The Lady of the Sands Meet the Ancestors

On a beach,

bones in the sand tell a story of early Christian life,

ancestral memories and tribal conflict.

Those bones came from a site in a remote part of Ireland.

I've been invited to join the archaeological investigation.

-Hello, Betty.

-How are you?

-I've made it and it's a glorious day.

-Yes.

-This is the site?

-Yes.

-Let's see it.

The archaeologist in charge of the dig is Betty O'Brien.

She heard of it when a farmer found human bones while levelling dunes.

What's going on over here?

We're finishing off the excavation of this particular grave.

All the bones from it so far have been disturbed.

The first clues to the age of the site were stone-lined graves.

Betty thought they must be part of an early Christian cemetery.

Overlooking Donegal Bay, in western Ireland, this place is wonderful.

The cemetery is behind the dunes, marked by a low, circular mound.

Another clue to the age is in Betty's plan.

At the centre are the burials, but beyond these is a layer of boulders.

Betty is very puzzled about these.

I think they're cairn material.

It sounds weird, but I do think they are.

They're rising to the surface and they're not modern -

because roots are growing through.

So they've brought these boulders from the beach...

So you thought it was what date?

Early Christian, 7th or 8th century.

But other things are appearing?

This cairn material, BENEATH the burials.

But we don't know how much earlier it is yet.

I'm here for a few days. Can I give you a hand?

We'd be delighted to have a prehistorian.

Betty put me to work on a patch of dark sand,

right in the centre of the site.

It turned out to be unusual.

..Flakes all over the place. Look!

-There's more coming up.

-Just there.

-This is a bit unexpected?

-Totally unexpected. What do you think?

Bits of cremated bone...

It looks prehistoric, but then I'm a prehistorian.

It's supposed to be early medieval.

If this is cremated...

It's totally unexpected, I don't mind telling you.

-More complication.

-I'll really have to think!

-I'll have to look at it further.

-Wonderful timing!

I'm glad we turned up now.

That patch marked the position of a pit

which contained a cremation burial.

The discovery of this burnt human bone

means this may have been a burial site for over 2,000 years.

Next day, Betty had another job for me.

A skull was appearing through the sand.

I had to find its skeleton.

The sand was easy to remove.

And the skull seemed well-preserved.

But was it male or female?

Stacey, one of the diggers, knew right away.

I think it's a woman

due to the rounded mandible.

-The bottom part of the jaw?

-Exactly - usually, a man's mandible

is at a sharper angle.

-So you think this is a woman?

-Yes.

As the outline of the grave became clear, I moved down to the feet.

I think this is the most difficult bit to deal with.

This is the feet - legs coming down here.

The feet look very close together -

maybe bound together in a shroud -

probably like that.

As it's decayed, the toe bones have collapsed down.

So this ball here contains all of those little bones -

which is what I've got to sort out.

-'There was another surprise in store.' This is the pelvis?

-Yep.

There! I haven't the faintest idea what it is.

STACEY LAUGHS

Next day, Betty was very excited.

I've been looking at that lump from yesterday and I think it's wood.

-Wood?

-Look through there - you can see the fibres.

And there seems to be a sand shadow building up underneath it.

-We knew it wasn't bone.

-Absolutely. But wood! That's totally unexpected.

It's unbelievable! Bone, fine.

-But I never thought you'd find wood preserved in sand. And...

-What?

There's more where I've just been cleaning.

Oh, good! Let me have a look.

That's bone. That's where that bit was.

And all that by the side of the pelvis and femur is the same thing.

So, if it's wood, what is it?

-It might be part of a plank.

-What's that doing there?

It could be a plank-lined grave, which is great.

For this period, there aren't plank-lined graves in Ireland.

Well, we don't know of them. So we've got a first.

-A first?

-Yes.

-Brilliant!

I came here to see an early Christian site

dating back maybe 1,200 or 1,400 years.

But so much more has emerged that it looks as though those burials

may belong to a family using an ancestral burial ground,

dating back into prehistoric times.

