14 DAY TRIAL // The bones of an 800-year-old monk have been uncovered by archaeologists after his legs were spotted poking out of a cliff in Wales by a beach walker.
The legs have been discovered by Mandy Ewington, who was strolling along the seashore. At one point, she looked up and saw two bones sticking out of the cliff face. She took a photograph and sent it to coastal archaeologist Karl-James Langford.
“I thought she must have been mistaken but I went down to see for myself and thought: ‘Bloody hell, this is amazing!’ You can clearly see a grave has been eroded into the sea,” the 39-year-old archaeologist said.
The recent storms have caused severe coastal erosion and large parts of the British coastline collapsed. As a result, archaeological sites like this one were revealed but also lost to the sea.
Mr. Langford, who is also a university lecturer, explained that the area of Monknash in South Wales was a burial ground for Cistercian monks in the Middle Ages.
According to the Telegraph, the valley is named after the Welsh saint Cewydd. A community of Cistercian Monks lived there from 1129 until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1535.
Mr. Langford said archaeologists are doing all they can to keep up with the number of sites being lost to the sea. “On the east coast around Norfolk the erosion has been going since time immemorial and now we are getting erosion on the west coast. There are hill forts along South Wales which will not exist in 10 years time as the cliffs will be completely gone,” he said.
The expert mentioned that the bones uncovered by Ms. Ewington appeared to belong to a man in his late 20s, in good health.
“I would say they belong to a monk from the 1200s - due to previous archaeological digs in the past, the depth of the bones in the cliff and the history of the area,” he said.
Human remains were discovered in the same area in 1982, when a human long-bone was found, and also in 1990, when archaeologists unearthed part of a skull. In 1993, excavations also revealed three adults buried in an east-west line.
The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales lists the Cwm Nash Burial Ground as an “unofficial burial ground used by parishioners of Monknash.” A 2012 official report revealed that the burials found on cliffs at Cwm Nash probably date from some time in the post-medieval period (1485-1901).