Posted on 06/22/2007 2:40:36 PM PDT by blam
Mass grave of Quakers uncovered
A meeting of the Society of Friends in its early days
A mass grave believed to contain the bodies of followers of the Quaker religious movement has been uncovered in Cambridgeshire. Environment Agency workers found the rare Quaker burial site while carrying out work for flood defences at St Ives.
Sixteen bodies were in the unmarked grave dating back to the late 1600s.
Archaeologists described the find as "remarkable and unusual" as it gave an insight into Quaker burial practices just after the movement started.
Pipe facet
The Society of Friends was still emerging and developing as a religious movement in the last 1600s and now has many millions of members across the world.
Nine male bodies, five female and two of undetermined gender were uncovered during excavations for a £8.8m flood defence scheme at St Ives designed to protect 1,600 homes.
The men and women were buried between 1680 and 1720, local historians have traced most of their names and archaeologists have examined the skeletons.
One male skull revealed evidence of a pipe facet - two holes in teeth on one side of the jaw formed by years of pipe smoking.
Another male body had had his feet amputated some years before his death.
The skeletons also helped to provide an insight into the health of people at the time of their death.
FYI.
It’s PAYBACK TIME!
“Mass grave” vs “multiple grave”. Sixteen bodies is a multiple burial. Four thousand is a mass burial. Tough to find a dividing line, but let us be repectful of real mass graves.
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The expression “mass grave” carries with it the implication that somebody stood the Quakers at the edge of a hole they’d been forced to dig and machine-gunned them. I would say rather “graveyard” or “burial ground.”
I would say rather “graveyard” or “burial ground.”
Earlier in our history, they refused to vote money to protect settlers in Pennsylvania from Indian attacks, and sold foodstuffs and other products to British troops during the Revolution while refusing to aid the American colonists.
They are a subversive bunch and a good number of them even include socialists and atheists in their numbers today.
Yep, it sure gives insight.../sarc
And part of me says, "Maybe they were in a rush that day."
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