Westminster Abbey skeleton: a long-awaited identity?

A Roman sarcophagus with a medieval design

The limestone sarcophagus was unearthed on the abbey grounds in 1869, after having already been disturbed in the early 19th century. One of its side faces bears a Latin inscription in honour of Valerius Amandinus, a Briton living in London around the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. The lid, however, was carved with a large Latin cross dating roughly from the 10th and 11th centuries.

This contrast long intrigued specialists: an ancient tomb was evidently reused centuries later to accommodate a person of high religious rank. The reuse of Roman sarcophagi remained very rare in the Middle Ages, which makes this case unusual.

A skeleton left in the stone

For a long time, it was believed the body had disappeared. When the sarcophagus was opened in 2016 for restoration, researchers from Pre-Construct Archaeology discovered an almost complete skeleton. The anthropologist James Young Langthorne determined that it belonged to a man aged 35 to 49, measuring about 1.75 metres.

Signs of osteoarthritis, two previously fractured ribs and gout were also recorded. Radiocarbon analyses carried out by the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre place the death between 987 and 1052, which confirms the reuse at the end of the Saxon period.

An abbot of Westminster?

In his article, Warwick Rodwell judges the occupant to have been "almost certainly an abbot". By cross-referencing the birth and death dates of the abbots of Westminster with their terms of office, he narrows the candidates down to two: Ælfwig, abbot from 993 to 1020, and his successor Wulnoth, abbot from 1020 to 1049. Wulfsige, who left to become a bishop elsewhere, is considered unlikely.

According to Rodwell, the fact that Ælfwig was already a monk of Westminster could work in his favour. The researcher nonetheless points out that the birth dates of both men are unknown, so the identification remains a hypothesis.

Questions that remain unresolved

Several questions remain open. It is unknown why an 11th-century abbot was buried in a recycled Roman sarcophagus, since no comparable case has ever been found. The inscription begins with "memoriae", which suggests that Valerius Amandinus may himself have been a Christian. His career, however, remains unknown.

The exact origin of the sarcophagus also remains uncertain. The stone comes from Oxfordshire, in southern England. Rodwell suggests it may have come from a Roman mausoleum moved at an unknown date, and that a villa with its cemetery may still lie undiscovered near the abbey.

Seeing the sarcophagus in London

The sarcophagus is displayed in the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries of Westminster Abbey, open to visitors who wish to discover this major piece of London's history. It illustrates the layering of eras on a single site, from Roman London to Anglo-Saxon England, traces of which can still be read within the abbey.