Archaeologists have unearthed a cemetery with 50 sets of human remains at a medieval monastery, among other rare finds.
A team of researchers and students from the University of Reading made the discoveries while excavating the well-preserved Anglo-Saxon site located by a church in Cookham, a village in southern England. The village lies on the banks of the River Thames, which flows through London.
The monastery, which is believed to have thrived in the 8th and 9th centuries, was first discovered in 2021 by staff from Reading’s archaeology department with the help of volunteers. But recent excavations have yielded more discoveries at the site, shedding new light on the centuries-old monastery.
Among the key new discoveries made at the site was a cemetery containing 50 deceased individuals. They span three generations of people and include adults of both sexes, as well as children, researchers said.
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The excavations also uncovered evidence of a substantial walled monastic enclosure fronting the River Thames, as well as a well with a preserved wooden barrel-lined shaft. The shaft contained other wooden artifacts.
Additionally, the team found a large timber structure with an internal floor and hearth that would have served as one of the main buildings within the monastery.
“The discoveries we have made at Cookham in 2023 will help us to paint a much clearer picture of daily life at the monastery,” Gabor Thomas, leader of the project with the University of Reading, said in a press release. “We will need to carry out more detailed analyses of what we have found, but the artifacts unearthed at this year’s dig again show the exceptional quality of preservation at Cookham.”
The monastery was under the control of a powerful Anglo-Saxon queen named Cynethryth. She was married to King Offa, who ruled Mercia—one of the primary Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in post-Roman Britain—from 757 A.D. until his death in 796 A.D.
The Anglo-Saxons were a group of people who migrated to Britain from Germanic northwestern Europe after the Roman Empire withdrew from the island at the beginning of the 5th century A.D.
Cynethryth is the only Anglo-Saxon queen known who is known to have been depicted on coins from the period.
The exact location of the monastery at Cookham, which is thought to have been abandoned in the late 9th century, had long puzzled experts. But in 2021, archaeologists managed to locate it.
During excavations in 2022, archaeologists uncovered even more evidence at the site of the monastery, suggesting that it was an important medieval trading hub. In fact, the site could have enjoyed a similar trading status to larger contemporary towns, such as London.
That year, Thomas and his team discovered well-preserved infrastructure, including a waterside loading area, workshops for industrial activities like metalworking, and bread ovens used to feed the monastery’s inhabitants.
The finds indicate that the monastery served as a site where extensive quantities of goods and materials were imported and exported.
“This is a once-in-a-generation archaeological discovery. We have not just rediscovered the location of this monastery but shown that it’s in a remarkable state of preservation,” Thomas said in 2022 after the discoveries were made.
“We have uncovered a densely occupied riverside trading and production zone, complete with streets and loading areas. This level of infrastructure and planning is surprising and compares with larger trading and production sites known as ‘wics’ that were the only towns of the period.”
While the population of Cookham would have been considerably smaller than contemporary London, which had a population in the low thousands at the time, there are similarities in the way in which the monastery was organized, according to Thomas. This reflects its importance as a place of trade and production on the Thames.
The University of Reading Department of Archaeology is planning to return to the site next year in order to conduct further excavations and learn more about its history.