The Ivory Bangle Lady is a

skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of most animals. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is a rigid outer shell that holds up an organism's shape; the endoskeleton, a rigid internal fra ...

found in Sycamore Terrace,

York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

in 1901. She was a high-status adult female, potentially of North African descent, who died in York in the

4th century The 4th century was the time period from 301 CE (represented by the Roman numerals Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Mid ...

AD. Her skeleton was found with bracelets, pendants, earrings, beads as well as a glass jug and mirror. She appears to have originally been from

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

. A piece of bone inscribed with the words, "Hail, sister may you live in God" was found with her skeleton.

Skeletal remains

A 2010 research paper studied the skeletal remains of the Ivory Bangle Lady, which were found within a stone coffin. This research showed that the skeleton is of a young adult female, aged 18–23 years. Her height was calculated using regression analysis of her limb-bone length to be approximately 152–160 cm. Significantly, this research also used FORDISC to identified the Ivory Bangle Lady as having North African ancestry. This conclusion was reached following craniometric multivariate analyses, including measuring

Mahalanobis distance The Mahalanobis distance is a distance measure, measure of the distance between a point P and a probability distribution D, introduced by Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, P. C. Mahalanobis in 1936. The mathematical details of Mahalanobis distance ...

, which suggested a strong affinity with two reference populations of African-American females from the 19th and 20th Centuries.

Isotope analysis Isotope analysis is the identification of isotopic signature, abundance of certain stable isotopes of chemical elements within organic and inorganic compounds. Isotopic analysis can be used to understand the flow of energy through a food we ...

of oxygen and strontium isotopes suggest that she spent her childhood in the west of Britain or in coastal areas of Western Europe and the Mediterranean. However, a 2009 study found that FORDISC 3.0 "is only likely to be useful when an unidentified specimen is more or less complete and belongs to one of the populations represented in its reference samples", and even in such "favorable circumstances it can be expected to classify no more than 1 per cent of specimens with confidence." As of 2021, genetic testing of the skeleton is underway.

Grave goods

The Ivory Bangle Lady was buried wearing ivory and jet bangles, a bracelet of blue glass beads, silver and bronze pendants, two yellow-glass earrings. A small, round glass mirror, a dark blue glass flagon, and an openwork, ivory inscription plaque were also included in the grave. The plaque reads SOROR AVE VIVAS IN DEO ("Hail sister, may you live in God"), which is evidence for a Christian population in late Roman York. Whilst the plaque is clearly Christian, the existence of other grave goods and the alignment of the grave in a north-south (rather than east-west) arrangement strongly suggests that the lady interred was pagan, but had connections with a Christian community rather than herself being a Christian. File:YORYM H12-1.jpg, Blue glass flask File:YORYM H11.jpg, Glass mirror File:YORYM H8 3to4-2.jpg, Glass beads File:YORYM H8 1to2-2.jpg, Earrings File:YORYM H6.jpg, Silver pendant File:YORYM H5.jpg, Inscribed bone plaque

Public display and reception

The skeleton and grave goods are on display together in the

Yorkshire Museum The Yorkshire Museum is a museum in York, England. It was opened in 1830, and has five permanent collections, covering biology, geology, archaeology, numismatics and astronomy. History The museum was founded by the Yorkshire Philosophical Soci ...

. In the 1980s, the grave goods were on display as part of an exhibition titled "Roman Life at the Yorkshire Museum". It is currently on display in an exhibition title 'Roman York - Meet the People of the Empire'. The exhibition opened in August 2010 following the refurbishment of the Museum. In 2012, the Ivory Bangle Lady was the focus of a pilot project by Heritage Sandbox which used

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

to augment the exhibition with new content.

Reception

Immediately after the publication of this research and its discussion in the press the Ivory Bangle Lady became a focal point of a debate about immigration in the past, with public discussions focusing on her racial identity. Notably, the comments on the online publication of a ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily Middle-market newspaper, middle-market Tabloid journalism, tabloid conservative newspaper founded in 1896 and published in London. , it has the List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation, h ...

'' article highlighted a backlash from readers. Emily Hanscam, in a 2019 article, compared this to the criticism aimed at Mary Beard in 2017 for defending the inclusion of a Black army officer in a BBC cartoon. On 22 October 2020 the Yorkshire Museum posted a blog post highlighting the biography of the Ivory Bangle Lady for

Black History Month Black History Month is an annually observed commemorative month originating in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month. It began as a way of remembering important people and events in the history of the Af ...

; this was targeted by

alt-right The alt-right (abbreviated from alternative right) is a Far-right politics, far-right, White nationalism, white nationalist movement. A largely Internet activism, online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the late ...

groups who posted racist and negative comments in response to it. The Yorkshire Museum issued a statement on social media on 23 October condemning the attacks. The biography of the Ivory Bangle Lady has been featured in several books and articles. She is featured in

David Olusoga David Adetayo Olusoga (born January 1970) is a British-Nigerian historian, writer, broadcaster and BAFTA winning film-maker. He is Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester. Olusoga has presented historical documentaries on th ...

's 2017 book ''Black and British: A Forgotten History'', as well a short film hosted by Olusoga and produced by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

, titled ''Alt History: Black British History We're Not Taught in Schools''. She was featured in an online article by

Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** '' Vogue Adria'', a fashion magazine for former Yugoslav countries ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ' ...

on '7 Remarkable black women who shaped British history', an article by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' on 'Ten black history events that should be taught to every pupil', and was featured as the Museum 'Object of the Week' by the

York Press ''The Press'' is a newspaper covering North and East Yorkshire, England It is published daily in the City of York by Newsquest Media Group Ltd, a subsidiary of Gannett Company Inc. History The ''Yorkshire Evening Press'' was established in 1 ...

in June 2020. The Ivory Bangle Lady was mentioned as a case study in a speech in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

on 8 September 2020 on the presence of black history in the current history curriculum by

Theresa Villiers Dame Theresa Anne Villiers (born 5 March 1968) is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Chipping Barnet (UK Parliament constituency), Chipping Barnet from 2005 United Kingdom ...

References

External links