Medieval teenage girl found buried face-down labeled a 'witch'
Medieval teenage girl found buried face-down labeled a 'witch'
By Karen Graham 13 hours ago in Science .
Last year, archaeologists digging in northern Italy unearthed the skeleton of a 13-year-old girl buried face-down. Archaeologists say this was evidence that despite her young age, she was rejected and seen as a danger to her community.
In September 2014, when the young girl was found, she was dubbed by the media as a "witch girl." Her remains were found in a grave within the complex of San Calocero in Albenga on the Ligurian Riviera, by a team from the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology at the Vatican.
The burial ground is on the site where a church had stood, built sometime in the 5th and 6th centuries AD. It was completely abandoned by 1593. At the time of the discovery, anthropologist Elena Dellù told Discovery News, "In particular, the prone burial was linked to the belief that the soul left the body through the mouth. Burying the dead face-down was a way to prevent the impure soul threatening the living."
Archaeologist Stefano Roascio, the excavation director, said, "The girl lay in a prone position in a tomb much deeper than the others." She was buried in an isolated area of the cemetery in front of the church, and interestingly, this is usually an area where the privileged were buried.
Archaeologists were left with trying to discover what it was that the young girl had or did that made the medieval community fear her so much they buried her body in such a humiliating way.
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/science/medieval-teenage-girl-found-buried-face-down-labeled-a-witch/article/432391#ixzz3ZAlF1w8S
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