It emphasises what's so exciting about archaeology.

No matter how much you think you know the site,

there are always surprises.

The next day, a team of geophysical surveyors arrived

to investigate the structure of the ground.

We have solid rock which drops, over a distance of about two metres,

to a depth of 50 centimetres.

Betty was convinced that the cairn was built on a natural rock outcrop.

Martina, leading the geophysicists,

is processing the first results of the survey.

-Hello there.

-Hello! How are you?

Bet you're glad it's not raining.

However, it was not what Betty was expecting.

-Any results?

-Just preliminary ones.

If we did have an outcrop, it should come in here, on the lower levels.

It doesn't seem to be - but these have to be further processed.

But you should see it at this point.

So you're saying we're looking at a monument which is built on sand -

it's not a rock outcrop that's been augmented?

From the results, it looks like it is built on sand,

and it appears to be wind-blown sand.

But Martina had a surprise.

Acting on a tip-off, she scanned an area

where she'd found traces of something large and circular.

Was it another ancient structure?

-What do you reckon that is, then?

-I have no idea!

Heaven only knows what it is.

Isn't this place great?

I'll wait with bated breath to see what they come up with.

Oh, dear!

It was a good time for Jane Brayne to be here.

An archaeological illustrator,

she's an expert at reconstructing ancient landscapes.

How might it have looked 1,300 years ago?

She had enough information to make a start.

Jane, what has this got to do with the early Christian landscape?

It has more to do with the modern landscape,

but that's where you begin.

It has to start with what's there now.

Then I'll take it home and change it.

So this is the framework - what you can see now?

Yes, minus modern things like fences, and so on - they're not here.

While Jane got on with painting, I went to have a look at that lake.

I found that it was fresh water. Maybe that's what drew people here?

But there's more.

I thought this lake was strange,

and someone's just told me it's known as the Lake Of The Fair Women.

It's also supposed to be bottomless

and contain treasure from a local abbey,

so there are all sorts of legends attached to the area.

My week at the dig was coming to an end.

We'd found a cairn with a prehistoric cremation,

and early Christians buried on top.

What did it add up to?

We have a small group of people - probably a family, I'm not sure -

who are burying deliberately in an ancestral burial ground.

They're establishing an ancestry for themselves - making a statement.

Trying to lay claim to some land?

Or confirming claim by establishing a connection with their ancestors.

But who were they?

We don't know, but there's a possibility we can find out.

In Ireland we are lucky in that we do have early historic records.

If we get radiocarbon dates on these,

which will indicate which century they belong to,

there's a possibility we might be able to link them in

with a particular group of people.

When are you going to do this research?

When you give me a chance to finish the excavation.

-Right! We'll go away and leave you alone.

-Good.

Several weeks later, I had an appointment

with a bone specialist at Trinity College, Dublin.

Moira Delaney was examining all the bones from the excavation.

But what about that wood I'd found?

-Have you had a look at our piece of plank?

-Yes, this is it.

It looks a bit dried out since I last saw it.

Yes, I deliberately dried it out

because when I got it, it was still damp.

This is what came up.

A lot of brown, fibrous stuff turned out to be clay and sand.

I get the feeling you're trying to tell me something.

Something you don't really want to hear - that this is bone.

-Oh, no!

-I'm afraid so.

-It's not plank?

-It's not plank, no.

Out goes the idea of the first plank-lined grave found in Ireland.

I was even more deflated when I saw the burial

I'd helped to excavate.

Most of her bones had crumbled to sand.

Can you tell much from what's left?

The skull has a couple of features

that are worth mentioning -

one piece of pathology that would have affected the quality of life.

-That is an inflammation in the left orbit.

-The left eye?

That's the top of the left eye.

You can see here,

the remains of little pits,

and a thickening of the bone, here.

Holding it to the light,

you can see the light through this orbit, but not the other.

In this area here, sits what's called the lachrymal gland.

And it does sometimes get inflamed.

This appearance of inflammation

is borne out by this very marked groove here.

-So that's not damage to the bone?

