Two English 'Lamb of God' coins discovered in Denmark.

Two 'Lamb of God' coins issued by the English King Æthelred the Unready around the year 1009 AD have been discovered in Denmark, according to a press release issued by the National Museum of Denmark on 29 April 2026. The coins were both uncovered by metal detectorists, one in the north of Jutland and one in the south.

An English 'Lamb of God' coin discovered by a metal detectorist in northern Jutland. Søren Greve/National Museum of Denmark.

The Lamb of God coins were a special edition coin produced by Æthelred the Unready as part of an attempt to obtain divine protection for his kingdom, along with a series of religious ceremonies, fasts, and penances. Unlike regular Saxon coins, which typically had the king's head on one side and a cross on the other, they had a 'Lamb of God' sign on one side, which comprised a Lamb pierced by a cross, a symbol for Jesus, and a Dove on the other, a symbol of the Holy Spirit.

An English 'Lamb of God' coin discovered by a metal detectorist in southern Jutland. Søren Greve/National Museum of Denmark.

The crisis which provoked these measures was the invasion of England by Viking raiders, mostly from Denmark. However, this was did not prove to be an effective method of defence, with southern England being ravaged by the armies of Thorkell the Tall between 1009 and 1013, and Sweyn Forkbeard launching a full-scale invasion in 1013 which forced Æthelred into exile. Sweyn Forkbeard died in 1014, allowing Æthelred to briefly regain his thrown, though he lost it again in 1016 to Sweyn's son, Cnut.

While the coins failed to save Æthelred's reign, they were apparently very popular with the invading Vikings. Of the 30 known examples, only 4-5 have been found in England, with the remainder discovered in Scandinavian and Baltic countries, the majority with piercings which suggest the Vikings wore them as pendants.

Having conquered England in 1016, Cnut succeeded to the throne of Denmark in 2018, following the death of his brother Harald II. In 1026 Olaf Haraldsson, King of Norway, mounted an invasion of Denmark while Cnut was in England, starting a series of wars which led to Olaf's death in 1030, and Cnut installing his wife, Ælfgifu of Northampton, as regent of Norway. 

Having unified England, Denmark, and Norway into a single state (referred to as the North Sea Empire by modern historians), Cnut set about consolidating and unifying his empire. This included the introduction of silver coinage on the English model to Denmark and Scandinavia. Prior to this, coins had not been directly used as legal tender in this area, silver measured by weight used as the standard medium of exchange. However, the innovation appears to have been quickly adopted, with coins accepted as an easier way to do business.

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Did an unknown volcanic eruption create the conditions for the Black Death to enter medieval Europe?

Between 1347 and 1353, the Black Death spread across Europe, killing up to 60% of the population, leading to long-lasting demographic, economic, political, cultural, and religious changes which changed the continent, and eventually the world, beyond recognition. Recent palaeogenetic studies have now confirmed the long held belief that the pandemic was caused by the Plague Bacterium, Yersinia pestis, a zoonotic disease with wild reserves in a number of Rodent species. Despite the presence of a wild reserve, outbreaks of Yersinia pestis in Human and Domestic Animal populations are quite rare, with only three documented pandemics of the disease. The first of these, the Plague of Justinian, began around 541 AD, and persisted into the eighth century. The second, the Black Death, began around 1338 in Central Asia, and persisted in places into the early nineteenth century. The third began in China in the 1770s, and spread around the world; arguably this third Plague pandemic is still ongoing, with all wild reserves and outbreaks outside Asia apparently derived from this source.

Studies of the archaeological, historical and ancient genomic records have suggested that the Black Death was a genetically distinct strain of the Yersinia pestis Bacterium which probably originated in arid foothills of the Tien Shan mountains west of Lake Issyk-Kul in modern-day Kyrgyzstan. This spread along the trade routes of Central Asia, entering Europe via the northern Black Sea region in the 1340s. Notably, the Black Death abruptly entered Venice and other Mediterranean ports in 1347, presumably through the importation of infected Fleas from the Black Sea reason. 

From this time, there were repeated outbreaks of Plague across Europe until the early nineteenth century, although it is unclear if these represent a series of re-introductions, or the presence of a wild-reserve within Europe. Nor is it entirely clear why the Plague appeared in multiple Mediterranean ports at the same time, having been established in the Black Sea region for some time prior to this, without previously making the jump, though it has been suggested by several people that some socio-economic challenge led to a change in Human behaviour at this time, giving the disease an opportunity to spread.

In a paper published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment on 4 December 2025, Martin Bauch of the Department Humans and Environment at the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe, and Ulf Büntgen of the Department of Geography at the  University of Cambridge, the Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and the Department of Geography at Masaryk University, present evidence for a volcanic eruption at an unknown location in the years prior to the Black Death reaching the Mediterranean, which caused a regional famine, leading traders to seek new sources of grain, and thereby opening the region to the arrival of the Plague.

