The remains of a woman brutally executed have been discovered on the banks of the Thames River

Discovered back in 1991, the remains have only recently been thoroughly examined by a team of scientists led by Dr Madeleine Mant. Details of their analysis have been published in the journal World Archaeology.

The remains of the woman (UPT90 sk 1278) were found in an unusual way: her body was not placed in the ground, but directly on the river bank, on a bed of reeds, between two layers of tree bark. The woman's face, knees and pelvis were covered with moss. Radiocarbon analysis showed that she lived sometime between 680 and 810. At the time of her death, the woman was between 28 and 40 years old, and isotope analyses indicate that she was born and raised in the vicinity of London.

This woman's life was full of suffering. Scientists found that about two weeks before her death, she had suffered two separate violent attacks that left her with more than 50 injuries. The first attack caused multiple fractures to her shoulder blades, comparable in severity to the aftermath of a car accident. Scientists speculate that these injuries were the result of a severe beating or whipping.

The second attack left severe damage to the skull and body, indicating the use of blunt objects, kicks and punches. Death was caused by a powerful blow to the head.

According to Dr Munt, such brutality may have been caused by changing legislation of the period. In the early Middle Ages, corporal punishment began to be used extensively in England. The laws of Wychtred of Kent (690-725) prescribed severe beatings for failure to pay fines, and later, under King Alfred the Great (871-899), offences such as theft, witchcraft and treason were punishable by death, including drowning and stoning.

The woman's body was deliberately left on the shore so that it would be visible at high tide and serve as a warning to the local population. Such treatment of the bodies of executed people is known as placement in so-called liminal (boundary) sites, which symbolically separated such people from society.

The uniqueness of this find is that the execution of women in the Middle Ages was rare: statistics show that men were executed much more often (the ratio is about 4.5:1). The remains of a woman from the banks of the Thames therefore provide a rare opportunity to examine how medieval society perceived and punished women for offences.

The exact nature of the executed woman's crime is still unknown, but archaeologists are certain that the body was deliberately put on public display to emphasise her 'criminal' nature.