ancient-britain:The Yewden VillaThe above photo shows the excavation of a Roman villa in 1912 at Ham

ancient-britain:The Yewden VillaThe above photo shows the excavation of a Roman villa in 1912 at Hambledon, Buckinghamshire. They found some very interesting things, including a high number of iron styli, used to write on wax tablets, as well as corn drying kilns. However this wasn’t the most significant find. They found the remains of 97 infants underneath walls and in the courtyards of the villa. Whilst childbirth was very dangerous for Roman women at the time, and so burials of infants was common, the amount of infants found in this villa was higher than ever seen before. Archaeologists suspect that this villa was in fact a Roman Brothel, as no contraception was available and so unwanted pregnancies were very likely. Furthermore, Romans believed that infants were not full human beings until the age of two, suggesting infanticide wasn’t as shocking as it is today. Through analysis of the remains, it was found that the skeletons were buried between 150AD and 200AD, meaning their deaths seem to have taken place in a 50-year period.Other explanations include the idea that it may have been a mother goddess cult, as many religious objects were found to suggest this. It may have been a shrine and therefore women went there to give birth in order to gain protection from the mother goddess during childbirth. This means that the large amount of infant remains are due to stillbirths or death of the child during labour. -- source link
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