Bauche and Büntgen note that there has been extensive previous research into potential links between a volcanically induced climate crisis at the start of the  Late Antique Little Ice Age and the onset of the Plague of Justinian, but little previous investigation into such a link to the onset of the Black Death. They also note that ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica have revealed a spike in sulphur concentrations in 1345 considerably larger than the one caused by the Mount Pinatubo eruption of 1991, which probably represents an injection of about 14 megatons of sulphur into the atmosphere. Furthermore, there were also major spikes in 1329, 1336 and 1341, representing eruptions which would have injected roughly 3.7, 0.7, and 1.2 megatons of sulphur into the atmosphere, respectively.

Weather records from Japan, China, Germany, France, and Italy, all record the years from 1345 to 1349 as being exceptionally cloudy. A lunar eclipse in 1345 is recorded as having been exceptionally dark by witnesses in both Bohemia and China; something which can be another sign of a high volcanic dust level within the atmosphere. 

Studies of tree rings have shown that trees in the Spanish Pyrenees produced 'blue rings' in 1345 and 1346, which are interpreted as signs severe cold spells during the growing seasons affected growth. The production of blue rings in consecutive years is considered exceptionally rare. Studies of wood density across the Northern Hemisphere have suggested a progressive cooling from 1345 to 1347, with 1347 being the coolest year since 1257, when a cold spell was linked to an eruption on Mount Samalas on Lombok Island, Indonesia. 

May–September (MJJAS) temperature anomalies from 1119–2020 AD (uncertainties are expressed by grey shading), based on 534 maximum latewood density (MXD) measurement series from living and relict samples from Mountain Pine, Pinus uncinata, trees from undisturbed upper treeline ecotones in the Spanish central Pyrenees.  The pre-Black Death cold phase is indicated by the vertical blue shading. The right-side double-stained thin section shows two consecutive Blue Rings that were formed in 1345 and 1346 AD in a Mountain Pine, Pinus uncinata, from the upper treeline in the central Spanish Pyrenees. Bauche & Büntgen (2025).

While it is harder to assess rainfall in past than temperature, tree-ring data suggests that the cool period from 1345 to 1347 was accompanied by a prolonged west-east dipole in Europe, with wetter conditions around the eastern Mediterranean and dryer conditions around the western Mediterranean. Morocco, the British Isles, northern France, the Low Countries, Germany and southern Scandinavia, all appear to have suffered dry conditions, while the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, and the Balkans, had high spring and summer rainfall in those years.

Bauche and Büntgen also examined historical records from across Europe and beyond, which show a declining agricultural output from across Europe from 1345, and in particular a failure of (environmentally sensitive) Grape crops from northwestern Italy. Severe flooding was also recorded in Italy in the autumn of 1345 and the springs of 1346 and 1347, along with accompanying problems such as soil erosion. The winter of 1344/45 was exceptionally cold and snowy in the Middle East, with the winters of 1345/46 and 1347/48 being marked by drought and Locust invasions. 

Late medieval Italy had a highly urbanised population, with a complex grain supply system in place to support this population. Many city states, including major centres such as Bologna, Florence, Genoa, Siena, and Venice, had limited farmland and large urban populations, consequently importing grain over long distances to redress this imbalance. Only Rome and Milan were largely self-sufficient. Cities developed communal granaries run by officials with the power to manage these granaries, source supplies of grain from elsewhere, and prevent the export of grain from cities troubled by poor harvests or military conflicts. Typically, managing grain supplies was the second-largest source of expenditure for any late medieval Italian city-state, behind only military spending. Maritime powers such as Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, negotiated treaties with grain-producing areas such as Apulia, Sicily, Sardinia, North Africa,  the Aegean and the Black Sea region. 

In 1346/7 severe famines were recorded across parts of Spain, southern France, northern and central Italy, Egypt, and the Levant. This led to spikes in the price of grain in Spain, Italy, Egypt, and even the Arabian Peninsula. Strict grain regulations were implemented in many Italian cities from 1346, at least in part to grain-shortage induced civil unrest.

Northern Italy suffered a series of famines during this interval, which appear unrelated to any political crisis, supporting a climate-related problem as the cause. Initially, this shortfall was met by increased imports from southern Italy, but it quickly became clear that this would not be sufficient to alleviate the crisis, and that more imports would be needed from further afield. 

At this time, Venice and Genoa were in a state of conflict with the Mongols of the Golden Horde, who had been trying to eliminate Italian power in the Black Sea region. This had led to the Italian cities blockading the ports of the Black Sea, preventing the Mongols from trading with the Mediterranean. However, the onset of famine in Italy led to a re-appraisal of this situation, with a ceasefire and renegotiation of trading arrangements leading to a restoration of grain trading, saving Venice from starvation.

The Plague Bacterium, Yersinia pestis, had been present in the Black Sea region for some time, and it is likely that it would eventually have reached the Mediterranean at some point. However, Bauche and Büntgen contest that the lifting of the trade embargo against the Golden Horde in response to the volcanically-induced famine affecting northern Italy was the immediate cause of the Black Death reaching multiple Mediterranean ports in a short interval. 

