In Archaeology, as in many studies I suppose, we must be incredibly careful about how we describe, well anything really… What labels we ascribe to each other and the things that matter to people. We are often studying the more sensitive aspects of identity, what makes entire groups of people who they are? So that in recent years, archaeologists have even had to begin to ask themselves, am I the right someone to be researching this ‘aspect’ of knowledge? I freely admit this is an extent of ‘gatekeeping’ or ‘righteous knowing’ which I struggle with in some respects, but then again, I do not have assigned to me a shared heritage and history of discrimination, with the notable exception of being female, disabled and working class. These are interestingly three groups for which there is very minimal ‘gatekeeping’. Anyways, that is the big overarching discussion, in the spirit of the season, I thought to write about a smaller nuance of this.
There is, out there in the ether, a potential route of study called ‘Monster Studies’ which is sometimes even more specific and to the ‘stake’-point being called ‘Vampire Studies’ or ‘insert-random-folkloric-figure-here Studies’. These are usually literary based culture studies and quite honestly sound like superb fun, the temptation for another degree is there from my perspective at least. But things all turn a little topsy-turvy when an archaeologist, like me, tries to get involved in ‘Monster Studies’, you see when we are talking about Vampires, Witches, Shapeshifters, the things that go bump in the night, we aren’t actually speaking of the literary kind. Sometimes we actually dig up these so-called ‘Monsters’, burials of people who were thought to be ‘Monstrous’ by their communities but in reality, were just unwell, foreign, disabled or perhaps only a little different. In a world that didn’t understand ‘different’ this was quite scary because this combined with a world that didn’t understand practically much else sympathetically either, led to drastic actions. So, we can’t use the word ‘Monsters’ when what we really mean is a ‘Victim’ of collective in-built fear, so why do we instead so often use the word ‘Deviant’, whether in the adjective or noun form. What an archaeologist means this to mean, is ‘differing from the usual known pattern’, but it has negative connotations in-built within the word. It can in fact be misconstrued, shock and horror, associated with the negative placement within themes it often enjoys within the literary sphere, where the worst of human nature is described. It begins with ‘(those that) do not conform to standard norms’ develops to ‘seasoned nonconformists’ to a ‘dissenter’ to the ‘dangerous’. None of which is what we as archaeologists really mean, but that’s the thing about language it doesn’t necessarily matter what we mean, not when so much importance is placed on what we understand. If I had to explain the inference or connotation of all that I wrote to you, dear reader, then a sentence might in some technicolour metamorphosis become a treatise.
But what are ‘Deviant Burials’? They are on a basic level depositions of the dead which are unusual and outside the usual bounds of supine inhumation, that is a corpse buried laying as if asleep… which makes it sound unnecessarily suited to the horror genre. They are an international phenomenon and, perhaps because of this, there are varied forms of ‘Deviant Burial’, this should perhaps be expected as there is an expansive extent of options outside the bounds of the ordinary. As is the nature of such things, the concept of the ordinary is a necessarily narrow definition whilst all the world outside of this is deviant or as I prefer extraordinary. The question as to why such burials exist is perhaps best answered in a case study and by someone else, so… There exists in Stanwick, Northamptonshire, England, a poor unfortunate ‘unusual’ Roman British individual, who was buried prone (face down), the tongue *presumably* cut out and replaced by a flat stone. In an interview, to the Guardian newspaper, Simon Mays, a human skeletal biologist, noted that this post-mortem mutilation of our Roman British individual was uncommon with ‘the fact that he’s buried face down in the grave (being) consistent with somebody whose behaviour marked them out as odd or threatening within a community’. Elsewhere in Europe this might have been labelled as a ‘Vampire Burial’, in Poland for example, but wherever they may be and whatever these contexts may be called the fundamental reason for them remains the same, threat, to community, to normality. Many ‘Deviant Burial’ examples are later in date, another reason why Roman British Individual may have escaped the label of ‘Vampire’, specifically they