Medieval Grave with Remains of Woman and Child Uncovered in Italy

BARI, ITALY—The remains of a woman holding a child have been unearthed at the site of Sipontum, which is located in Italy on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, according to a Gizmodo report. “There must have been a close relationship if the girl or boy was in her arms,” said Giuliano Volpe of the University of Bari Aldo Moro. “DNA analysis will clarify the kinship relationship more precisely,” he added. The grave was found in a medieval cemetery at the port city. The woman is estimated to have been between 30 and 40 years old when she died, while the child is thought to have been between five and seven years of age. Carbon dating of the remains is planned. Researchers have dated the cemetery, which was likely located near a church, monastery, or hospital, to the twelfth or thirteenth century based upon the ceramics and fragments of painted plaster found in the soil layers above the burials. “They were simple burials, without grave goods or elements of clothing or ornamentation (with the exception of a fibula and traces of a bracelet), possibly wrapped in shrouds,” Volpe explained. To read about a wooded park in a medieval town in Lazio, go to "Italy's Garden of Monsters."