

What has caught my attention tho is that I cannot think of another legend, apart from the Merlin one where a house sacrifice is mentioned. This would make that part of the Merlin story very old indeed.
 
Theories seem to be that most of the Arthurian myth-cycle are based on far older stories that got associated with the round table as they evolved (gawain and the green knight being a classic example) and as the old pagan ways were more strongly frowned upon by the church so the stories that once told of the gods and their courts turned into stories about a christian king and his noble knights. The Merlin story also has real resonances with the whole feng shui "dragon in the land" kind of idea.
 
Wasn't it common practice to bury a dog in the entrance to a graveyard to keep guard over the dead? It suggests that the two are very much interwoven. Perhaps it was a way of having their loved ones close and their homes being protected by the spirits of the dead as well.
 
I seem to remember the story of the "Watcher of the Dead", the last person buried watching over the dead, until the next person buried takes over the role.

When, the grave yard is closed a dog is sacrificed to become the "Watcher"!!!!!!!!
 
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