A 13th century skeleton unearthed on the grounds of a friary may be the earliest physical evidence that Africans lived in England in medieval times, a team of researchers said on Sunday.
Forensics experts at the University of Dundee Scotland say that the bones most likely belonged to a man from modern-day Tunisia who spent about a decade living in England before he died.
“I believe that this is the first physical evidence of Africans in medieval England,” said Jim Bolton, an historian at Queen Mary, University of London, who wasn’t involved in the discovery.
“Finding a skeleton like this is of major interest,” he said.
The man — who appears to have died of a spinal abscess — was identified as African by studying his skeleton and the historical record of the friary where he was buried.
“It’s not just the skin tone, it’s a question of bone structure,” said Xanthe Mallett, an expert at the Center for Anatomy and Human Identification in Dundee.
She said the size of the nasal bone or the shape of the orbits differed depending on whether skeletons were European or African.
“You can have an idea of where somebody is from by looking at their skeletal features,” she said.
Researchers were able to pin the man to Tunisia using isotope analysis, a technique which looks at the mix of elements that build up in a person’s teeth, bones or other tissues. Since people from different areas tend to accumulate such elements in different ways, analysis of their remains can sometimes pinpoint where they grew up, where they lived or even their diet.
“Each area has a different isotopic signature,” she said.
It’s not clear how the man would have made his way from Tunisia to Ipswich, the southeast England town where his skeleton was unearthed in the 1990s.
The BBC’s History Cold Case program, which is publicizing the finding, suggested that he may have been brought back during the Crusades, although Mallett and Bolton both hypothesized he could have conceivably come through Spain, parts of which were then under Muslim rule.
His burial on consecrated ground suggests that not only must he have converted to Christianity, he may have gone on to become a respected member of society.
“He would have had to been of some note to be buried in the friary,” Mallett said.
Bolton said it was extremely difficult to find evidence of any Africans in England between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Age of Exploration. He added that the find illustrated that there was still a lot to learn about how often or widely people traveled — either within England, Europe, or the wider world — during that period.
“We don’t know much about the migration of ordinary people,” he said.
The pledge by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to “work, work, work, work and work” for her country has been named the catchphrase of the year, recognizing the effort Japan’s first female leader had to make to reach the top. Takaichi uttered the phrase in October when she was elected as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Many were initially as worried about her work ethic as supportive of her enthusiasm. In a country notorious for long working hours, especially for working women who are also burdened with homemaking and caregiving, overwork is a sensitive topic. The recognition triggered a
‘HEART IS ACHING’: Lee appeared to baffle many when he said he had never heard of six South Koreans being held in North Korea, drawing criticism from the families South Korean President Lee Jae-myung yesterday said he was weighing a possible apology to North Korea over suspicions that his ousted conservative predecessor intentionally sought to raise military tensions between the war-divided rivals in the buildup to his brief martial law declaration in December last year. Speaking to reporters on the first anniversary of imprisoned former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol’s ill-fated power grab, Lee — a liberal who won a snap presidential election following Yoon’s removal from office in April — stressed his desire to repair ties with Pyongyang. A special prosecutor last month indicted Yoon and two of his top
The Philippines deferred the awarding of a project that is part of a plan to build one of the world’s longest marine bridges after local opposition over the potential involvement of a Chinese company due to national security fears. The proposals are “undergoing thorough review” by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which acts as a lender and an overseer of the project to ensure it meets international environmental and governance standards, the Philippine Department of Public Works and Highways said in a statement on Monday in response to queries from Bloomberg. The agency said it would announce the winning bidder once ADB
IN ABSENTIA: The MP for Hampstead and Highgate in London, a niece of deposed Bangladesh prime minister Sheik Hasina, condemned the ‘flawed and farcical’ trial A court in Bangladesh yesterday sentenced British Member of Parliament Tulip Siddiq to two years in jail after a judge ruled she was complicit in corrupt land deals with her aunt, the country’s deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina. A judge found Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate, guilty of misusing her “special influence” as a British politician to coerce Hasina into giving valuable pieces of land to her mother, brother and sister. Siddiq’s mother, Sheikh Rehana, was given seven years in prison and considered the prime participant in the case. The trial had been carried out in absentia: Neither Hasina, Siddiq,
RSS