Human Proteins Detected on Medieval “Birthing Girdle”

Live Science reports that biochemist Sarah Fiddyment of the University of Cambridge analyzed the surface of a medieval birthing girdle—a ten-foot-long strip of narrow parchment covered with Christian imagery including the wound on the side of the crucified Christ, dripping blood, crucifixion nails, a sacred heart and shield, and a human figure that may represent Jesus.

On the surface of the strip of parchment — called a “birthing girdle” or “birth scroll” — the researchers found traces of plant and animal proteins from medieval treatments used to treat common health problems during pregnancy, and of human proteins that match cervico-vaginal fluid. Those traces suggest the girdle was worn by women while they gave birth.

“This particular girdle shows visual evidence of having been heavily handled, as much of the image and text have been worn away,” biochemist Sarah Fiddyment of the archaeology department at the University of Cambridge told Live Science in an email. “It also has numerous stains and blemishes, giving the overall appearance of a document that has been actively used.”

Fiddyment is the lead author of the new study, which was published on Wednesday (March 10) in the journal Royal Society Open Science. 

The long and narrow parchment was originally made, probably in the late 15th century, from four strips of sheepskin that had been scraped thin and stitched together. The resulting strip is illustrated with Christian imagery, including pictures of the nails of the crucifixion; the holy monogram IHS, which is a way of writing Jesus’ name; a standing figure, possibly Jesus; and his crucifixion wounds, dripping with blood. The text of Christian prayers also appears on both sides.

Birthing girdles

The birthing girdle described in the study is a rare surviving example held in the Wellcome Collection, a museum and library of science, medicine, life, and art in London. 

Such girdles were once commonplace as magical remedies to protect women from the dangers of childbirth, which was a leading cause of death for women in the medieval period.

There are several references to their use in medieval England, and churches and monasteries often loaned them out to pregnant women in return for a donation; when the wife of the English king Henry VII became pregnant, the sum of six shillings and eightpence was paid “to a monke that brought our Lady gyrdelle to the Queen,” according to historic records.

Women would wear the scrolls of illustrated parchment or silk wrapped around their waist and pregnancy bump in one of several configurations; the scrolls were about 4 inches (10 centimeters) wide and just about exactly 11 feet (3.3 m) long — it was thought that such a girdle would fit Mary, the mother of Jesus.

But birthing scrolls and other church rituals were targeted for destruction during Henry VIII’s so-called “Dissolution of the Monasteries” that began in 1536. Protestant reformers considered the rituals of childbirth as “sanctuaries for forbidden religious practices,” and they actively tried to suppress them — although recalcitrant midwives continued to use birthing girdles on the sly, wrote the researchers.

“One of the great anxieties of the Reformation was the adding of aid from supernatural sources beyond the Trinity,” study co-author Natalie Goodison, a historian at the universities of Durham and Edinburgh, explained in an email. “The birth girdle itself seems to have been particularly worrisome because it seems to harness both ritualistic and religious powers.” 

Telltale proteins

The researchers made a non-invasive examination of the birthing girdle by applying dampened small disks of plastic film to its surface so that chemical traces from the material are transferred onto the disk — a technique that has been used previously to study fragile paper documents and even ancient mummified skin.

Their tests showed traces of proteins from honey, cereals, legumes — such as beans — and milk from sheep or goats, which are all ingredients from medieval treatments for childbirth and its associated health problems.

For example, beans were said to heal lesions of the womb and to start the flow of breast milk; and milk from goats was thought to give strength after blood loss, a frequent occurrence in childbirth, wrote the researchers.

The researchers also found traces of 55 human proteins on the parchment of the birth scroll, but only of two on a control sample of parchment that was known not to have been used in childbirth.

The proteins on the birthing parchment were overwhelmingly those found in the human cervico-vaginal fluid, the researchers wrote: “This can provide a further possible indication that the role was indeed actively used during childbirth.”

This particular birthing girdle dates to as far back as the early 15th century, and it was either forgotten or quietly stored away during the Dissolution of the Monasteries about 60 years later.

It is now one of only a few birthing girdles to have survived that initial purge and the fluctuations of power between subsequent Catholic and Protestant monarchs of England who influenced birthing practices during their reigns, including the use of birthing girdles.

“If it was employed by midwives on the sly, it could have been used for 150 years, but we think that the longer date is less likely,” Goodison said. “The very fact that this manuscript is so obviously worn indicates that it was very well used. … My impression is that it was used in hundreds of deliveries.”

