About 3,000 skeletons are being unearthed from a London burial ground used during the Great Plague – a grisly excavation that researchers hope will shed light on the bubonic killer.
Museum of London archaeologists are removing the remains from the Bedlam burial ground, which is slated to become a new train station, AFP reported. The bones will be reburied at a cemetery near London.
“Archaeologists hope that tests on excavated plague victims will help understand the evolution of the plague bacteria strain,” Crossrail, which is building a new east-west train line, said in a statement.
The skeletons will also be tested to “shed light on migration patterns, diet, lifestyle and demography” of London residents from that era.
The burial ground was used between 1569 and 1738 – a period that also encompassed Shakespeare’s plays and the Great Fire of London.
The city’s first municipal burial ground was named after the nearby Bethlem Royal Hospital or “Bedlam,” the world’s oldest psychiatric institution that is now located outside London.
The site was used by those who could not afford a church burial or preferred be interred there for religious or political reasons.
“The Bedlam burial ground spans a fascinating phase of London’s history, including the transition from the Tudor-period City into cosmopolitan early-modern London,” said Jay Carver, Crossrail’s lead archaeologist, AFP reported.