Project to reveal secrets of Roman burial mystery

A £1m project is investigating a Roman burial ritual in Yorkshire which created casts of the dead.

The University of York's Prof Maureen Carroll is leading a team examining the 22 3rd and 4th Century casings found in York, Doncaster and Castleford.

The casts were created when a liquid mineral mixture was poured over the dead. It then hardened, and, as the bodies decomposed, the empty casings were created.

"We can also see the clear imprints of the shrouds and clothing, which is very rare because perishable materials rarely survive in tombs," Prof Carroll said.

The three-year Seeing the Dead project will try to uncover more about the mysterious custom, which used the mineral gypsum, by scanning the casts in great detail.

It also aims to reveal where the buried people were from, why they were treated in this way after death and information on the textiles they were clad in.

Other information such as the dead's genetic ancestry and diet could also be uncovered.

"Together with Heritage360, we are 3D-scanning a wide range of the body negatives and textile imprints in the gypsum casings to produce virtual burial reconstructions in detail," Dr Carroll said.

"These enable us in a most spectacular way to see or reimagine the dead for the first time since the lids on the coffins were closed almost 2000 years ago."

Funding for the project has come from the Arts and Humanities Research Council .

In the coming years, the public will have access to exhibitions and videos from the project through a collaboration with York Museums Trust, Heritage Doncaster, Wakefield Museum, and MAP Archaeological Practice.

Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.