The trade embargo was lifted in 1347, and shortly thereafter, Venetian and Genoan trading vessels began entering the trading ports of the northern Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, returning to Italy laden with grain. The Plague appeared in Venice less than two months after the first such trading vessel. In March 1348 Venice lifted an embargo on the export of grain to Padua, with the first Plague outbreak there coming shortly after. Records of the grain trade to Florence and Sienna are less clear, but again the first Plague outbreaks in these cities were associated with the abating of the famine. Notably, this first wave of Plague outbreaks did not affect cities such as Rome, Milan,Verona, Ferrara, Ravenna, and Bari, which controlled larger grain producing areas, and were not involved in grain imports from the Black Sea region. Elsewhere around the Mediterranean, Marseille, Palma de Mallorca, and many other important port cities had Plague outbreaks before the end of 1347, probably as a result of grain shipments from Genoa. Smaller cities such as Savona, Ventimiglia, and Tunis, began to suffer outbreaks in April 1348, again probably linked to Genoan grain shipments. The reached Trento along with grain shipments from Venice, and from their spread across the Alps into northern Europe. 

Grain trade and plague dispersal. Main aspects of the Venetian, Genoese, and Pisan grain trade network that prevented much of Italy from starvation in 1347 AD but also brought the Plague Bacterium, Yersinia pestis, to Venice and other Mediterranean harbours during the second half of 1347 AD, from where it spread rapidly. Location of the tree ring-based climate reconstructions is indicated (with two sites in Scandinavia not shown). Map is an equal-area, pseudo-cylindrical Mollweide projection with greyscale referring to elevations above sea level. Bauche & Büntgen (2025).

In 1344, a decade-long papal embargo on trade with the Mameluke Sultanate was lifted, enabling Italian merchants to resume trade with the Middle East. Following the resumption of trade with the Black Sea region, Venetian ships began carrying grain to Alexandria, and the ports of the Levant, while Mameluke traders began visiting the ports of the Crimea. While individual shipments are harder to trace for these ports than those of Italy, these ships are probably responsible for the arrival of the Black Death in North Africa and the Middle East.

Thus the resumption of trade with the Black Sea region appears to have resolved the immediate problem of a widespread famine, but also led to the simultaneous import of the Black Death to ports around the Mediterranean. The subsequent rapid spread and high fatality rate for the disease may also have been a result of a population weakened by famine. The sophisticated trade system developed by the Italian city states to ensure against famine appears to have made those states, and their allies around the Mediterranean and Europe, particularly vulnerable to the spread of the Plague. Bauche and Büntgen conclude that the Black was not just a singular event, but rather the culmination of a prolonged crisis which began with a climate crisis and then a famine.

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Archaeologists uncover seventh century iron sabre at tomb in Hungary.

Archaeologists from the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest and the Szent István Király Museum in Székesfehérvár have uncovered a rare seventh century iron cavalry sabre, among other grave goods, while excavating what is believed to be the tomb of an Avar warrior. The tomb, which is near Székesfehérvár, was detected in satellite images by the 'Cemeteries from Space' program, a collaboration between several Hungarian museums which uses satellite and other remote sensing images to look for signs of ancient activity in croplands and other areas where they might not be obvious to people standing on the ground.

A seventh century cavalry sabre unearthed at a tomb in Hungary. The sword is corroded, but still intact. Szent István Király Museum.

The tomb is thought to have dated to between 670 and 690, and had been partially looted, but still contained grave goods including the sword, some silver belt fittings, gilded metal ornaments for braiding into hair, earrings made from glass beads, a long knife, and arrowheads. Other artefacts likely to have been present, such as the shafts of the arrows, and a leather belt for the silver fittings, and probably a leather quiver for the arrows, had decayed away. The skeleton of the warrior appears to have been damaged during the looting process, particularly around the chest area.

The remains of a Avar warrior unearthed in a seventh century tomb near Székesfehérvár in Hungary. Szent István Király Museum.

The Pannonian Avars occupied a large area of Central Europe during the sixth to ninth centuries, forming a state known as the Avar Khaganate, which at its peak stretched from Czechia to eastern Ukraine. Unfortunately, most of what we know about the Avars today comes from Byzantine sources, a civilisation with which their relations were not always good. Byzantine records suggest that they had migrated from Central Asia, and were probably related to the nomadic Avars of that region. They may have had a Turkic or Mongolian ruling class, or have fled Central Asia to avoid domination by such a group. Genetic studies of remains from Avar graves in Europe have confirmed a genetic relationship to the Avars of Central Asia, with both groups originating in northeast Asia. However, they were not related to the Avars of the Caucasus Region, who appear to have been a separate group. Such studies have also suggested that women left their parents households to join those of their husbands, which would imply a patrilineal society.  From the middle of the eighth century the Pannonian Avars began to lose territory in the west to the expanding Frankish Kingdom, with chiefdoms incorporated into that state being Christianised and losing their cultural distinctiveness. From the beginning of the ninth century, invading Bulgars from the east also began to seize territory from the Pannonians, eventually leading to the end of the Khaganate as a distinct political entity.

A piece of gilded metal, interpreted as an ornament which would have been worn on a hair braid, from the tomb of a seventh century Avar warrior near Székesfehérvár in Hungary. Szent István Király Museum.

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Updown Girl.

