Study finds why third century European woman was mysteriously buried face down with nail hole in skull

Findings are of significance in understanding funerary and cultural behaviour at the time

The unusual facedown burial of a woman in ancient Italy over 2,000 years ago with a nail likely driven into her skull may have been due to existing beliefs at the time about epilepsy, according to a new study.

The research, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, assessed the unusual burial, unearthed in a tomb in the Necropolis of Monte Luna – about 30km (20 miles) north of Cagliari in the southern part of Sardinia.

The necropolis was excavated in the 1970s and the new study is based on photographs of the tomb and an analysis of the mysteriously buried woman’s skeleton.

Researchers, including those from the University of Cagliari in Italy, say the cemetery is linked to the urban settlement of Santu Teru – a Punic-Roman city that was active from the 6th century BC until medieval times.

The woman was likely between 18 and 22 years old when she was buried based on analysis of her teeth, pelvis, and other bones, they say.

Archaeologists suspect the woman may have been buried either in the last decade of the third century BC, or in the first decades of the second century BC.

They say she was likely buried facedown to indicate that the individual suffered from a disease.

Two holes also found on her skull were consistent with trauma.

One of the holes, researchers say, is “typical of blunt force trauma,” likely from a direct force such as from a fall that led to landing on the back of the head.

The other hole on her skull, they say, appeared to have come from a sharp-force injury resulting in a square hole in her skull likely from the impact of an ancient Roman nail.

“The shape of the lesion is similar to the cross-section of ancient Roman nails,” researchers write in the study.

Archaeologists suspect this injury may have been inflicted after the woman’s death.

They say this was likely carried out due to the ancient belief of the time to prevent a perceived “contagion” of her epilepsy.

While the sequence of events that caused the injuries in the woman is not conclusive from the study, researchers say the findings still provide clues and raise the possibility of a significant funerary rite associated with “disease, a nail, and prone burial.”

These findings and other characteristics of the young woman’s skeleton are of “significance in understanding funerary and cultural behaviour at the time”, they write.