Volunteers from the Hallaton Fieldwork Group who have been painstakingly working for two weeks a year for the past four years made a touching discovery at the Chapel of St. Morrell, the "lost chapel" of Leicestershire. Two skeletons - a man and a woman - were unearthed in a shared grave, locked with their hands intertwined for the past 700 to 1000 years.
The skeletons appear to be the same age and they have been transferred to the University of Leicester where tests will be conducted to determine how old they were, when they died and were buried.
Carbon dating on the nine skeletons uncovered at the site shows that they were from the 14th century.
Other skeletons found shared common graves and others reveal interesting glimpses into their final days before they were buried.
One skeleton, believed to be an older man, was killed with a blow to hit head from a sharp weapon like a pole axe, possibly in an ancient battle.
Another skeleton of a younger man was found deformed, possibly from illness, with one of his legs raised to his chest.
Many of the graves had stones placed on top of the bodies, keeping with a superstitious tradition in Eastern Europe to keep the dead from rising from the ground.
The lead archaeologist of the project, Vicky Score, is only able to dig during her vacation and she said that the discovery of graves at the chapel, which is believed to be an ancient pilgrimage site, is fascinating. It raises questions on why they were buried at this small chapel instead of at the main church in the village.
"The main thing is why were they buried out up there? There is a perfectly good church in Hallaton. Was it a special place?" Score said.
Some theories suggest they may have been buried at the small chapel because they were foreigners who were refused burial at the main church, or perhaps they were criminals, or sick and kept away from the village.
More digging is to be done at the ancient site to learn more about the skeletons and about the time period in which they lived.