Migration has been part of the British story for millennia, and this is particularly true of the Early Medieval Period, when, following the ending of the Roman occupation of England, various waves of Germanic settlers migrated to the country. While this has been understood in broad terms for a long time, modern genetic archaeological methods are now providing us with a lot more detail about migrations during this period, by allowing us to determine how different populations, and individuals were related to one another. 

In a paper published in the journal Antiquity on 13 August 2025, Duncan Sayer of the Institute for Materials and Investigative Sciences at the University of Lancashire, Joscha Gretzinger of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, John Hines of the School of History, Archaeology and Religion at Cardiff University, Michael McCormick of the Initiative for the Science of the Human Past at Harvard University, Keziah Warburton, also of the Institute for Materials and Investigative Sciences at the University of Lancashire, Erin Sebo of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders University, Katharina Dulias of the Institute of Geosystems and Bioindication at Technische Universität Braunschweig, and the School of Applied Sciences at the University of Huddersfield, Maria Pala, Martin Richards, and Ceiridwen Jane Edwards, also of the School of Applied Sciences at the University of Huddersfield, and Stephan Schiffels, also of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, discuss the discovery of a young female individual with immediate West African ancestry at Updown Anglo Saxon Cemetery near Eastry in Kent.

Updown Cemetery was excavated in two phases, the first under Sonia Hawkes of the University of Oxford (who had previously led excavations at the nearby Finglesham Cemetery) in 1976, and the second under Brian Philp of the Kent Archaeological Society in 1989, on both cases working ahead of development projects. During these excavations, 78 graves were uncovered. As well as Human remains, the site has yielded a range of grave goods, including weapons and personal goods; one individual had a Byzantine buckle which would have been an antique at the time it was buried. Uptown Cemetery is only a few kilometres from the larger Finglesham Cemetery, which dates from the same period, the two forming part of a cluster of Early Medieval cemeteries in East Kent.

Anglo Saxon burial sites in and around Eastry. Van Tongeren (2022).

Ancient DNA has been recovered from six individuals from Updown (from graves 34, 37, 45, 47, 48, and 52), with some of these being included in a previous study of genetic relationships across northern Europe. The Individual from Grave 47 (genetic ID EAS003) has not been included in previous studies, as the significance of what that individual's genome reveal was deemed significant enough to merit a separate publication.

The excavated graves at Updown, Kent, showing the burials sampled for ancient DNA. Sayer et al. (2025).

The individual in Grave 47 is a subadult, determined from osteological evidence (examination of the skeleton) to have been between 11 and 13 years old at the time of death. Ancient DNA was recovered from the petrous bone (part of the base of the skull) of this individual revealed that this individual was female, and belonged to female mitochondrial U5b1c2b, which is common in Northern Europe.

Because mitochondrial DNA is found in the mitochondria, organelles outside the cell nucleus, it is passed directly from mother to child without being sexually recombined each generation, enabling precise estimations of when individuals shared common ancestors, at least through the female line; this is known as the female haplogroup. It is also possible to trace direct ancestry through the male line, using DNA from the Y chromosome, which is passed directly from father to son without sexual recombination; this is known as the male haplogroup. Since everyone has mitochondria, it is possible to determine the female haplogroup of all Humans, but generally only males have a Y chromosome and can be assigned to a male haplogroup.

Whilst ID EAS003 clearly belongs to a North European female haplogroup, her autosomal DNA (i.e. the DNA on her non-sex chromosomes) shows a clear admixture of non-European DNA. This non-European portion of her genome shows affinities with samples collected from individuals belonging the the Yoruba, Essen, Mandinka, and Mende ethnic groups, all of whom are found in West Africa. The Yoruba and Essen peoples are predominantly found in Nigeria, while the Mandinka are predominantly found in the Senegambia region and Mende in Sierra Leone, although both groups can trace their roots back to the Mali Empire. In total, somewhere between 20 and 40 percent of her autosomal genome appears to come from sub-Saharan Africa, implying she probably had one grandparent from this region.

Comparison of the genome of ID EAS003 to that of other individuals from Updown Cemetery, revealed that several were close relatives, with the woman in Grave 34 (EAS001) being her grandmother, and the woman in Grave  45 (EAS002) being an aunt. All three belong to mitochondrial haplogroup U5b1c2b, implying matrilinial decent. Furthermore, the male individual in Grave 52 (EAS006) appears to be the father of the woman in Grave 34, making him ID EAS003's great grandfather. This male belongs to the male haplogroup E-V13, which is common in southern Italy, Greece, and the Balkans, but unusual in Northern Europe. However, other than ID EAS003, none of these individuals show any genetic evidence for recent sub-Saharan ancestry.

Other than ID EAS003, all of these individuals draw the majority of their ancestry from a Continental Northern European profile, which is associated with Anglo Saxon migrations, and became dominant over much of England between the fifth and tenth centuries. They also have minor fractions of  Continental Western European ancestry and Western British Irish ancestry, which is common for early Anglo Saxon cemeteries in eastern England, particularly Kent. This would imply that ID EAS003 was buried alongside members of her mother's lineage, but derived her African ancestry from her paternal side, no other members of which have yet been discovered. Furthermore, based upon the proportion of African DNA in her genome, Sayer et al. conclude that one of her paternal grandparents was entirely sub-Saharan African, at least in their genetic makeup.

