Now it’s Alfred the Great’s turn
BRITAIN
AFTER the car park king comes the cemetery sovereign. The remains of 15th-century king Richard III were confirmed yesterday, but archaeologists are already looking to track down the next lost king: Alfred the Great, reputedly buried in an unmarked grave in Winchester.
Buoyed by the success of Richard III’s identification, a team of archaeologists and enthusiasts are applying for permission to excavate an unmarked grave at St Bartholomew’s Church.
Inside, amid a collection of bones bought by the 19th-century vicar for 10 shillings, could be those of Alfred – a king who made peace with the Danes, established a code of laws and reformed coinage, yet still remains best known for his lack of cake-baking skills.
If successful, Katie Tucker, an archaeologist from Winchester University, will be leading the analysis – a task far harder than that performed on Richard III.
‘‘As far as we’re aware, there are five skulls plus other bones. The most simple part will be to work out ages, sexes, and put the bones back together,’’ she said.
Ideally, as with Richard, Tucker would then compare the DNA with that from a living relative – in Richard’s case, a Canadian cabinetmaker descended from his sister, Anne of York.
‘‘The problem is, where would we get a comparative sample from? It’s a hell of a lot further to go back to trace a living descendant,’’ she said.
Initially, then, the team will just radiocarbon date the bones. Other than the royals, the only people buried in the abbey were the monks, and they arrived only in the 12th century.
The Rev Canon Cliff Bannister, the rector of St Bartholomew’s, and archaeologists involved in the project believe that they have a paper trail that shows, to a higher degree of probability than King Richard’s archaeologists had before their dig, that these might be the bones of the 9thcentury king of the House of Wessex.
The challenge is clear. In life King Alfred may have fought a prolonged guerrilla war against the Danes, but his bones have arguably had an even more tumultuous time in death.
He was first buried in AD899 beside Winchester Cathedral, then, with the expansion of the cathedral in AD1110, his bones were moved to Hyde Abbey. But when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, nearly 500 years later, the altar and everything around it was lost.
In the middle of the 19th century, a Victorian archaeologist began investigations around the altar of the old abbey. ‘‘He dug up some bones he thought were Alfred’s,’’ Bannister said.
The story became part of local legend, in a church whose address is King Alfred’s Place. But aside from a flurry of press attention in the 1860s, that was where it stayed.
‘‘When I was appointed rector I was curious,’’ Bannister said. ‘‘I began to wonder if it was something we might be able to investigate.’’