-No, it's not.

That is a natural phenomenon.

That indicates that the artery had enlarged,

and that there was a greater blood supply to this area.

Is that to do with this?

With inflammation, you get

an increase in blood supply to that area.

So this more or less confirms the appearance.

What effect would that inflammation have had on this woman?

With inflammation of the lachrymal gland, there would be pain -

in here, above the left eye.

And the white part of her eye might have had little red veins -

as you'd see in someone with conjunctivitis.

I suspect that the eyelid would have been swollen as well.

From the wear on her molars, Moira thought she died in her late 40s.

What else could her teeth tell us?

This is the left upper canine.

And this is the left upper first.

If you put them together, like that,

there's a tiny notch between them.

What could have caused that wear?

It was either a chip off the enamel,

or something she did pulling something between those two teeth.

What sort of occupation could cause this?

She could have been drawing threads,

she could have been biting them off.

The only definite thing I will say

is that it wasn't a very abrasive substance.

Despite her poor state,

the woman from Donegal can provide us with clues.

We can see what she looks like from her skull.

Her leg bones - radiocarbon dated - should tell us when she was buried.

We also want to know the date of that cremation pit.

That's being dated as well,

and we hope it will be in the prehistoric period.

Then, I went to Belfast University with the bones from Donegal.

They have one of the most accurate carbon dating labs in the world.

But the chemistry will take about three months,

which is good, as there's still lots to do.

I headed back over the Irish Sea.

I wondered if the groove in the tooth

could be proven scientifically to be a wear mark.

I went to see forensic orthodontist David Whittaker

at Cardiff Dental Hospital.

What could he tell us?

Something's been going on, certainly.

The tooth was coated with gold.

This helps the scanning electron microscope

to pick up minute surface details.

The image was then enlarged over 200 times.

After this gold plating, have you found whether this is wear or not?

I think we have, yes.

I'm pleased with this.

This is the biting edge, along here

which we'd expect to be continuous.

There's quite a notch in it.

Yes, in the actual edge.

And continuing up from that, this super area of wear.

-You can imagine...

-But is it wear?

-I think so, yes.

When you get fracture, it's almost as though you've cleaved a diamond

and you get these nice facets of polishing.

This is not like that.

It's got the shape of a narrow thread

or a piece of leather or something -

it's an occupational disease.

It's an occupational function that this lady's been doing.

What it is, I'm not sure,

but she's been running or holding something between these two teeth.

It's the lateral and central incisor, here.

It's quite a sensible place to hold things.

-Great! It was worth all this?

-It's always worth it.

Now we've proved the groove resulted from wear,

what occupation caused it?

Time to return to Ireland and visit the Ulster History Park,

and another expert.

Spinning is just twisting the fibres of the flax.

Now, flax ... it helps if it's damp.

Nowadays people wet their fingers,

but before, people passed it through their teeth.

Does that work? Does it help to wet it?

It does. That has gone through my mouth

and it's much...smoother, if you like.

The dampness from the spittle helps the fibres of the flax to lie flat.

And it tightens it.

But the skull from Donegal has got wear marks on its teeth

and this is suggested as being where this woman pulled...

-It could.

-..fibres through her teeth.

-That's just the same place.

-It could be done like that.

Well, I'd never have believed it - unless I'd seen it.

-And it would floss your teeth as you did it, as well.

-Absolutely!

While I was here, I saw a reconstructed ring fort

where early Christians would have lived.

If this was home, it's certainly cosy,

but where are the pots and pans?

I see wooden vessels around, but weren't there any pots?

No. In the early Christian period, the Irish didn't make pottery.

Without pottery, what did they cook in?

Probably a metal container,

perhaps a cauldron, which would have lasted indefinitely.

But you'd eat out of wooden bowls

and serve your food

-out of wooden troughs?

-Yes.

You'd use them for all sorts of purposes.

In a roundhouse nearby, Betty laid on a demonstration

of how early Irish Christians prepared their dead for burial.

