The remains of a young monk who lived 800 years ago have been found sticking out of a sea cliff in South Wales.
Mandy Ewington was enjoying a stroll along the beach at Monknash, Vale of Glamorgan, when she looked up and saw two leg bones poking out of the cliff.
She took a picture of the leg bones and sent them to leading coastal archaeologist Karl-James Langford.
University lecturer Mr Langford said Monknash, in South Wales, was a burial ground for Cistercian monks in the Middle Ages.
Mr Langford, 39, said 'I thought she must have been mistaken but I went down to see for myself and thought: "Bloody hell, this is amazing!"
'There was a monastic community close to the area and these bones indicate a male in their late 20s who was in good health.'
Monknash is named after the Welsh saint Cewydd, who was a son of Caw o Prydyn (Caw of Britain), and was home to a community of Cistercian Monks from 1129 until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1535.
An 800-year-old cliffhanger! Remains of a medieval monk discovered after his legs are found poking out of a sea ridge
Thigh bones are being revealed as the cliffs are eroded away in Monknash
They belong to a late 20s male who was in good health and likely a monk
Area was home to a community of Cistercian monks from 1129 until 1535
Storms have caused huge swathes of the British coastline to collapse with archaeological sites rapidly being revealed and lost to the sea
By Ellie Zolfagharifard
10 March 2014
Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The remains of an 800-year-old monk have been uncovered after his legs were spotted sticking out of cliff by a beach walker.
Mandy Ewington was strolling along the seashore when she looked up and saw two bones poking out of the cliff face.
She took a picture of the leg bones and sent them to leading coastal archaeologist Karl-James Langford.
The remains of an 800-year-old monk that have been uncovered after his legs were spotted sticking out of cliff in Monknash, South Wales by a stunned walker. Pictured are the femur bones of the ancient monk
Mr Langford, 39, said '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.
'What is fascinating is you can see the two femurs being slowly revealed as the cliffs are eroded away.'
University lecturer Mr Langford said Monknash, in South Wales, was a burial ground for Cistercian monks in the Middle Ages.
Mandy Ewington was strolling along the sea shore when she saw two bones poking out of the cliff face
The bones are thought to have belonged to a monk in the 9th Century. Pictured is King Alfred surrounded by monks in the 800s
'There was a monastic community close to the area and these bones indicate a male in their late 20s who was 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 would likely be buried with nothing except two shroud rings which would have held his burial shroud in place at the head and feet.
'It's quite an easy picture to put together.
'The valley is named after the Welsh saint Cewydd and was home to a community of Cistercian Monks from 1129 until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1535.
Mr Langford, who runs Archaeology Cymru (Cymru is the Welsh word for Wales), said the winter storms had caused huge swathes of the British coastline to collapse and precious archaeological sites were being revealed and lost to the sea.
Mr Langford added: 'It's like watching archaeology going like the pages of a book and the history is being revealed with every turn of the page.
'But unfortunately nobody can touch or excavate these bones because they are in such a dangerous position.'
Storms have caused huge swathes of the British coastline to collapse with archaeological sites rapidly being revealed and lost to the sea. The arrow shows where the bones are located in the cliff
Monknash is named after the Welsh saint Cewydd and was home to a community of Cistercian Monks from 1129 until the dissolution of the monasteries 1535
The bones, uncovered in Monknash, in the Vale of Glamorgan, belong to a male in his late 20s
Human bones were discovered in the area in 1982, when a human long-bone was found, and then in 1990 part of a human skull was picked up.
Three years later, excavations revealed three adults buried in an east-west line.
The Cwm Nash Burial Ground is listed by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales as an 'unofficial burial ground used by parishioners of Monknash'.
A 2012 report by the Glamorgan Gwent Archaeological Trust concluded that the burials found on cliffs at Cwm Nash probably date from some time in the post-medieval period (1485-1901).
Mr Langford said the recent winter storms had caused massive coastal erosion around the British coastline and archaeologists couldn't keep speed with the number of sites being lost to the sea.
He said: 'In just a couple of weeks of storms we lost a foot of our coastline.
Pictured here is coastal archaeologist Karl-James Langford who has been studying the remains. Mr Langford said: 'It's like watching archaeology going like the pages of a book and the history is being revealed with every turn of the page'
'If you put that into perspective - over the last 2,000 years we have lost about 1km of the coast line.
'Erosion is accelerating so fast we can do nothing about it.
'We are losing burial grounds, hill forts and whole settlements all washed into the sea.
'But archaeologists cannot do the work on these sites and excavate them because they are so dangerous - they are on the edge of a sea cliff.
'I take my students to Orkney every year and we are being told by the archaeologists up there that they are losing sites so fast they cannot excavate and document them quick enough.
'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.'
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE MONK
Coastal archaeologist Karl-James Langford said the find was 'quite an easy picture to put together.'
The bones were found in Monknash, South Wales, which was a burial ground for Cistercian monks in the Middle Ages.
Analysis of their structure indicates they belonged to a male in his late 20s who was in good health.
He would likely be buried with nothing except two shroud rings which would have held his burial shroud in place at the head and feet.
Monknash is named after the Welsh saint Cewydd and was home to a community of Cistercian Monks from 1129 until the dissolution of the monasteries 1535.
Monknash is named after the Welsh saint Cewydd and was home to a community of Cistercian Monks from 1129 until the dissolution of the monasteries 1535.
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