Man Discovers 65 Million-Year-Old Skeleton of Sea Mammal after His Dogs Sniff it Out

A dog walker was left stunned after his dogs accidentally discovered a 65 million-year-old dinosaur skeleton while walking on a beach. Jon Gopsill, 54, was walking his two dogs, Poppy and Sam on the coast of Stolford, Somerset when he stumbled across a bone that turned out to be part of a five-and-a-half foot-long fossil.

The skeleton – which Jon believes to be of a prehistoric ichthyosaur – was unearthed after a week of rough seas on the south coast.

The ichthyosaur was a prehistoric porpoise-like sea mammal that lived during the Jurassic period.

“I often go to the beach walking with my dogs and when the tide goes out we go out to the rocks because they like playing there,” said Jon, an amateur archaeologist.

“I have always been a bit of an amateur fossil hunter and I have found a good supply of ammonites, so I always keep my eyes open.

“We were at the beach when I saw this thing and thought ‘what’s that?’ so I went a bit closer and thought ‘wow’.

“I thought it was obviously a fossilised sea creature, possibly an ichthyosaur.

“It doesn’t have a head , I have looked around but I can’t find it.

“It has been there for at least 65 million years.

“I realised straight [away] that it was amazing, museum-quality stuff. As soon as I saw it I knew I found something special.

“I was just blown away to see it there. It really is incredible that is has survived for such a long time and is now just there for everyone to see.”

Jon, a psychiatric nurse, has attempted to contact both Somerset Heritage and the Natural History Museum to report the find – but is still waiting for a response.

Miraculously, Jon went out on another walk and this time, his cockapoo Poppy brought him back a stone that turned out to be a fossil too.

He added: “I couldn’t believe it, it’s stunning- I’ve taught her what fossils are but I didn’t expect her to bring me one.

“My wife says it was just luck- I think having had the stormy weather recently has washed a lot of mud out so the rocks were a little bit more exposed.”

‘Extraordinary Discovery’: Secret Medieval Tunnel Found By Electricians In Wales

BBC News reports that a medieval tunnel system was discovered in southern Wales by a team of technicians who were moving an electrical pole.

The four-foot-tall tunnels are located near Tintern Abbey, which was constructed in the twelfth century, and appear to run underneath a footpath located alongside Angiddy Brook. 

A team of electrical technicians stumbled on a “secret” medieval tunnel while undertaking a routine dig to relocate a span of underground cable.

The ruins of Tintern Abbey, a Gothic monastery founded in 1131, are near the valley where the tunnel was found. But the passageway isn’t shown on any ordinance survey maps and it was unknown to local residents and authorities, Western Power Distribution said.

It could take “years” of archaeological investigation before more about the “secret” tunnel is known, WPD technician Allyn Gore said.

In the meantime, his team have backfilled the trench they had begun digging and are putting their cables down elsewhere.

Mr Gore, who headed up the dig team, said he had never seen anything as “exciting and impressive as this” during excavations before.

“The tunnel system was tucked away underneath a footpath, running parallel to the Angiddy Brook, and seemed to follow the brook’s route along the valley; it may have been unknowingly walked on for centuries,” he said.

His team alerted Cadw, the Welsh Government’s historic and cultural heritage agency, who was “fascinated by the sheer scale of the tunnel” and thought it could be “linked to ironwork ruins previously discovered in the area”, he said.

Archaeologists are now working to establish more details about the tunnel.

Bronze Age Spear Discovered on the Island of Jersey

A metal detector on a Jersey beach reportedly discovered a 13-inch-long copper spearhead, which is about 3,000 years old, experts claim. According to recent studies, The ‘rare and complete’ spearhead, which still has remnants of the wooden shaft still attached, dates back to the Late Bronze Age, somewhere between 1207 and 1004 BC.

However, it was discovered in the August of last year near Gorey Harbour in Jersey, but archaeologists have only now confirmed its age with the results of radiocarbon dating. It is completely different due to its size and the fact that it’s so well preserved – likely due to protection from the air by the black sand from which it was pulled.

It was found on the beach at Gorey by Jay Cornick, a Jersey-based metal detectorist and electrical engineer. Cornick brought it to independent trust Jersey Heritage to be recorded, in line with recommended best practice for non-treasure finds there.

It’s thought to be unique to the Channel Islands and a rare find in Britain.  This spearhead is completely different from everything else we have,’ said Olga Finch, curator of archaeology at Jersey Heritage. 

‘The spearhead is a really exciting find for Jersey – it is unique and very rare in terms of its large size and the fact that it is intact. The Bronze Age items we already have in our collection are mainly from hoards, which are usually great deposits of metal tools and weapons but mostly broken up and used. 