Genetic family history of EAS003: (a) Karyogram visualisation of the length and distribution of admixture tracts across the EAS003 genome as inferred using RFMix. (b) Reconstruction of pedigree of EAS003. Males are depicted as squares, females as circles. Y chromosome and mtDNA haplogroups are reported. The results of a supervised admixture at K = 12 are shown next to the corresponding individual. Sayer et al. (2025).

No direct dating is available for Grave 47 or its occupant, however, Grave 34, which lies in close proximity, and which contains the grandmother of the girl in Grace 47, has been radiocarbon dated to between 600 and 655 AD, with a confidence of 95.4%. The two graves lie on either side of a small barrow, which contained a type SX1-c seax (a seax, or sax, is a single bladed tool and/or weapon resembling a mixture between a bread knife and a short sword), which is typical of the early seventh century. The woman from Grave 34 is estimated to have been between 20 and 40 when she died, making it unlikely she outlived her granddaughter, but the proximity of the two graves suggests that their deaths were occurred within a few years of each other.

Updown Girl was buried with a knife, a spoon, a comb, a decorated pot, and some fragments of copper alloy, which may have been the remnants of the mounts of a bag. The decorated pot, which was placed next to her feet, was biconical, and was a fine, wheel-turned product. Such pots are common in early Anglo Saxon cemeteries in Kent, and are thought to have been mostly imported from Frankish Gaul, although the pattern on the pot suggests it may have been of local manufacture. The knife, spoon, comb, and bag fragments were found close to the left hip. The knife was a utilitarian item, common in Anglo Saxon graves of the period, but the other items may have more significance.

Grave 47 at Updown: photograph and adjacent grave plan show the positioning of the body and grave goods. Sayer et al. (2025).

Spoons were significant items in Anglo Saxon England, used not just for eating, but often as pendants or amulets. High status burials, such as Sutton Hoo and the Prittlewell chamber grave, often contain Byzantine or European silver spoons made to Roman patterns. Small, spatulate, iron spoons are common in seventh century burials in Kent, having been found at sites such as Dover Buckland, Holborough, and Sibertswold, as well as Burwell in Cambridgeshire. The practice of carrying spoons appears to have been associated with the spread of Christianity in Anglo Saxon England.

Combs are also considered important in Anglo Saxon graves, and were found in both graves 47 and 45 at Updown Cemetery. The one recovered from Grave 47 was a three-piece, double-sided composite design made from antler; such combs are common from the fifth century onwards. Combs are typically found only with adult women (20 years and older) in Anglo Saxon burials. Hair type is one of the more notable differences between African and European populations, and hair and hair-care products often take on symbolic meaning in African populations living in countries with predominantly European populations. There is no evidence to suggest an African population in Early Anglo Saxon England large enough to have taken on its own cultural symbols, however, it is likely that Updown Girl had hair notably different from other members of her community, which may have been significant enough to them to justify her having her own comb at a young age.

Unfortunately, we do not have a good idea what Updown Girl may have looked like. She has only a partial skull, preventing any reconstruction of her facial features, and no trace of her hair or skin pigmentation is preserved (nor would we expect them to be). Nevertheless, it is likely that she differed in some ways from other members of her community. Any such differences did not, however, prevent her from being buried alongside other members of that community, who appear to have been relatively well-off and were living close to a royal centre.

The extent of contact between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa in ancient and medieval times is hard to assess. Much of North Africa was ruled at various points by Egypt, Carthage, Rome, the Vandals, Byzantium, and eventually the Islamic Caliphate, all of whom traded to varying extents with peoples south of the Sahara. The classical civilisations (Greece and Rome), were certainly aware of the area, which was noted for gold, ebony, ivory, and the beauty of its women, with later Roman scholars aware of the position of the River Niger, and that it flowed to the east. 

This has led to speculation that these ancient civilisations might have had extensive trade with sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in the often mentioned gold. However, analysis of trace elements in gold coins and objects has found no evidence of any significant amount of African gold entering the Mediterranean world before the ninth century. Similarly, while the trade in slaves from across the Sahara appears to have become a major phenomenon in the Caliphate in the ninth and tenth centuries, but there is no evidence for such a trade in the sixth or seventh centuries. This is reflected south of the Sahara, where there is an archaeological record of trade routes associated with the ancient states of Ghana and Gao in modern Mali, which does not seem to include trans-Saharan routes before the seventh/eighth centuries, with these becoming important in the ninth.

Small amounts of African Red Slip Ware have been found in Early Medieval sites in western Britain. However, this originated from an area which covered modern Tunisia and neighbouring parts of Algeria and Libya. Similarly, the Plague of Justinian, which first appeared in Egypt in 541 AD, is known to have reached early Anglo Saxon England, indicating that there were at least indirect trade routes between England and North Africa during this period. Ivory found in Anglo Saxon graves in Lincolnshire has been identified as having come from Elephants which lived in East Africa in the fifth or sixth centuries, although these probably came via a Red Sea trade route, far from the Sahel Region of West Africa. 

