Excavation finds “witch girl” buried face down 1,600 years ago

An excavation in northern Italy found the bones of a 13-year-old girl who was buried face down, a sign that she was not well accepted by society at the time. The young woman's remains, known as the “witch girl”, were in a grave located in the San Calocero complex.

Scientists, who are part of a Vatican research institute, estimate that the teenager was buried at the end of antiquity or the early middle ages between the 4th and 5th centuries, but carbon-14 dating is still needed. .

According to archaeologist Stefano Roascio, burying a person on their stomach was a custom that meant punishment and aimed to prevent the dead from rising from the grave. “What the deceased did was not accepted by the community, ” he explained. The habit was linked to the belief that the soul of the deceased came out of the mouth.

The position of the witch girl's bones indicates that her death was not violent - at least that! - and that she was really dead when she was buried. Yes: In some cases, a person who had done something objectionable to the community would be placed under the still living land.

In addition to showing that the death of the “witch girl” was not so horrible, the bone gives clues as to what she might have done so seriously. As noted by anthropologist Elena Dellù, the teenager's skull and eye cavities looked very porous, indicating that she may have suffered from severe anemia.

So the girl's “witchcraft” that so scared the community at the time was probably her pallor, some bruising, and frequent fainting, all signs of a low-iron diet.

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