Sydney Gardens Roman Stone Coffin

Bath and North East Somerset Council successfully secured funding for the Heritage Lottery Fund Parks for People Programme for the Sydney Gardens project.

We were appointed to cover the majority of the delivery phase, which included groundworks in an area known to have been a Roman cemetery. It was during these that the exciting discovery of two skeletons in a Roman stone coffin was made. 

Solution

We appointed and managed L-P Archaeology, now part of MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology), to maintain an archaeological watching brief over the ground-intrusive elements of groundworks as set out in the AMP, which included watching brief over the contamination remediation.

It was in this area that initially a stone wall was observed. The area surrounding the wall was segregated from the main works area whilst the feature was recorded, and whilst the remainder of the remediation works continued. During the recording of the stone wall and surrounding area, a stone coffin was discovered. The next stage of works was undertaken under a licence for exhumation from the coroners’ office at the Ministry of Justice.

The opportunity to excavate a stone coffin burial with modern archaeological techniques and technology is unprecedented in Bath, and every opportunity was explored by L-P Archaeology to allow for the fullest of records to be made, from photography, photogrammetry, 3D scanning and video. The results proved to be even more interesting than originally anticipated.

As well as a votive offering and a cremation burial (both containing human bone), a small amount of human bone was also found in the area immediately adjacent to the stone coffin during ground reduction around the stone coffin to enable its excavation.

Inside the stone coffin were the remains of one female individual laid prone, and the partial remains of a second female individual laid in a heap at its feet. Circa 45 glass beads were also recovered from inside the coffin, with some found outside. Although the re-use of stone coffins is not unique in Roman Britain, it is nevertheless unusual, as is the prone position of the complete individual. The cremation burial is the only one of its kind scientifically verified and recorded at Bathwick Roman cemetery. Further investigation is now ongoing, and much more will be revealed through this process.

Our Ground Contamination and Heritage teams worked closely with the Landscape Architects to create a strategy which considered the archaeological sensitivity of the site and the need to protect and enhance the landscape of the park. This allowed all contaminated materials to be retained onsite below a clean cover system, which acted as an appropriate platform for the proposed planting.