If a generation is assumed to be about 25 years, then it is possible that the African grandparent of Updown Girl left the southern Sahel region of West Africa some time in between the mid sixth and early seventh century AD, at which time most of North Africa would have been under Byzantine control. Byzantine artefacts such as coins and jewellery are fairly common in Anglo Saxon England (a Byzantine buckle has been found at Upton Cemetery), implying that trade between these two regions was a fairly common event, potentially providing a route for an adventurous sub-Saharan, or person of immediate sub-Saharan African decent, to make their way to Anglo Saxon England.

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The landscape of the Zanj Rebellion?

The Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab floodplain in the Basra Governorate of southern Iraq is covered by a vast network of linear earthwork ridges, covering an area of more than 800km², far more extensive than the area under conservation today. These are thought to have been built between 630 AD, when the city of Old Basra was founded, and the late ninth century AD, when the city was engulphed in a period of political turmoil. 

These earthworks are thought to have been built by a workforce of slaves known as 'the Zanj'. The term 'Zanj', in Medieval Arabic refers to the Swahili Coast of East Africa, and it has been suggested that the slaves of Medieval Basra may have been sourced from that area, however, 'Zanj' is also sometimes used for slaves from other origins (possibly making the East Coast of Africa the 'Slave Coast'). 

Thus the Zanj of Basra have been thought by various authors to have been either East African slaves, a mixture of East African and locally enslaved peoples, or possibly slaves from other parts of Africa (it is unclear if slave routes from East Africa had been established by the period when the earthworks were built, but slave routes from West and West Central Africa via North Africa are known to have been well established.

In 869 AD the slaves of Old Basra rose up in what is now known as the Zanj Rebellion. This destbalized the region leading to over a decade of civil strife before the Abbasid rulers of Iraq managed to regain control of the area. Two earlier, and smaller Zanj rebellions were also recorded in 689-90 AN and 694-695 AD, although these were apparently local affairs put down quickly, whereas the rebellion of 869 had a wider and more long-lasting political impact.

At the time of the rebellion of 869, the Zanj are recorded to have been spread out in a series of work camps in the agricultural zone to the east of Old Basra, on both sides of the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab River. This coincides with the area covered by the system of Earthworks, so presumably key events of the rebellion took place within this system. The Zanj are recorded to have established their headquarters at a location called al-Muḫtāra within the agricultural area where they once toiled, although the precise location of this is unknown today.

The Zanj Rebellion has been attributed to the harsh conditions under which the Zanj were forced to live, although details of this are lacking in records. If the earthworks of Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab are the result of Zanj labour, as is generally assumed, then this could have been the exploitative labour which triggered the rebellion. However, the Earthworks have never been accurately dated, making the relationship between the earthworks and the rebellion essentially a matter of guesswork.

In a paper published in the journal Antiquity on 2 June 2025, Peter Brown of the Department of History, Art History and Classics at Radboud University, and the Department of Archaeology at Durham University, Jaafar Jotheri, also of the Department of Archaeology at Durham University, and of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Al-Qadisiyah, Louise Rayne of the School of History, Classics & Archaeology at Newcastle University, Nawrast Abdalwahab of the Department of Geology at the University of Basrah, and Eric Andrieux, again of the Department of Archaeology at Durham University, present the results of a study of the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab earthworks, including the first chronology of their creation and use.

Location and distribution of the ridge/earthwork system, showing the extent covered by the project study area in southern Iraq. Brown et al. (2025).

The ridges which make up the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab earthworks are typically between 400 and 1200 m in length, 20-50 m wide, and rise up to 2 m above the surrounding ground level. The Earthenworks comprise a series of blocks of parallel ridges separated by 100-250 m of flat land. The ridges abut large canal features at right angles, with smaller irrigation canals running along the centre of the flat areas between the ridges. Ultimately, these canal systems connect to the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab river, with some still carrying water up to 5 km from the banks of the river.

Drone photograph looking west showing several linear ridge features within the study area. Brown et al. (2025).

Both modern satellite imgery and satellite photography from the 1960s suggest that there are about 7000 ridges across the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab floodplain, ranging from about 15 km south of the town of Al Qurnah in the north to the town of Abadan in Iran in the south. The total length of the ridges is about 3000 km, implying a significant amount of labour by a large number of workers was needed to create the systm.

CORONA satellite photograph of a typical area of ridge/earthwork features within the study area. Photograph number DS1035-1040DF019 captured 23 September 1966. US Geological Survey in Brown et al. (2025).

There are several potential explanations as to how the ridge-and-canal system was created and used. The ridges could either have been formed as part of a process of clearing the land for agricultural use, or formed over time as canals were repeatedly cleared of sediment. In 1962 the American archaeologist H.S. Nelson published a study of the ridge system, in which he established that the soil of the ridges was twice as saline as the surrounding soil, which led him to hypothesise that the irrigation practices used led to the soil becoming saline over time, and the ridges were built up as this saline soil was repeatedly cleared. However, it is unclear how many soil samples Nelson took, nor from where in the system, making it difficult to assess how applicable his findings are to the whole system.

