Saturday, February 19, 2011

Unearthing more burials at Amara West

British Museum (Dyan Semple)

With photos. Exerpt:

Along with Michaela and Carina, I’m working in cemetery C at Amara West, currently in the western chamber of Grave 201.

This tomb has a central shaft and two chambers to the east and the west. It had already been partially excavated in 2009, but this year we removed the alluvium from above the western chamber, to avoid the possibility of it falling in while we were excavating.

A lot of the bones had been crushed by earlier collapse, but five articulated burials were found at the rear of the space. As they lay one on top of the other, I had to be very careful to separate them – finding a place to stand was the first issue, and then I could remove the more recent burials at the front, after recording them.

From the way the skeletons are arranged, it is possible to tell that some of the individuals had been tightly bound for burial.

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