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From bioarchaeologist and bestselling author of River Kings, a
gripping new history of the making of England as a nation, told
through six bone chests, stored for over a thousand years in
Winchester Cathedral. In December 1642, during the Civil War,
Parliamentarian troops stormed the magnificent Winchester
Cathedral, intent on destruction. Reaching the choir, its beating
heart, the soldiers searched out ten beautifully decorated wooden
chests resting high up on the stone screens. Those chests contained
some of England’s most venerated, ancient remains: The bones of
eight kings, including William Rufus and Cnut the Great – the
only Scandinavian king to rule England and a North Sea Empire;
three bishops; and a formidable queen, Emma of Normandy. These were
the very people who witnessed and orchestrated the creation of the
kingdom of Wessex in the 7th century; who lived through the
creation of England as a unified country in response to the Viking
threat; and who were part and parcel of the Norman conquest. On
that day, the soldiers smashed several chests to the ground, using
the bones as missiles to shatter the cathedral’s stained glass
windows. Afterwards, the clergy scrambled to collect the scattered
remains. In 2014, the six remaining chests were reopened. A team of
forensic archaeologists, using the latest scientific methods,
attempted to identify the contents: They discovered an elaborate
jumble of bones, including the remains of two forgotten princes. In
The Bone Chests, Cat Jarman builds on this evidence to untangle the
stories of the people within. It is an extraordinary and sometimes
tragic tale, and a story of transformation. Why these bones? Why
there? Can we ever really identify them? In a palimpsest narrative
that runs through more than a millennium of British history, it
tells the story of both the seekers and the sought, of those who
protected the bones and those who spurned them; and of the methods
used to investigate.
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER & THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF 2021
'Astonishing and compelling' Bernard Cornwell 'This superb book is
like a classical symphony, perfectly composed and exquisitely
performed' THE TIMES Books of the Year Follow bioarchaeologist Cat
Jarman - and the cutting-edge forensic techniques central to her
research - as she uncovers epic stories of the Viking age and
follows a small 'Carnelian' bead found in a Viking grave in
Derbyshire to its origins thousands of miles to the east in
Gujarat. 'This superb book is like a classical symphony, perfectly
composed and exquisitely performed' THE TIMES Books of the Year Dr
Cat Jarman is a bioarchaeologist, specialising in forensic
techniques to research the paths of Vikings who came to rest in
British soil. By examining teeth that are now over one thousand
years old, she can determine childhood diet, and thereby where a
person was likely born. With radiocarbon dating, she can ascertain
a death date down to the range of a few years. And her research
offers new visions of the likely roles of women and children in
Viking culture. In 2017, a carnelian bead came into her temporary
possession. River Kings sees her trace its path back to
eighth-century Baghdad and India, discovering along the way that
the Vikings' route was far more varied than we might think, that
with them came people from the Middle East, not just Scandinavia,
and that the reason for this unexpected integration between the
Eastern and Western worlds may well have been a slave trade running
through the Silk Road, and all the way to Britain. Told as a
riveting story of the Vikings and the methods we use to understand
them, this is a major reassessment of the fierce,
often-mythologised voyagers of the north, and of the global
medieval world as we know it.
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