An Anglo-Saxon girl had her nose and lips cut off as punishment, an ancient skull shows

And now for something different.

Archaeologists analyzing the skull of an Anglo-Saxon girl made a gruesome discovery that shines a light on the brutal punishments meted out to criminals in early medieval England.

Analysis of the skull showed that the girl, thought to have been between 15 and 18 at the time of her death, had had her nose and lips cut off, and she may have also been scalped as part of her punishment.
The team of researchers from University College London (UCL) believe she died shortly after sustaining the injuries, as the remains showed no evidence of healing.

Using radiocarbon dating, the researchers were able to estimate that the remains date back to between 776 and 899 AD.
"This case appears to be the first archaeological example of this particularly brutal form of facial disfigurement known from Anglo-Saxon England," the UCL team said in a press release for the findings, published in the journal Antiquity.
The case predates all previously known historical records of such punishments by almost a century, the study said, and it is the first physical evidence to support what written records had shown.

The brutally beaten cranium was found at a site in the southern English town of Basingstoke in the 1960s, excavated just before the site was developed into a housing estate.
Decades after its discovery, researchers fully analyzed the disfigured skull. They found the victim suffered several facial injuries around the time of her death, including a cut across her mouth, which removed her lips, and a cut across her forehead -- suggesting an attempted scalping.
She suffered a "cut through her nose that went so deep it cut through the surrounding bone," according to the press release.

Law codes from the Anglo-Saxon period -- which lasted from the Romans' withdrawal from Britain in 410 AD to the Norman Conquest in 1066 -- show that punishments like these were meted out to adulteresses and to slaves caught stealing.
Although researchers were able to determine the manner in which she died, little else is known about the woman.
The researchers found no evidence she was buried in a normal cemetery, suggesting she was buried as an outcast.
This in itself may have been a punishment, as banishment was also a common penalty in Anglo-Saxon England.

www.cnn.com...

By 776 AD, the Anglo-Saxons had already been converted to Christianity from Paganism for a century. I doubt she was a mere thief; certainly her crime must've been pretty severe. I wonder if a person is supposed to or expected to live after having their nose and lips cut off. Neither is required to survive much like the external part of the ear, at least in a "civilized" society.

The scalping part I'm not so sure about. When the Native Americans scalped someone, they were usually dead or dying, am I right? I'm sure there were scalping survivors but that was in the past few hundred years, not 700-900 AD. I'd like to think we made some medical advances in those 1,000 years.

Maybe it's what they did to her before killing her as a humiliation? Disfigure before bludgeoning to death as a spectacle? I don't see someone being disfigured in such a way during a banishment, particularly the scalping part, with any expectation of not bleeding to death and/or dying from infection. Especially not a teenage girl. One would think that, similarly to the Islamic practice of removing a hand, foot, both or fingers, then caring for the wound and keeping the person alive, would be the intent so that they could live in shame and be witnessed to dissuade others.

You're only posting this because it's a "wear a mask" metaphor.

a reply to: FlukeSkywalker
Same reason the Deftones just released a new album with this imagery (even though not a single fing person on Earth has mentioned this other than me):

www.rockcellarmagazine.com...

a reply to: FlukeSkywalker


Honestly, I hadn't made the connection lol. I thought it was extremely savage and had no idea that they did that in Christian England just before the turn of the first millenium, considering the Normans invaded and conquered soon thereafter, creating the foundation for modern Great Britain.

The Deftones album art (They still make new music?) with no nose or mouth is definitely inspired by people having to wear masks. Drawing the extension to having lips and nose cut off is logical but it wasn't my known intent. Maybe it was subconciously connected, inspired by deep within my mind unaware.

That'd be pretty twisted.

originally posted by: quix0tic
a reply to: FlukeSkywalker


Honestly, I hadn't made the connection lol. - Maybe it was subconciously connected, inspired by deep within my mind unaware.

That'd be pretty twisted.

Or just, um, reality. Or more like un-reality. This place is an abomination.

I have heard of cases where the lips are cut off still happening in Africa. The mouth drys out as they are unable to close their mouth and talking is difficult. It does not kill the person straight away, but does lead to a lot of health complications.

originally posted by: FlukeSkywalker
a reply to: FlukeSkywalker
Same reason the Deftones just released a new album with this imagery (even though not a single fing person on Earth has mentioned this other than me):

www.rockcellarmagazine.com...

Star for the Deftones reference(even though they went kinda sucky after Chi Chengs car accident put him in a coma).

a reply to: quix0tic

Poor little girl, it shows how barbaric and damned inhumane those savages were back then, even the Roman's were more merciful if not always (in fact Rome was a force for change against far more savage people's than themselves and on the whole very beneficial while the Saxon's were barbarians that had thrown of roman rule and gone back to there barbarism though just perhaps they were not as cruel as the later Norman's).

How fortunate we are to live in today's world and yet we are still never happy.

The conclusions they come to could be looked at differently. Why come to the conclusion that she was mutilated while alive, the lack of healing??? Why not mutilation at the time of her just having died?
Having just the skull with knife marks does not indicate that it was done while she was alive. Yes, if she was alive this could have killed her but to say it did was erroneous and just a guess.

