Barber surgeon of Avebury
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The barber surgeon of Avebury is the name given to a skeleton discovered in 1938 at Avebury henge monument in Wiltshire, England.
The body was found underneath a buried megalith by
archaeologist Alexander Keiller in 1938. It was dated by coins to the early 14th century, and identified as a barber surgeon by a pair of scissors and a medical-looking probe. The stone was re-erected by Keiller. Keiller assigned the stone as Stone 38, with Isobel Smith renumbering as Stone 9.[1] Many stones of the Avebury stone circle
had been buried, presumably as a result of attempts to de-paganise the site or to clear land for agriculture.
The story of the barber surgeon is one that most visitors to the prehistoric Avebury stone circle will have heard. The traditional interpretation goes as follows; a pious traveller was assisting the folk of
mediaeval
barber surgeon.
Keiller sent the remains to the curator of the museum at the
Alexander Keiller Museum, Avebury,[2] and re-examined in 1998. A large healed cut wound was noticed on the skull but no evidence of traumatic death was identified and it was suggested that the man had been buried beneath a stone rather than crushed by it.[3]
See also
References
- ^ Smith, Isobel (1965). Windmill Hill and Avebury: Excavations by Alexander Keiller, 1925-1939. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 177–178.
- ^ "Museum skeleton comes out of the cupboard". BBC News. 19 October 1999. Retrieved 28 October 2020.
- ^ British Archaeology, Issue no 48, October 1999, "Lost skeleton of `barber-surgeon' found in museum" Archived 20 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on 16 June 2009