There are seven gypsum casings in our assemblage curated by York Museums Trust that belonged to children who were interred in stone or lead sarcophagi: three infants ranging in age from newborn to about four months, two in middle to later childhood, and two young adolescents. Here I focus on the first two groups.
Infants were among the most vulnerable members of Roman society in view of an estimated mortality rate of around 30% in the first year of life. Ancient Roman legal sources suggest that a child’s social value increased with age, and this was sometimes measured by the length of the period of mourning expected when an individual died. These sources reveal, for example, that children younger than three years were mourned only in limited terms, while an infant under one year of age was not supposed to be mourned at all. But, as I have demonstrated in my research on earliest childhood (see suggested reading below), these apparent regulations on mourning relate only to actions in the public sphere, to visible and performative mourning. They had no bearing on sentiments such as grief or the sense of loss felt and expressed by the surviving family in private. The archaeological and artefactual evidence of Roman burials throughout the empire firmly supports this assertion.
In the 3rd and 4th century A.D. in Roman York, the clothing, wrapping, and covering of a body with gypsum in a container of stone or lead was an elite practice, and clearly even the youngest could be given this same burial rite as adults. Our infant burials stand out in terms of expense and attention paid to funerary treatment in the Roman world. And this is especially so because the three most popular forms of containers for the bodies of infants throughout the empire were far less costly amphorae or parts of amphorae, ceramic tile boxes or covers, and wooden coffins. Not only the container and the gypsum covering are relevant as status markers here, but also the use of items of high-status clothing. Most remarkable among the infant gypsum burials in this regard is one that was found in 1892 in the York Railway excavations. This infant, perhaps only one or two months old, was covered with a cloak(?) of purple-dyed wool decorated with gold thread and tassels; these textiles currently are undergoing further investigation and analysis. This tells us something about the value of a child in Roman York and the willingness to lavish expendable wealth on its burial.
Children as young as this were integrated in contemporary society in the region; rather than being marginalised or buried in a remote or hidden location, they were buried in communal cemeteries with other individuals of all ages. Particularly striking in this regard is the wrapped infant buried with two adults in the same stone coffin found in the Clementhorpe area of York in 1851. The length of the imprint of the infant’s body (63 cm) suggests an age of around four months; since all three individuals were buried and covered with gypsum at the same time, it is clear that they had died together and remained together for eternity as a reflection of familial cohesion. We do not know if the two adults are the mother and father or if they are other family members (they are ca. 1.54 – 1.72 m in stature), but it is evident that they were closely associated in life and in death.
While portable grave goods accompanying infants in the gypsum burials generally are rare, an older child from Heslington in York was interred with an impressive range of objects. This is a girl between seven and nine years of age, as a study of her teeth indicated. Unfortunately, no other human remains survive. The 3D scan of her body visible under a shroud or sheet reveals how frail and thin she was, perhaps pointing to a protracted illness before her death.
At least two pairs of hobnailed leather boots and a pair of cork-soled sandals were laid on her body near her feet before they were covered with gypsum; iron hobnails retrieved in the sarcophagus may stem from these boots or from a pair she was wearing. Also present were two jet bangles, a cogwheel copper alloy bangle, four other copper alloy bangles, finger rings of jet and of silver, a jet hairpin, a pair of gold wire earrings, a green glass bead necklace, and a coral bead necklace. The small size and narrow circumference of the rings and bangles are appropriate for fingers and wrists of someone this age.
Furthermore, an impression in the gypsum next to her head appears to have been created by a small wooden chest with hinges that perhaps contained other treasures. Finally, the carcass of a chicken was found in the coffin, the bones of which show no signs of butchery or cooking. Perhaps this was a beloved pet given by the parents to accompany the girl, rather than food for the afterlife? Certainly, pet chickens and birds are depicted on tombstones of children, and literary and archaeological evidence indicates that animals could be killed and buried with their young owners (see Pliny the Younger, Letters 4.2.).
For the lavish display of jewellery as disposable wealth in the burials of girls there are parallels in Roman Italy and elsewhere in Europe. Relevant here, for example, are the burials of an eight-year-old girl from Grottarossa and a sixteen-year-old girl from Vallerano, both near Rome. Both were buried with gold rings and necklaces set with precious stones, bangles, brooches, and cosmetic articles, among other things. The deposition of this wide range of rich grave goods with these girls from Italy and from Heslington was an expression of deep loss for the families. Furthermore, it represents a material compensation for the unfinished lives of young females who had survived the dangers of early childhood but were taken before the fulfilment of their socially determined roles as wives and mothers.
Infants
- YORYM : 2007.6126, Clementhorpe, stone sarcophagus; 63 cm long, ca. 4 months old; supine, wrapped in strips of cloth.
- YORYM : 2007.6212, Railway Station, lead sarcophagus; casing ca. 58 cm long, ca. 1-2 months old?; supine, covered in part in a cloak of purple-dyed wool and gold threads.
- YORYM : 2013.152, Railway Station, stone sarcophagus; casing 65 cm long, body impression ca. 50 cm long, newborn?; supine, wrapped or under a coverlet.
Children in middle to later childhood
- YORYM : 2007.6211, Heslington, ca. 7-9 years old, female; stone sarcophagus; supine, one hand on pelvis/thigh, other beside her(?); covered with a shroud; buried with shoes, sandals, jewellery, wood jewellery box, and a chicken.
- YORYM : 1956.3.9, Castle Yard, burial 1, ca. 7 years old; lead sarcophagus; estimated stature ca. 1.20 m.
Adolescents
- YORYM : 2007.6205, Mill Mount, ca. 11-14 years old; stone sarcophagus; supine; grave goods include 2 iron tacks, a fragment of leather, 2 coins; C14 date ca. 250-350 A.D.
- YORYM : 1971.303, Trentholme Drive, ca. 13-14 years old; stone sarcophagus; supine; estimated stature 1.37 m.
Further reading
- M. Carroll, Infancy and Earliest Childhood in the Roman World. ‘A Fragment of Time’. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018
- M. Carroll and E.-J. Graham (eds.), Infant Health and Death in Roman Italy and Beyond. Portsmouth, R.I.: Journal of Roman Archaeology (Supplementary Volume 96), 2014
- M. Carroll, Infant Death and Burial in Roman Italy, Journal of Roman Archaeology 24, 2011, 99-120
- M. Harlow, Death and the maiden: Reprising the burials of Roman girls and young women, in M. Carroll and J.P. Wild (eds.), Dressing the Dead in Classical Antiquity. Stroud: Amberley, 2012, 148-157