‘It also doesn’t fit with what we already know about this period of time so we’re wondering if it was deposited as part of a ritual or an offering. 

‘Our next step is to work with experts elsewhere and look at the location of the find to discover what new stories we can find out about the Bronze Age in Jersey.’ 

Paul Driscoll, Archaeology and Historic Environment Record Officer at South Gloucestershire Council, has studied and researched the Bronze Age collections at Jersey Heritage and more widely in the Channel Islands. 

‘The spearhead is in such good condition,’ Driscoll said.

‘Many of the spears in the Jersey Heritage collection are broken – I think deliberately in prehistory as they are uniform in their breakage and thus unlikely to be random.

‘There are, however, a few intact examples but none that parallel this one.’ Conservation work on the spearhead was carried out by Jersey Heritage’s Museum Conservator Neil Mahrer, who said he had never seen anything like it in his career.

‘To see this spearhead in one piece was incredible and the wood inside the spear shaft was so well preserved that we were able to use it to discover that it dated back to over 3,000 years ago,’ he said.

Mahrer sent the wood to York Archaeological Trust, which used carbon dating to approximate the date of the wood and therefore the artefact as a whole.  York Archaeological Trust also discovered the wood used as field maple, commonly used in the Bronze Age. 

When Cornick found the artefact last summer it was buried point-down one of the lowest tides of the year when his metal detector went over it.  

“It was a good 15 inches to 18 inches deep,’ he told the Telegraph.

‘It was at a 45-degree angle and when I dug it I saw the end of it and just pulled it out. 

‘It came out with a sucking sound. It was deep enough into the black, clayey sand that doesn’t move with the tide that it may have been there since it went in.

‘When I found the spear I didn’t think it was that important or that old. 

‘My initial thought when I dug it out was that it was a modern fishing spear and probably less than 100 years old so it was just thrown in my bag until I got back to the car.

‘Then I looked again and thought it might have a little bit of age to it.’     

The Bronze Age spearhead is now on display in the case of a new find at Jersey Museum & Art Gallery, which is in Saint Helier in the island’s south. 

Archaeologists find unexpected iron age settlement in Oxfordshire

The findings of a team of archaeologists from DigVentures revealed the ruins of at least 15 roundhouses from the 4th-century B.c. to the early first century CE, along with the remains of a massive Roman villa built over the abandoned homes in the late 3rd to early 4th century CE.

In the protective shadow of Wittenham Clumps, some 50 miles west of London, the Iron Age settlement and the Roman villa are the site of an Iron Age hillfort on the banks of the River Thames.

Exactly where the people who used the hillfort actually lived had remained uncertain, but the DigVentures archaeologists believe they now have an answer.

“Given how close we are to the hillfort, it’s not surprising that there’s a settlement here — it’s the sheer scale of it that’s impressive,” said Chris Casswell, head of fieldwork at DigVentures.

“We weren’t expecting to find so many houses within such a small space — the area we’ve excavated is just over a hectare and the settlement itself is clearly much larger.”

“We’ve still only uncovered one corner of it. What’s surprising is that hardly any of it showed up on the initial geophysics survey, probably due to a quirk in the local geology. It was only when we started digging that we were able to reveal the true extent of what is her.”

The Iron Age houses range in size from 8 to 15 m (26-49 feet) in diameter, but the majority are around 10 m (33 feet) in diameter and provide a living area of at least 78 m2.

Among the remains, the researchers unearthed an Iron Age ‘fridge’ or pantry — a collection of ceramic food storage vessels that would have been kept cool and safe within a pit dug into the ground.

A fragment of daub that appears to have been painted was also found, which suggests that rather than simply being mud-coloured, the walls of the roundhouses may have been decorated.

The team also revealed the footprint of a Roman villa, built on the site of the abandoned roundhouses.

Measuring 30 m (98 feet) long, and with at least 7 column bases, it appears to be a ‘winged corridor villa’ and would have been home to a wealthy family with a working farmstead.

Among the Roman remains, the scientists found cooking utensils like strainers, spoons, knives, a ladle, cooking pots, and tableware, a surgical spatula probe that would have been used for applying ointments and oils to wounds, and well-preserved bone combs. There’s also a corn dryer, used for drying corn after harvest.

“It’s everything you’d expect to find at a busy settlement, but that’s what’s so exciting about it — these are the foods, homes, and artefacts that made up the everyday reality of these people’s lives,” Casswell said.

