15 - AMS radiocarbon dating of bones from St Davids Cathedral

Summary

Introduction

In 1866, during restoration work at St David's Cathedral overseen by Sir Gilbert Scott, a number of bones were discovered in a niche behind a wall behind the High Altar in the Holy Trinity Chapel. Some cathedral authorities suggested that the remains might be associated with St David, or perhaps St Justinian, both of whom are said to have been enshrined on the northern side of the Presbytery in A.D. 1275. St David is thought to have died in the late sixth century A.D. An oak casket was constructed in 1921 to house the bones and this was placed in the niche during further restoration work and has remained on display in the cathedral ever since.

In 1997, the casket was opened and bones from it examined at the Forensic Medicine department at Cardiff Royal Infirmary. The results of the analysis are outlined by Nokes et al. Briefly, around 50 bone fragments were found, some of which were very small pieces of bone (<1 cm long) and others include parts of femora and tibiae. There were also some cranial bones. The lower limb bones appeared to belong to perhaps three individuals.

Samples from seven of the bones were submitted for radiocarbon analysis using AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) to the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU) in 1996 by one of us (LDMN). Care was made to submit different pieces of bone to exclude the possibility that one individual was dated more than once.