Drone photograph looking north-west showing ridge features with parallel relict canal channels in the interspersing flat areas. Brown et al. (2025).

The ridge system clearly has a relationship with the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab river, and it appears that the canal-system once allowed the cultivation of large areas of the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab floodplain through tidal irrigation. This area is above the saline estuary of the river, but twice a day tides in the Persian Gulf push freshwater to flow upstream within the river, and this can be utilized to feed an irrigation system. Similar systems are utilised elsewhere in the world, including West Africa, where it has been practiced for at least a thousand years, and Spain, where the practice can be traced back to at least the sixteenth century.

CORONA satellite photograph showing active canals and agriculture among the ridges in the 1960s. Photograph number DS1045-1040DA041 captured 27 January 1968. US Geological Survey in Brown et al. (2025).

A number of medieval authors mentioned a tidal irrigation system in use arround Basra. The tenth century Arab geographer al-Muqaddasī described a system of canals with mills at their mouths, which were driven by the ebbing tide as the water withdrew following each tidal flood. Two centuries later the writer al-Idrīsī described a canal system around Basra, driven by rising tides and used to irrigate crops. The fourteenth century writer Abū al-Fidāʾ described ships using the tide on the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab to reach Basra and its canal systems. However, in the early seventeenth century, the Portuguese traveller Pedro Teixeira described the area as infertile and covered with salt, although with evidence of former agricultural activity still visible.

The most northerly of the ridges are close to the town of Al Qurnah, which is also approximately the northernmost extent of tidal flow on the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab, which supports the idea that these are connected. The uniformity of the ridge-and-canal system throughout the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab floodplain also indicates that this system was intended for a single form of agriculrure. 

However, what sort of crops were grown there is less clear today. H.S. Nelson thought that the spaces between the ridges would have been suitable for the cultivation of Winter Barley, whereas medieval authors associated the Basra area with Date production, and dates are still farmed along the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab today. Ceramic vessels from southern Iraq, which are believed to have been used to transport Dates, are common finds at archaeological sites as far away as China. Dates also form an important part of al-Ṭabarī.’s account of the Zanj rebellion, with the rebels described as hiding in Palm-groves on the salt flats to ambush Abbasid troops, and Abbasid cavalry being impeded by the densely packed Date trees. The famous fourteenth century travelled Ibn Baṭṭūṭa noted that '“no place on earth exceeds [Basra] in quantity of Palm-groves', and Pedro Teixeira also considered the area to be notable for date production. 

Dates are a relatively salt-tolerant crop, although the levels of salt recorded by H.S. Nelson would be a serious problem, reducing crop-yields by about 50% in the least affected areas between the ridges. Furthermore, Dates are seldom, in traditional agriculture, grown on their own. Rather they tend to be intercropped with other produce, such as fruits, vegetables, Rice or Barley, which benefit from the shade provided by the Date trees. If crops require more light, the Dates can be planted further apart. 

Medieval literature does not provide any direct descriptions of the system used on the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab floodplain. However, a number of sources may provide glimpses of how this worked. Al-Ṭabarī.’s description of the Zanj Rebellion makes several references to hills on the floodplains, including one hilltop which overlooked a Date Palm grove. Since there are no natural hills on the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab floodplain, it seems likely that this refers to the artificial ridge structures. An anonymous eleventh-century chronicle, the Kitab al-‘Uyun, refers to the Zanj creating hills to make the area cultivatable, but provides no further details.

Brown et al. first built up a map of the entire area, using a combination of modern sateellite imagary and CORONA satellite images from the 1960s. Based upon this they then chose sites for sample collection across the area. The samples collected were then subjected to radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence dating, with the later being particularly useful, since it can date how long mineral grains have been exposed on the surface (the technique was developed for use on samples returned to Earth by the Apollo Lunar Program) and does not therefor require the finding of organic objects, which can be difficult in environments such as the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab floodplain. 

Many of the ridge structures show signs of recent damage, due to the construction of infrastructure for oil fields, and the First Gulf War of 1990-91. Brown et al. wished to collect samples from areas undisturbed since the abandonment of the system, and therefore avoided areas with clear signs of recent disturbance. They also wished to take samples from different parts of the system, to determine whether the whole network had been in use at once, or whether different parts date from different periods. Fieldwork was carried out in January 2022, with exploratory trenches dug into four ridge tops and one relict canal-bed.

Locations of sampling sites within the system of ridges. Brown et al. (2025).

No real stratigraphication was found on any of the ridges; each had an upper layer of topsoil with gypcrete crystals, between 50 and 200 mm thick, beneath which the ridges were composed of unstratified silty clay. The trench excavated in a canal bed was dug to 95 cm, and encountered five distinct layers of clay and/or silty clay. Two of the ridge-top trenches produced fragments of shell which were retained for carbon dating. Samples were collected from all sites for optically stimulated luminescence dating.

Drone photograph looking down on the excavation into the ridge crest at sampling site 2. Brown et al. (2025).

