A braided head of hair found buried
beneath a medieval abbey in England is
thought to belong to an individual who
died between 895 and 1123 A.D.
A braided head of hair found buried beneath
a medieval abbey in England has given up
some of its secrets, thanks to a scientist's
curiosity about the relic, which he first saw
when he was a schoolboy.
Jamie Cameron, an archaeological research
assistant at the University of Oxford in the
United Kingdom, first visited Romsey Abbey,
near the city of Southampton, on a school
Cameron said he became curious about the
abbey's display of a brightly colored and
braided head of hair, which had been found in
a lead casket buried beneath the abbey floor.
But at the time, nothing was known about
the identity of the hair's owner. [See photos
of the mysterious braided hair found at
Romsey Abbey]
"The one thing, in particular, that I remember
was the preserved head of hair in a display
case. I'd never seen anything like it before,
and ever since that day, I've wondered who
this person might have been," Cameron told
Live Science. "It's one reason why I decided
to become an archaeologist."
Mysterious weave
In 1839, gravediggers found the mysteriously
preserved head of hair, with small pieces of
scalp still attached, beneath the abbey floor,
inside a wooden chest within a lead casket
and lying on a "pillow" of oak wood.
One of the gravediggers, a Mr. J. Major, later
wrote that he had found "a scalp of female
hair as bright as any living ladies' hair I have
ever seen," while a finger bone also found in
the chest "became dust immediately the air
came to it."
Romsey Abbey dates from the year 907, when
the Saxon King Edward the Elder, a son of
Alfred the Great, built a home for a religious
community of nuns that included his
daughter, Elflaeda.
Two Christian saints are linked to Romsey
Abbey: Saint Morwenna, an Irish nun who
reformed the abbey under Benedictine rule
around 960, and the Saint Ethelflaeda, who
re-established the abbey after it was burned
down by raiding Danes in 994, according to
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a record of events
in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms written by
monks from the 9th to the 12th centuries.
Tradition relates that Ethelflaeda's saintly
acts included singing psalms while standing
naked in a nearby river at night.
Although there's speculation that the hair
found in 1839 may have belonged to one of
these famous women, no inscriptions on the
casket or inside it identified the owner. [Holy
Dream Team? The Most Notorious Catholic
Saints]
But now, the "Romsey braid" is yielding some
of its secrets up to science.
Revisiting old curiosities
Almost 15 years after his school visit to
Romsey Abbey, Cameron was studying for his
Master of Science degree at the University of
Oxford’s Research Laboratory for
Archaeology when he brought the braid of
hair to the attention of the university's
"Relics Cluster."
The Relics Cluster — dubbed the " Da Vinci
Code Unit" by British newspapers, after the
popular novel by author Dan Brown — is an
interdisciplinary group of scientists that
specializes in testing sacred objects and
religious relics.
The unit previously tested fragments of wood
purported to be from the True Cross, which is
believed to be the cross upon which Jesus
was crucified. The group found that the
pieces were 1,000 years too young. The
scientists also examined a finger bone said
to have belonged to John the Baptist , and
testing showed the bone indeed came from a
Middle Eastern man from the 1st century.
As a master's student, Cameron convinced
his colleagues and other members of the
Relics Cluster to closely explore the story of
the Romsey braid's discovery.
"Together, we were able to carry out this
investigation incorporating radiocarbon
dating, stable isotope analysis and gas
chromatography-mass spectrometry,"
Cameron said.
The scientists haven't yet identified the
owner of the Romsey hair, but they've found
several vital clues, Cameron said.
"With the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator
Unit, we obtained radiocarbon dates for both
the hair itself and the oak 'pillow' on which
the hair was found," Cameron said. "We can
be almost certain that this individual died
between 895 and 1123 A.D., and it is also 68
percent likely that they died between the
narrower date range of 965 and 1045 A.D."
Cameron said these findings suggested that
the hair's owner was buried around the
middle of the Late Saxon period in England –
a time marked from the death of Alfred the
Great in 899 until the Norman Conquest in
1066. [ Religious Mysteries: 8 Alleged Relics
of Jesus]
Uncovering other uncertainties
Thibaut Devièse, a postdoctoral research
assistant at Oxford's Research Laboratory for
Archaeology, conducted tests for residues on
the hair and found pine resin.
"We cannot be certain whether this had
something to do with the funerary ritual or
was applied to the hair during life" as a hair
treatment, Cameron said.
The investigations also analyzed carbon and
nitrogen isotopes in the hair, to learn more
about the person's diet.
"This individual probably consumed a
significant quantity of fish in their diet. This
is interesting because it may indicate that
this person was associated with monastic life
at Romsey Abbey, as fish was eaten
frequently [in the monastery] due to religious
restrictions on the consumption of meat,"
Cameron said.
So far, the tests on the hair haven't been
linked it to any of the famous women who
lived at Romsey Abbey, but further tests may
be able to shed more light on such
connections, the researchers said.
"It would be very interesting if we could
attempt analysis of ancient DNA preserved in
the hair, if any genetic material survives,"
Cameron said. "In particular, this might allow
us to establish whether these are the remains
of a man or a woman. It has generally been
assumed that these remains belong to a
woman based on the hairstyle, but we do not
know this for certain yet."
For Cameron, taking part in an archaeological
investigation that was inspired by his
schoolboy curiosity was a unique experience.
"It felt great to be able to find out a little bit
more about something I've been interested in
for such a long time. It's amazing how much
information we can gain from such a tiny
sample of hair," he said. "I'm very grateful I
had the opportunity to go back to Romsey
and use what I'd learned at university to
contribute something new."
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