Shackled skeleton discovered by workmen building a home extension in Rutland is of a Roman slave who was thrown in a ditch 1,800 years ago
rchaeologists have identified an ‘exceptionally unusual’ skeleton of a Roman slave in Rutland, who could have been a criminal thrown to a degrading death.
The adult male was found buried in a ditch, secured at the ankles with a locked set of iron fetters, which indicates ‘ill will’ from those who had power over him at the time he died, according to experts.
He was discovered in an ‘awkward’ burial position – slightly on his right side, with his left side and arm elevated on a slope – which suggests he was disposed of informally in a ditch rather than a proper grave.
The ‘internationally significant’ find marks the first burial of a man wearing lockable ankle shackles found in Roman Britain, and was discovered by builders working on a home extension in the village of Great Casterton.
Radiocarbon dating undertaken by Leicestershire Police showed the remains date from somewhere between AD 226 to 427.
The Great Casterton Roman burial shackles. Analysis of the skeleton suggests the man who had the shackles attached to his ankles led a physically demanding life
He was discovered in an ‘awkward’ burial position – slightly on his right side, with his left side and arm elevated on a slope – which suggests he was disposed of informally in a ditch rather than a proper grave.
Archaeologists at the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) have been brought in to fully analyse the internationally significant find using X-rays and other methods.
‘For living wearers, shackles were both a form of imprisonment and a method of punishment, a source of discomfort, pain and stigma which may have left scars even after they had been removed,’ said Michael Marshall, a finds specialist at MOLA.
‘However, the discovery of shackles in a burial suggests that they may have been used to exert power over dead bodies as well as the living, hinting that some of the symbolic consequences of imprisonment and slavery could extend even beyond death.’
Examination of the skeleton suggests the man led a physically demanding life, according to MOLA.
A bony spur on one of the upper leg bones may have been caused by a traumatic event, perhaps a fall or blow to the hip, or else a life filled with excessive or repetitive physical activity.
Marshall told the Guardian that he may have been somebody who had ‘earned the ire of other people’.
‘Equally it could be that the people who buried him were tyrannical and awful,’ he said. ‘We can’t really understand the moral dimensions.’
Tellingly, there is a Roman cemetery around just 200 feet (60 metres) away from where he was found.
So, there was likely a conscious effort by people at the time to separate or distinguish him from those buried in the cemetery, as part of his demeaning punishment.
Slavery was commonplace in the Roman Empire and the practice is described in written sources from the time, but shackles are very rarely found with human remains.