The mysterious Roman burial ritual of pouring liquid plaster over the dead was not limited to elite adults as previously thought; it was also performed on children, including babies as young as 1 month old, researchers have found.
The finding contradicts Roman legal sources which wrote that infants under 12 months were not meant to be mourned at all, according to two blog posts published by To see the dead project, a collaboration between the University of York and York Museums Trust. Their team investigates the discovery of children among the rare “plaster burials” found in York, in the north of England.
“Infants were the most vulnerable members of Roman society,” Maureen Carrolla Roman archaeologist at the University of York, wrote in a February 18 blog postespecially given the high infant mortality rate of around 30%. But although historical records state that babies younger than 1 year old were not to be mourned because infant deaths were common, Carroll has found that these restrictions only applied to public mourning.
“They had no bearing on emotions such as grief or the sense of loss felt and expressed by the surviving family in private,” she wrote.
Among the more than 70 plaster burials Carroll has studied, at least seven belonged to children, including three infants under 4 months old. The practice of floating plaster burial appears to have been reserved for the Roman elite at York, and was usually applied to adults. Infants were more often buried in large jars called amphorae; ceramic tile boxes; or small wooden chests.
A notable infant burial was found in 1892 during the construction of the York Railway. The newborn, only 1 or 2 months old, was covered in a robe of purple-colored wool decorated with gold thread and tassels, before being placed in a lead sarcophagus and covered in liquid plaster.
Although nothing remains of the infant’s bones today, one can still see the impression of the brilliant purple-and-gold robe. This is the only plaster burial with colored fabric ever found, Sarah Hitchensan archaeological textile expert at the University of York, wrote in a February 23 blog post.
“It is likely that the purple fabric was made from an animal fiber such as wool,” Hitchens wrote, and the cloak was likely draped over the infant’s body as a burial shroud.
Chemists in the project team are now analyzing the hardened plaster coating to obtain more information about Romano-British burial practices.
“We test the plaster casing for evidence of aromatic substances, such as incense or mastic,” respectively, dried tree sap and resin, Carroll told LiveScience in an email. They also plan to test purple dye to find out if it came from the murex, a type of snail from which the ancient Romans obtained a natural red-purple dye. The gold threads will also be analyzed, Carroll said.
Other liquid plaster burials found in York include a child of around 4 months old discovered wrapped between the legs of two adults. It is unclear whether these three individuals constituted a family, “but it is clear that they were closely related in life and death,” Carroll wrote.
In another case, a girl who was between 7 and 9 years old when she died was buried with a variety of gold, silver, copper, jet, glass and coral jewellery. Two pairs of boots and a pair of sandals were discovered near her feet, and the bones of what was likely a pet chicken were also found in her coffin.
“The 3D scan of her body visible under a shroud or sheet reveals how frail and thin she was, and perhaps points to a prolonged illness before her death,” Carroll wrote.
These lavish burials of infants and children discovered in York show that Roman legal texts, written mainly by older men, did not reflect the reality of life and death in Roman Britain.
“It certainly all suggests that children so young were valued and cared for, contrary to the ancient notion that the Romans didn’t care when their infants died because the infant mortality rate was high,” Carroll said. “Great nonsense!”
