It is currently on display at the Rheinische Landesmυseυm in Bonn, Germany.

UK archaeologists have found a Roman-era mercenary buried along with his sword and a mysterious decapitated skeleton. Vale of Glamorgan Council in Wales hired rυbicon Heritage Providers to assess a street they wanted to straighten

It led to the invention of a vast trove of archaeological artifacts and hundreds of tombs dating back thousands of years. Roman Skeletons Along a five-mile stretch of road there was a set of Roman artifacts and several other skeletons, Mark Collard, executive director of Rυbicon Heritage, who is leading the project, told Insider. One is believed to be a mercenary, buried with a great sword and a military brooch, courting the time when “the Roman Empire collapsed in Britain,” Collard said. Nearby was another skeleton of a decapitated man, buried with his head between his feet.

In 2019, at a Roman cemetery in Suffolk, England, archaeologists found the same corpse configuration in 17 decapitated skeletons whose heads were believed to have been removed after death. The discovery left “archaeologists scratching their heads,” Dwell Science reported. What the practice symbolizes remains a mystery. One theory suggests a link to a pagan belief system of pre-Roman Celtic tribes who thought the summit was the container of the soul, archaeologists told LiveScience.

Both men in Wales were buried on a large hill with “incredible views of the countryside”. It’s important to assume that there has to be a reason,” Collard told Insider. A historic burial website

Collard said another excavated part of the street revealed a burial site from a later period that also raised many questions.

In the course of the issue is a once-hidden medieval cemetery, found by Collard and his group, containing 450 bodies. People returned to the cemetery for about 500 years (from the 6th to the 13th century) to bury their relatives there. “It is rare for them to be successfully buried in the middle of an issue. It’s not near a church. And that’s one of the things we’re wondering is why it’s taking so long for people to get to the people at the top of this hill,” Collard said. The group is conducting a detailed analysis of the rooms, looking for family links to the bodies, signs of illness or damage, or clues about diet. The team behind the excavation has published a book detailing the project called “5 Mile Lane,” which describes what has been discovered so far, including Bronze Age cremations, an arrowhead and a 3,000-pound round horse. . . years of antiguaty.

Detailed results will be published at the end of 2022. “Archaeologists always say that we didn’t expect to find much, and in this case, we really didn’t, because previous research didn’t raise much hope. But it has proven to be a very densely occupied prehistoric, Roman and later landscape, with a lot of activity from 4000 BC to the Second World War,” Collard said.