We know from 7th century literary sources

that clerics, at any rate,

were wrapped in white linen winding sheets.

So, we've a volunteer.

She's prepared to allow herself to be wrapped in

what we think a winding sheet probably looked like.

With the skeleton we excavated,

the feet were wrapped extremely close together.

But in this period we didn't have shroud pins,

so we're using a piece of flax

to hold the shroud in place at this point.

I remember how tight together they were.

If they were bound, as the body decayed, they'd stay close.

-How do you feel?

-Um...secure.

-You're not claustrophobic, are you?

-No.

-Good.

Before burial, the face would have been covered

with a cloth, like this.

Back on the road - up and down the country in search of more answers.

This time, to Richard Neave at Manchester University.

Facial reconstruction involves the rebuilding of the skull.

Richard is an expert at this, but wasn't happy with what he saw.

This is going to be a nightmare.

Absolute nightmare.

There is always going to be a slight gap.

Also, there's a distortion on this bone...

Richard's job is made more difficult

because the skull is so deformed.

Using wax and tiny props, the skull is painstakingly reassembled.

Well, this has been a tussle.

It really has.

That's as good as we can expect to get it, under the circumstances.

From there, to London, where the reconstruction would really begin.

The surface of the skull is scanned by a laser

and the information is fed into a computer.

Dr Robin Richards is in charge of the Maxillofacial Unit at UCL.

For Robin, facial reconstruction is a routine procedure,

but normally with living patients.

-That's the image the computer's captured?

-That's right.

Immediately apparent is the asymmetry in the face,

but that's the orientation of the skull

in the ground when you found it - it's been squashed.

'Lying on her side had caused her skull to distort

'from the pressure of the sand.'

-Could you correct this?

-Yes.

I've pushed this part in

and that part of the skull out to make it more symmetric.

-So you can do what Richard wasn't able to do with solid bone?

-Yes.

Having got a skull that you're happy with,

what's the next stage on from that?

The next stage is to take a face.

We'll warp the shape of that face

to match the skull.

Whose is that face?

That face is the average of a number of people.

So we're starting from a nondescript face.

Go on - I'm dying to see this. Show me what the face looks like.

Well, that's the new face.

That's a very distinctive face.

I'm fascinated at how the shape of the skull has come through.

The high cheekbones and the prominent upper lip.

That's right. Yes.

Well, this is what Robin's produced.

'At Jane's studio, it's time for the final stage of reconstruction.

'Artistic interpretation takes over from science.'

The only real problem is going to be this eye...

'It's Jane's job to transfer the computer printout into a portrait.

'We know she was middle-aged and had an eye infection,

'but what colour were her hair and eyes and complexion?

'While Jane got on with her work,

'it was back to Belfast for the final jigsaw piece.

'When did our lady die?'

Don't keep us in any more suspense!

-I'm sure you want to know.

-Yes!

And I do as well.

-< You don't really want them now?

-Yes!

-I do.

They date to between AD 608 and AD 660.

-That's exactly what you thought.

-Seventh century! Thank you, God!

And the charcoal date

is BC 400 to BC 50.

-That's again what you...

-Yup.

I wouldn't be at all surprised

if that narrows down to about the first century BC.

That's fine. That's grand. That's Iron Age.

-Which is what you expected?

-Yes.

OK! You were right.

Six months ago, I helped to excavate her remains in Donegal.

Since then, with the help of experts,

she's gone from a collection of bones

to a person you can come face to face with.

We know about her eye condition, how painful it must have been,

and we can suggest how she dressed.

As a Christian, she would have had a headdress,

and this woollen cloak would have been held with a brooch.

So we can really build up a picture of how she looked.

Now we know when she died, Betty has discovered

from ancient Irish documents that she belonged to one of two clans -

the Cenel Coirpre or the Cenel Conail.

This area had long been fought over by rival clans.

By the act of her burial, wrapped in a simple shroud of white linen,

and laid with her head to the west,

the lady of the sands helped her relatives lay claim

to this disputed land.

Subtitles by BBC - 1998