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Amcotts Moor Woman
Amcotts Moor Woman Shoe
Biographical Information
Name(s) Amcotts Moor Woman
Age unknown
Sex female
Status lost
Height unknown
Source
Culture unknown
Date(s) A.D. 200-400
Site
Current Location
Location Lincolnshire, England
Catalog #

Amcotts Moor Woman was Found in Lincolnshire, England in 1747. Only her left shoe still remains, the rest of the body and accompanying finds are now lost.

Based on the design and material of her shoe, she is thought to have lived in the late Roman Period.

Mummification[]

Naturally mummified in a peat bog.

Studies[]

Unearthed long before the modern era of scientific inquiry into and preservation of bog bodies, the only remnant of Amcotts Moor Woman is now her left shoe. Her right shoe and hand were sent to the Royal Society in London soon after she was discovered, but like many bog-body finds before the 19th century, they have disappeared.

A contemporary writer, George Stovin, recorded the find: "In June 1747, in the neighbouring moors...in the moors belonging to Amcotts, was found by John Tate of Amcotts, who was digging turf, the entire body of a woman. He first cut of one of her feet with his spade, on which was a sandal; but frightened he left it. I, being informed of it, went with Thomas, my gardener, and others, and we took up the whole body; there was a sandal on the other foot; the skin was like a piece of tanned leather, and it stretched like a fine doe skin; the hair was fresh about the head and privy parts, which distinguished the sex; the teeth firm; the bones was black; the flesh consumed; and she lay upon her side in a bending posture, with her head and toes almost together, which looked as though she had been hurled down by the force of some strong current of water; and though a great part of this moor had been formerly graved off she lay seven foot deep from the present surface. I took the skin of one arm, from the elbow to the hand, and shaking the bones out, it would have made a ladies’ muff. The other hand not being cut with the spade, as we dug for it, I preserved it, and stuffed it, first taking out the bones, which my son, James Stovin, now has in his possession, at Doncaster. And what is very remarkable, the nails are firm and fast on the fingers. He also has one of the sandals, which was made of one whole piece of a raw hide, and only one short seam at the heel, sowed with a thong of the same leather. The sandals had ten loops cut in the whole leather on each side, and ten small loops at the toe, which caused to the toe of the sandal to draw up like the mouth of a purse. They were laced on, upon the top of the foot, with a thong of the same leather. This lady’s skin and the sandals were both tanned by the black water, for there being such great quantities of oak, firs, and other wood hurried in these moors, the water is by them tinctured and made exactly of the colour of the modern tan fatt water, and the firr having so much resenous matter in it, no doubt that helps to preserve these bodies for so many ages, for that they have laid some hundreds of years.

I have the assent of that learned body, the Royal Society, for in September 1747, I sent the hand and sandal above mentioned to that learned body...and when they returned it, I was honoured with their thanks by letter, and their opinion was that “they must have laid there many hundred years; for the sandals were worn in England about the conquest, yet they could not find they were of the make or shape of this above mentioned, but concluded it must be much ancienter than that period. I buried the remains of this lady in Amcots chapel yard...."

References[]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bog/iron-nf.html

https://doncasterhistory.wordpress.com/local-history-1/prehistoric-doncaster/bog-body-in-doncaster/

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