Archaeologists believe a skeleton recovered from a Roman stone coffin at Westminster Abbey in the 19th century was most likely an abbot who led the abbey in the 11th century, GB News reports.
Workmen damaged the fourth-century sarcophagus near the abbey's north side in 1820, and the bones were dug up in 1869. Because of its Roman inscription, the burial was long attributed to a wealthy man called Valerius Amandinus, yet no Roman objects turned up in later digs.
Professor Warwick Rodwell's team found that the cross on the lid was added later, and that a wooden coffin, which has since rotted away, had been placed inside the reused Roman one. The man stood about 5ft 9in and died aged 35 to 49. Rodwell thinks he was Abbot Aelfwig or his successor, Wulnoth. The sarcophagus is on show in the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries.
Source: GB News