Viking treasure including gold bangle buried over 1,000 years ago is found on the Isle of Man

An exceptionally rare Viking artefact is presently being examined on the Isle of Man by Manx Museum authorities and has been declared treasure by the island’s coroner of inquests. The find, which is considered to be internationally significant and believed to be more than 1,000 years old, consists of a gold arm ring, a large silver brooch, at least one silver armband and other associated finds.

This has prompted some people to suspect that they have been hidden somewhere between AD950 and the present day, and were found by an amateur metal detectorist on private land last year.

Under the terms of the Declaration of Treasure, Manx National Heritage, on behalf of the Isle of Man government will be custodians of the finds.

The findings will eventually be part of the permanent collections on display at the Manx National Heritage Museum. Kath Giles, the metal detectorist who discovered the artefacts, said she knew straight away that what she had uncovered was significant.

“I knew I had found something very special when I moved the soil away from one of the terminals of the brooch, but then I found parts of the pin, the hoop and underneath, the gorgeous gold arm ring,” she said. “I’m so thrilled to have found artefacts that are not only so important but so beautiful.”

Allison Fox, curator for archaeology at Manx National Heritage, said the museum received a phone call from Giles late last year, and with her help was able to document the site to ensure there were no further objects remaining in the ground.

“The arm ring is a rare find. Gold items were not very common during the Viking age. Silver was by far the more common metal for trading and displaying wealth. It has been estimated that gold was worth 10 times the value of silver and that this arm ring could have been the equivalent of 900 silver coins,” she said.

“Kath’s hoard can be dated on stylistic and comparative grounds to about AD950, a time when the Isle of Man was right in the middle of an important trading and economic zone. The Viking and Norse influence remained strong on the island for a further 300 years, long after much of the rest of the British Isles.”

Under the Isle of Man Treasure Act 2017, when archaeological artefacts are found there is a legal obligation for the findings to be reported to Manx National Heritage.

If the artefacts fall under the categories of the act, they must also be reported to the coroner of inquests. The coroner decides whether an artefact is a treasure and if it is found to be so, a financial reward is usually paid to the finder and landowner.

The exact value of the findings, as well as the value of the rewards, are yet to be determined. Fox said the reward would be based on a market value for all the artefacts. This will be assessed independently, usually by the treasury valuation committee.

Fox added: “At the moment, we know its historic and cultural value to the history of the Isle of Man, but its financial value will be assessed in the future.”

This month, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport revealed that more than 1,300 pieces of treasure were found in the UK throughout 2019, the largest haul since records began.

That year, two metal detectorists who discovered a Viking hoard estimated to be worth as much as £12m were given lengthy jail terms after failing to report their findings.

2,000-year-old Roman millstone found with massive penis engraved on it

Archaeologists found a Roman millstone unearthed in Cambridgeshire with an engraving of a penis. The inscription, which was a symbol for strength and virility, was thus deciphered.

Over the course of several months, as part of roadwork for an extensive 21-mile section of the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon, a millstone and others were discovered.

The finds came from the remains of a Roman villa located near the town of Godmanchester, a Highways England spokesperson told MailOnline.

However, the phallographic carving — which was made to give the millstone and its flour good luck and protection — was only recently identified by experts. 

The upgraded stretch of road was opened to traffic in the May of last year — but the millstone was not the only archaeological find revealed before the works finished.

Other finds included the tusk of a woolly mammoth, the skull of a woolly rhinoceros, an abandoned medieval village, and three dismembered men from 1,500 years ago.

Archaeologists also found the earliest known evidence for beer brewing in Britain, which dated back to as early as 400 BC.

According to Highways England’s Archaeology lead for the A14, Steve Sherlock, the penis-decorated millstone is important as it ‘adds to the evidence for such images from Roman Britain.’

‘There were known associations between images of the phallus and milling, such as those found above the bakeries of Pompeii, one inscribed with Hic Habitat Felicitas — “You Will Find Happiness Here”,’ he explained.

‘The phallus was seen as an important image of strength and virility in the Roman world, with it being common practice for legionaries to wear a phallus amulet, which would give them good luck before the battle.’

The millstone was examined by experts from the Museum of London Archaeology Headland Infrastructure and Oxford Archaeology.

Alongside the carving of the phallus on the millstone’s upper face, the team discovered two crosses that had been inscribed on its circumference.

The quern itself would have been a simple hand mill, such as typically consists of two circular stones between which corn is ground.

According to the archaeologists, the millstone appeared to have been broken during use and subsequently adapted to be used as a saddle quern — a base stone in the grinding process — which would have hidden the genital image from sight.

The researchers reported that more than 300 querns millstones were recovered during archaeological work on the A14 upgrade project.

