Mass grave site containing the bodies of followers of the Quaker religious movement. St Ives, Cambridgeshire, UK
This is a mass grave site containing the bodies of followers of the Quaker religious movement. It was uncovered in St Ives, Cambridgeshire. Environment Agency workers found the rare Quaker burial site while carrying out work for flood defences at St Ives. Sixteen bodies were in the unmarked grave dating back to the late 1600s. Archaeologists described the find as "remarkable and unusual" as it gave an insight into Quaker burial practices just after the movement started. The Society of Friends was still emerging and developing as a religious movement in the last 1600s and now has many millions of members across the world. Nine male bodies, five female and two of undetermined gender were uncovered during excavations for a £ flood defence scheme at St Ives designed to protect 1,600 homes. The men and women were buried between 1680 and 1720, local historians have traced most of their names and archaeologists have examined the skeletons. One male skull revealed evidence of a pipe facet - two holes in teeth on one side of the jaw formed by years of pipe smoking. Another male body had had his feet amputated some years before his death. The skeletons also helped to provide an insight into the health of people at the time of their death. Most of the above text is taken from a BBC website report In keeping with Quaker practice, which eschewed interment in consecrated ground, graves did not follow standard Christian orientation, but were aligned parallel or at right angles to the river, head to toe and with no visible markers. All bodies had been laid in simple coffins, and in several cases copper alloy pins indicated the use of burial shrouds. Read more at
Size: 5400px × 3277px
Location: St Ives Cambridgeshire, England UK
Photo credit: © Max Carstairs / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: agency, archaeological, archaeology, bodies, burial, cadaver, cambridgeshire, death, defence, dig, england, environment, excavations, facet, flood, flooding, friends, grave, history, ives, mass, mortatlity, movement, pipe, project, quaker, religion, religious, scheme, skeleton, smoking, society, st, tomb, uk