The Romans were less savage ? really I do believe one man died of a crucifixion ? Hung On a cross to slowly suffocate from the pressure of having the arms such as they are .
You find that less savage ?
As for the time line well Roma was Roma unti Nero showed up on the Sean .

originally posted by: midnightstar
The Romans were less savage ? really I do believe one man died of a crucifixion ? Hung On a cross to slowly suffocate from the pressure of having the arms such as they are .
You find that less savage ?
As for the time line well Roma was Roma unti Nero showed up on the Sean .

One man? Try thousands over hundreds of years lol

originally posted by: midnightstar
The Romans were less savage ? really I do believe one man died of a crucifixion ? Hung On a cross to slowly suffocate from the pressure of having the arms such as they are .
You find that less savage ?
As for the time line well Roma was Roma unti Nero showed up on the Sean .

Nero was an aberration even by Roman Standards (though rewriters of history are trying today to portray him as an effeminate champion of the arts AND he was far from Rome's first or last brutal emperor or leader), they were no strangers to human sacrifice often to please crowds in the arena and had a seemingly endless appetite for the suffering of others BUT when they met the Celt's they met the druid's and while the saying the conqueror writes the history is true and they downplayed the great achievements many of which are now attributed to the Romans of the Celtic culture still they were appalled much as the Spanish were when they conquered Mexico by the scale of human sacrifice that took place under the Druid's, the need to offer human blood to the Celtic deities deity's and not just the odd vestal virgin every now and then was too much even for there sensibility's.

When the conquered and erased Carthage they also ended the religion of endless child sacrifice that took place in that culture.

However not all that Rome conquered were worse than themselves, the Greek's while no strangers to the same depravity's the Romans enjoyed were equally cultured and perhaps even more so, the Jewish peoples already living under Greek Occupation were definitely MORE cultured and hated all human sacrifice.

Our Lord on the Cross was foretold from the time of the old testament and had to come to pass, God chose Rome to be the vehicle of this and to spread the word through the land's he had caused it to conquer in preparation for just this very purpose, had it been any other culture our world would be very different now, had many Romans not already been appalled and depressed by there cruel priesthood and evil emperors hearing the word of Christ and being converted then the world would be a different place.

Many Roman's were Christians just waiting for the world of Christ to call them back to his Pasteur.

I see and acknowledge your point, Rome, stole, looted, raped, murdered, destroyed but it also changed, removed worse than itself and as a unified empire and a period of Pax Roman became a vessel for a forgotten renaissance that spread the word of Christ throughout the classical world and beyond like rain falling on parched ground and bringing forth green shoot's that grew into the church's.

God's word would have spread anyway but the seed of Israel also had to be scattered among the nations and what better way than to have a huge empire facilitate that, still God's word lives and it would have found a way.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Yet if that was gods plan it sure sucked. Given he by myth created the entire universe. It is amazing that after such a mind stopping event he couldn't figure out a way to spread the religion that was about himself?

He or she started 300,000 years too late and if we look at the current state of religion in the world: The plan has been pretty much less than a failure. Less than 1/3 are 'Christians'.

a reply to: Hanslune


(Ahh sorry Hanslune I was cought up in another argument so if you already read this you were taking some of the flack from that I Should check which thread I am replying to, sorry again - abortion related)
]

a reply to: Hanslune
Dang you Hanslune for being all logical.😁

a reply to: punkinworks10

All you need to be logical is to do away with your imagination.
Replace it with statistics and clockwork and forget about the unknown and unseen except and in so far as you can conjecture (so you still need a tiny wee bit of imaginary friendship going on even there I guess).
I don't think that is what Hanslune was being though, he was just voicing his opinion same as the rest of us and drawing on some statistics to make his point.

I think a shark just got jumped.
🤣🤣
I found a great article that puts some perspective on Roman era social violence.
Roman/Carthaginian sacrifice

How did the Romans reconcile the prevalence of violence with a projected image of sophistication? One way was to create a distinction between human sacrifice and ritual murder. Human sacrifice is the taking of a life in a ritually prescribed manner, with the intent of offering it to a being, whereas ritual murder is killing with a religious purpose, but existing outside of the typical festival cycle, and not serving as communication with the gods.
As a result, with this logic, the Romans could differentiate between the offering of humans to the gods (which was usually unacceptable), and deadly rituals (which was common). This made it possible for Romans to rationalize human sacrifice as something that others did. Roman use of semantics created an image of enlightenment despite everyday brutality. To further crystalize these constructed comparisons, the Romans would portray rival’s cultures harshly, such as that of the Carthaginians. Graeco-Roman writers often claimed that the Carthaginians sacrificed humans to their gods. Justin states Carthage adopted the practice because of early calamities (Justin 18.6.11):

originally posted by: punkinworks10
a reply to: Hanslune
Dang you Hanslune for being all logical.😁

It's a curse.

originally posted by: LABTECH767
a reply to: Hanslune


(Ahh sorry Hanslune I was cought up in another argument so if you already read this you were taking some of the flack from that I Should check which thread I am replying to, sorry again - abortion related)
]

Oh I wonder why you went there - OT as it were. A nice change however.