The Ivory Bangle Lady is a Roman period burial in York, England.
York was established as a Roman outpost called Eboracum in AD 71. One of York's elite residents was the Ivory Bangle Lady, a young woman, who was apparently born in North Africa and lived most of her childhood on the the Mediterranean coastline. She died and was buried in a stone coffin in the last half of the 4th century AD.
Archaeological evidence of the Ivory Bangle Lady grave goods includes a collection of ivory bangles, jet and ivory beads and a bone mount which may have been attached to a wooden coffin, saying "Hail, sister, may you live in God." Also included was this lovely delicate blue glass vase.
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Interesting piece, as always. Thanks for this. I note however that the glass vessel is called a jar, yet I thought it might more accurately be called a ‘ewer’ as it has a handle and spout for pouring. But perhaps my understanding of the technical nomenclature is lacking.
As for the ivory bangles. I’d love to see an image of them to see if I could tell if they were elephant, hippo, or walrus, or even mammoth. The British Isles during roman times was a actually source for ivory, or so I’ve read, as the walrus (or morses) were then abundant along some of the outer coasts.
Incidentallt, I must confess that I just watched a few episodes of the latest cable TV re-visitation of ancient Rome, Spartacus; Gods of the Arena. Yikes! Not for the faint of heart or squeemish, to be sure, but interesting in some of the details such as the roman era jewelry, which seemed to feature some remarkable designs in ivory, being worn by some of the noble women. Cheers!
North Africa is misleading as whites loves to claim that no blacks are from North Africa or have ever interacted in the Mediterranean. The woman was blacks and the dirty little secret about Europe is that it was black before it was white!