are early-high medieval, as is the case with Bishop John the final story for this article. But first, completely unrelated I promise, Bishop John is a happily ever after story, cross my heart, evidence suggests that decapitation amongst pagan societies may have been a common punishment for violating rules or social norms, with the severed head perhaps subsequently occupying a role in ritual practices. Now Bishop John, his story can be variously found in Adam of Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum and Helmond’s Chronica Sclavorum… So, Bishop John was given a mission, it was to be his assignment to convert the Pagan Slavs to Christianity, whether they wanted to be or not, as the case may be, they vehemently did not, and so they captured Bishop John. Originally, he was captured in Mechlin (Meklemburg) and transported settlement to settlement, where he was ceremonially, verbally mocked and physically beaten by crowds of rather upset Pagans, before reaching his intended final ‘living’ destination of Obodrites in Rethra, a cultic centre. Here, Bishop John was decapitated, notably his feet were also cut off, perhaps to prevent mobility in the afterlife. In any case, this reaction directly correlates to the attempts of Bishop John to preach Christianity, which was in contravention to local customs, it goes to show you should always read a reputable guidebook to a new place. And, well, Bishop John did achieve a form of martyrdom, so if his belief was as strong as it seemed to be, well, as a Christian he would have admired martyrs, so a lighter story?
In the case of Bishop John, his sacrifice may have been pre-emptive action by the community, his head was supplanted upon a spear and sacrificed finally to Redigast (a local God), a proactive approach to threat rather than reactive. From the reactive perspective corpses are for all intents and purposes scapegoated for all those problems which effected societies, I want to say Pre-Enlightenment but that would be giving the ‘Enlightenment’ too much credit, problems such as fatal plague contagions or extreme violence in war or holocaust or extreme weather situations, or, or, or…
How does this all work, really? Well, the concept of ‘Deviant Burials’ occupies such a vast extent of time and geographical space that there is not one single motivation for the specifics of the practice… Warning, what follows is a highly Eurocentric explanation. Commonly the spiritual life-force of us mortals has been believed to reside either in the heart and/or the head, so it is broadly advisable when dealing with the undead to target one of these regions, variously in archaeological exemplar these are either pierced with a pointy implement or directly cut away/off or weighed down with crushing weight of rocks… or as was my case, my workload. But then why was Roman British Individual face down, it's down to interpretation, often with more recent examples the explanation proposed is that this would confuse the ‘Vampire’, which presumably cannot turn around and like a chess piece can only travel forward, the Vampire in an attempt to escape would just keep digging deeper and deeper and deeper. The more time appropriate explanation for Roman British Individual however is that the soul would be unable to leave through the mouth and presumably would not be able to find an alternative outlet and remain trapped in the decaying mortal vessel.
You can find more details and discussion on the phenomenon of ‘Deviant Burials’ which really ought to be called something else, that I am not creative or responsible enough to come up with, on the an episode of my podcast, The Flipside, which can be found on the Archaeology Podcast Network, there is a direct link below. Whatever the details, there has been and forevermore will be significant interest in the so-called ‘dangerous dead’ but let us not forget firstly that these were victims of the unique human capacity to fear the different and unknown and secondly that we now are uniquely placed to celebrate our difference, our diversity. I, for one, am thankful.
Stay safe in the big wide world as always. Happy spooky season!
Signing off,
Leia Tilley
References
Sugg, R. (2017). History Today - The Hidden History of Deviant Burials
Murphy, E. M. (Editor). Deviant Burial in the Archaeological Record. Vol. 2. Oxbow Books, 2008.
Gardeła, L. & K. Kajkowski. “Vampires, Criminals or Slaves? Reinterpreting ‘Deviant Burials’ in Early Medieval Poland.” World Archaeology 45, no. 5 (2013): 780–96.
Balter, M. (2005). 'Deviant' Burials Reveal Death on the Fringe in Ancient Societies. Science, Vol.310, Issue. 5748. 613.
FLIPSIDE Podcast --- The Flipside (archaeologypodcastnetwork.com)
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