Speaker: Emma Brownlee

One of the most unusual forms of burial found in early medieval England is the use of a bed on which the deceased is laid to rest. Several of these burials have made the news recently: the Harpole treasure excavated near Northampton in 2022, and the Trumpington bed burial, whose facial reconstruction made international headlines in June 2023. The burials found in England all belong to women, and all date to the period of Christianisation in the seventh century. Yet bed burials are not confined to England. They appear across Europe, but take quite a different form on the continent. This talk will combine information from the burials themselves with new scientific evidence, to consider what they can tell us about connections across early medieval Europe in a time of social and religious change.

Dr Brownlee is a research fellow at Girton College, University of Cambridge, where she focuses on how grave good use and burial rites vary across Europe in 5th to 8th centuries AD.

Society Lecture

Speaker: Julian Henderson

The silk road is a complex series of interconnected routes spanning Eurasia from Scandinavia in the west to Japan in the east. This talk will present a range of archaeological case studies which highlight the fascinating results of cultural interactions across the terrestrial and maritime silk roads. Julian is a Professor in the Department of Classics and Archaeology at University of Nottingham.

Speaker: Trevor James

Historic inn names, dating from before the eighteenth century, can provide potential clues, helpful to an understanding of the local history of any neighbourhood.  They are almost a form of oral history and certainly can help us understand the priorities of the people of past times.

Speaker: Brice Bozier

The Victorian gasworks building for the Sudbury estate has recently been rescued and restored with the aid of a significant grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, but all the original equipment was lost. Learn how Sudbury Gasworks researched their missing gas producing retort benches and how in 2018 they started with a team of apprentices at JCB on the journey to recreate them, using old and cutting edge techniques and taking trips to the North, South and West!  The speaker Brice Bozier is a Trustee of Sudbury Gasworks who works at JCB Rocester as a controls engineer. Apprentice trained himself, Brice has a background in electrical, mechanical, electronic and software engineering, and he will be supported for the presentation by one or more of the apprentices who were involved.