03-16-2012, 11:22 AM
fascinating
![[Image: article-0-122EBAA3000005DC-670_634x423.jpg]](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/03/15/article-0-122EBAA3000005DC-670_634x423.jpg)
![[Image: article-0-122EBA93000005DC-112_634x357.jpg]](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/03/15/article-0-122EBA93000005DC-112_634x357.jpg)
![[Image: article-0-122EE573000005DC-558_634x1064.jpg]](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/03/15/article-0-122EE573000005DC-558_634x1064.jpg)
![[Image: article-0-122EBA9F000005DC-275_634x914.jpg]](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/03/15/article-0-122EBA9F000005DC-275_634x914.jpg)
![[Image: article-0-122EBAB2000005DC-353_634x476.jpg]](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/03/15/article-0-122EBAB2000005DC-353_634x476.jpg)
daily mail
Laid to rest in her best clothes and lying on an ornamental bed, she was probably of noble blood.
Quite how the 16-year-old Anglo Saxon girl died and who she was remain a mystery.
But she was buried wearing a gold cross – suggesting she was one of Britain’s earliest Christians.
Her well-preserved 1,400-year-old grave has been discovered by Cambridge University scientists, who described the find as ‘astonishing’.
The burial site at Trumpington Meadows, a village near Cambridge, indicates Christianity had already taken root in the area as early as the middle of the 7th century.
It was not long after St Augustine, a monk in Rome, was sent by Pope Gregory the Great to convert the English in the year 595.
Starting in Kent, his team of 40 missionaries slowly worked their way around the country and he became the first Archbishop of Canterbury two years later.
But progress is thought to have been slow and sometimes difficult, and Christians and pagans co-existed for many decades.
The new find gives an insight into this transition period as she was also buried with a knife and glass beads to use in the next life – a pagan tradition of ‘grave goods’ which goes against Christian beliefs. Dr Sam Lewsey, an expert in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, said: ‘This is an excessively rare discovery. It is the most amazing find I have ever encountered.
‘Christian conversion began at the top and percolated down. To be buried in this elaborate way, with such a valuable artefact, tells us that this girl was probably nobility or even royalty. This cross is the kind of material culture that was in circulation at the highest sphere of society.’
The grave is one of 13 Anglo Saxon ‘bed burials’ to be discovered. Usually reserved for noble women, they involved being laid to rest on a wood and metal frame topped with a straw mattress. Such burials are not found after the 7th century.
The girl’s inch-wide gold cross, studded with cut garnets, has been dated to between 650 and 680AD.
daily mail
Laid to rest in her best clothes and lying on an ornamental bed, she was probably of noble blood.
Quite how the 16-year-old Anglo Saxon girl died and who she was remain a mystery.
But she was buried wearing a gold cross – suggesting she was one of Britain’s earliest Christians.
Her well-preserved 1,400-year-old grave has been discovered by Cambridge University scientists, who described the find as ‘astonishing’.
The burial site at Trumpington Meadows, a village near Cambridge, indicates Christianity had already taken root in the area as early as the middle of the 7th century.
It was not long after St Augustine, a monk in Rome, was sent by Pope Gregory the Great to convert the English in the year 595.
Starting in Kent, his team of 40 missionaries slowly worked their way around the country and he became the first Archbishop of Canterbury two years later.
But progress is thought to have been slow and sometimes difficult, and Christians and pagans co-existed for many decades.
The new find gives an insight into this transition period as she was also buried with a knife and glass beads to use in the next life – a pagan tradition of ‘grave goods’ which goes against Christian beliefs. Dr Sam Lewsey, an expert in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, said: ‘This is an excessively rare discovery. It is the most amazing find I have ever encountered.
‘Christian conversion began at the top and percolated down. To be buried in this elaborate way, with such a valuable artefact, tells us that this girl was probably nobility or even royalty. This cross is the kind of material culture that was in circulation at the highest sphere of society.’
The grave is one of 13 Anglo Saxon ‘bed burials’ to be discovered. Usually reserved for noble women, they involved being laid to rest on a wood and metal frame topped with a straw mattress. Such burials are not found after the 7th century.
The girl’s inch-wide gold cross, studded with cut garnets, has been dated to between 650 and 680AD.