Originally Posted by
realspeed
->
Not in the garden but where I worked outside the gatehouse they discovered bodies with hands tied behind and heads cut off and placed between legs.
Done centuries ago as a punishment.
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ARCHAEOLOGY - From Ernest Crossland
Work began on the site of the Goblin Works in Ermyn Way, Ashtead, in September and continued
for four weeks, during which time 25 graves were discovered in addition to the two
revealed by the contractors and reported in the local press in July.
The excavation was under the direction of Mr Rob Poulton, an Archaeological Officer of the
Surrey County Council, and several members of our Society helped.
The graves were of two types. One group had well cut graves cut into the solid chalk
and several of the burials in this group had articles buried with them, including spears,
knives and bronze buckles. A woman had a cowrie shell and a bone comb. Another wore a
string of beads. These people were quite certainly pagan Saxons probably of the seventh
century. Very few pieces of pottery were found and this makes dating difficult, but
the style of the weapons gives an indication of this date. Having objects buried with
them shows that the people were pagan. All of these had their heads to the west and
the graves were on the same alignment.
The other group were in ill-defined, rather shallow scrapes in the ground and mostly with
their heads to the south. The impression was that they had been unceremoniously thrown
into the graves. When they were excavated it was seen that several had been buried face
downwards and some seem to have had their hands tied behind their backs. A further
indivation of their treatment was the fact that some had quite certainly been decapitated
one had the skull between the lower limbs.
The first group included several children but all the others were adults over 20 years
of age, mostly quite tall - one man was well over six feet. All had remarkably well
preserved teeth with no signs of caries, though the crowns of the teeth were worn down
due to the grit in their stone-ground flour.
This company had an electronic division working on parts some of which went into Concorde , ie fuel pump motors as an example, highly specialised ones in minature which I worked on