The first of the shells subjected to radiocarbon dating yielded a date of between 58 and 215 with a probability of 92.6%, while the second produced a date between 326 and 433 AD with a probability of 81.7%. 

The optically stimulated luminescence dating results all yielded dates between the late ninth century and the mid thirteenth century AD, though a clear chronology could not be established as uncertainty intervals between samples overlapped and samples taken from deeper within the ridges were often younger than those found on the surface. The wide uncertainty values produced by the samples mean that each ridge could have been formed in a single episode, or built up over about a century. The oldest samples post-date the Zanj Rebellion.

Samples being taken for optically stimulated luminescence dating. Left to right: site 1, site 3, site 5 and site 4. Brown et al. (2025).

Both shell samples yielded radiocarbon ages significantly greater than the optically stimulated luminescence dates from the surrounding sediment. This is not particularly surprising, as the process of excavating sediments and incorporating them into the ridges is likely to also excavate older shells and incorporate those. 

Brown et al.'s excavations were limited, and all the samples come from within the homogeneous ridge-cores rather than reaching the undrlying sediments. This only establishes that the ridges were in existance in the century after the Zanj Rebellion (working on the basis that the ridges were a gradual accumulation, as sediments were continuously removed from the canals over time, a process without which the canals would have become blocked).

The sediments collected from the canal yielded slightly older dates than those from the ridges, with the oldest dates (between the eighth and the mid-eleventh centuries). Above this layer is a dark green layer about 10 cm thick, with the layer above this yielding a date of 1423-1503 AD. The dates above and below this green layer are before and after the dates obtained from the surrounding ridges, while th green layer itself appears to represent a period of low sediment deposition, consistent with the removal of sediment by Human activity. 

Brown et al.'s results demonstrate that the ridges of the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab floodplain are of medieval origin, and that material was being deposited onto them between the ninth and thirteenth centuries. This is contrary to expectations for the region, where it is generally assumed peak agricultural activity occurred prior to the Zanj Rebellion, and that this was followed by a period of reduced economic activity. It is, however, in keeping with the accounts of visitors to the area at the time, who record that Basra was smaller and less populous than before, but still prosperous and well kept. These visitors also continued to record an active canal system in the area, suggesting the assumption that agricultural practices had been curtailed is probably erroneous.

Optically stimulated luminescence dating results compared against major and local historical events. Samples 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4 come from the canal bed, with sample 3.1 from above the green clay layer, and samples 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4 coming from below. All other samples are from ridges. Brown et al. (2025).

Brown et al.'s work does not identify who built the earthworks of the Basra hinterland, but it does demonstrate that large-scale, labour intensive agriculture was still happening in the area after the Zanj Rebellion. It has been claimed that the rebellion led to a reduction in the number of slaves being used by the Abbasids, although this is not universally accepted, and the writer Nāsir Khusraw records large numbers of African slaves being used in agriculture at al-Ahsa in eastern Arabia (also under Abbasid rule) in AD 1050. If the Zanj Rebellion did not lead to the abandonment of large-scale agriculture on the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab floodplain, then some other event must have been responsible. Brown et al. suggest that this may have been the Mongol invasions of the mid-thirteenth century, which are known to have damaged the economic importance of Baghdad and the Gulf region, potentially also reducing the need for large scale economic production in southern Iraq.

It is also possible that climate change played a role in the abandonment of this system. The climate of the Gulf region, and in particular the Tigris catchment have been aridifying steadily since the mid tenth century. Since the Tigris flows into the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab, it is quite possible that a point was reached where water levels in the river were too low to sustain a large scale irrigation system on that river's floodplain.

Another possibility is that the agricultural system of the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab floodplain collapsed as a result of the plague outbreaks of the fourteenth century. These are estimated to have killed about 42% of the population of the Middle East, with Baghdad's rural hinterland known to have been particularly badly hit. If this was also the case in the Basra hinterland, then it would have been almost impossible to keep a large-scale, labour intensive agricultural system going, particularly one dependent on the constant maintenance of irrigation systems.

It cannot be determined, at this time, if any of these factors, or some combination of them, was responsible for the abandonment of the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab earthwork system. There was clearly a major shift in habitation in the area between the mid-fourteenth and early sixteenth centuries, with the decline and then abandonment of the city of Old Basra, in favour of the new city at the current location, on the banks of the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab, as well as a great reduction in the area under cultivation on the banks of the river.

Brown et al.'s work runs contrary to the traditional narative of the history of Basra, which is seen as having had its heyday in the Ummayad (661-750 AD) and early Abbasid (750-about 900 AD) periods, followed by a long period of decline. Instead it demonstrates that large-scale agriculture was still occurring in the ninth to thirteenth centuries, suggesting that the Zanj Rebellion did not have the long term economic significance it is sometimes ascribed.

However, Brown et al. only looked at four of the 7000 plus ridge systems which cover the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab floodplain, making it difficult to assert the extent to which the dates obtained reflect the chronology of the wider area. All of the ridges studied are on the west bank of the Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab, and fairly close to the location of Old Basra. Potentially, this might have been the last part of the system as it was abandoned across the floodplain, being closest to the city dependent on it.

See also...