Decorated querns and millstones of any date are rare — and only four Roman millstones have ever been discovered from around a total of 20,000 nationwide. While crosses on such stones are more prevalent, these tend to be found only at military sites, the team explained.

‘As one of only four known examples of Romano-British millstones decorated this way, the A14 millstone is a highly significant find,’ said Oxford Archaeology’s worked stone specialist, Ruth Shaffrey.

‘It offers insights into the importance of the mill to the local community and to the protective properties bestowed upon the millstone and its produce (the flour) by the depiction of a phallus on its upper surface.’

New Thoughts on the Origins of the Stonehenge

Traces of a Neolithic stone circle have been discovered in west Wales, near ancient bluestone quarries in the Preseli Hills, by a team of researchers led by Mike Parker Pearson of University College London, according to a Science Magazine report.

Around 3200 B.C.E., Stone Age farmers in Wales’s Preseli Hills built a great monument: They carved columns of unspotted dolerite, or bluestone, from a nearby quarry, then thrust them upright in a great circle aligned with the Sun. Exactly what the circle meant to them remains a mystery.

But new research reveals that several centuries later, their descendants took down many of the giant stones and hauled them 200 kilometers to the Salisbury Plain, where they created what is still the world’s most iconic prehistoric stone monument: Stonehenge.

The paper’s authors “make a very good argument Stonehenge is a dismantled stone circle from Wales,” says Alison Sheridan, a curator emerita at the National Museum of Scotland who was not part of the research team. “They dealt with very tricky data but came up with a brilliant hypothesis.”

Researchers had already traced Stonehenge’s slabs of bluestone to the west coast of Wales; they’d even identified some of the quarries where the stones were extracted more than 5,000 years ago.

But radiocarbon dating showed a puzzling gap of several centuries between activity at the bluestone quarries and the earliest construction at Stonehenge.

Researchers wondered whether the distinctive, 2- to 3-meter-tall bluestones had been used to build other stone circles first, then moved to Stonehenge later. “They’re clearly not spending 200 years slowly moving them across the landscape,” says University of Southampton archaeologist Joshua Pollard, one of the co-authors. “It always seemed likely they were dismantling existing monuments.”

Over the past decade, researchers led by University College London archaeologist Michael Parker Pearson searched for ritual structures in the Preseli region that might have provided the stones—and the blueprint—for Stonehenge. In 2017 and 2018, they excavated parts of an ancient monument called Waun Mawn, where a handful of toppled bluestones similar to those at Stonehenge form a partial circle.

The excavations revealed distinctive socket-shaped pits where other stones had once stood. Connecting the dots between the empty sockets and toppled bluestones at Waun Mawn, researchers sketched out a circle 110 meters across—the same dimensions as the outer earthen ditch that was part of Stonehenge’s original layout. (The ritual center was rearranged multiple times over its 1000 year life span.) And, like at Stonehenge, the circle’s entrance was oriented toward sunrise on the midsummer solstice.

Parker Pearson’s team then measured the last time sediments inside the socket holes at Waun Mawn had been exposed to light, using optically stimulated luminescence; they also radiocarbon dated charcoal found inside the pits.

They estimate the missing stones were erected between 3400 and 3200 B.C.E. and then removed 300 or 400 years later, around the time the first construction at Stonehenge began, they report today in Antiquity. “We’re quite confident the reason they come down is they’ve gone to Stonehenge,” says Parker Pearson.

Researchers say the dismantling of Waun Mawn and the rise of Stonehenge could have been part of a larger migration from the Preseli Hills to the Salisbury Plain. Human and animal remain found at Stonehenge have chemical signatures suggesting their early years were spent on the Welsh coast. “We’ve got regular contact between the two regions,” Pollard says.

The results add to an emerging picture of Stonehenge’s origins in a complex, interconnected region centered on the Irish Sea that flourished in the fourth millennium B.C.E., Sheridan says.

“People and ideas and objects were moving over long distances, and the movement clearly had to do with the way society expressed power,” Sheridan says. “Uprooting stones is a classic example.”

Back in the Preseli Hills region, radiocarbon dates and pollen evidence suggest that millennia of farming and human occupation ended around the time the Waun Mawn circle was dismantled. “Evidence for human activity drops around 3400 B.C.E.,” Parker Pearson says, though researchers aren’t sure why the people left.

The researchers say the migrants from Wales might have relocated the stones as a way to stay symbolically connected to their past—or to draw on their ancestors’ authority to claim a new region. “They’re bringing ancestral symbols as an act of unification,” Parker Pearson says.