Skeleton’s discovery kept secret until now

London - Windsor may have been popular with royalty rather earlier than generally thought. Archaeologists excavating near the royal borough have discovered the 4 400-year-old bejewelled skeleton of an upper class woman who was almost certainly a member of the ruling elite.

The woman, aged around 40, was buried wearing a necklace of folded sheet-gold, amber and lignite beads, just a century or two after the construction of Stonehenge about 60 miles to the south-west. She is the earliest-known woman adorned with such treasures ever found in Britain. Even her buttons were made of amber. She also appears to have worn a bracelet of lignite beads.

The archaeologist in charge of the excavation, Gareth Chaffey, of Wessex Archaeology, said: “She was probably an important person, perhaps holding some standing which gave her access to prestigious, rare and exotic items. She could have been a leader - perhaps a princess or queen.”

It's known that in southern Britain, some high-status men of that era - the Copper Age - had gold possessions, but this is the first time archaeologists have found a woman being accorded the same sort of material status.

It's thought that the gold probably came from hundreds of miles to the west - and that the amber almost certainly came from Britain's North Sea coast. The lignite (a form of coal) is also thought to have come from Britain.

The funeral rite for the possible prehistoric royal may have involved her family arranging her body so that, in death, she clasped a beautiful pottery drinking vessel in her hands. The 25cm tall ceramic beaker was decorated with geometric patterns.

She was buried with her head pointing towards the south. Men and women from the Stonehenge era were often interred in opposing directions - men's heads pointing north and women's heads pointing south. Research suggests that women may have been associated with the warm and sunny south, while men may well have seen themselves as embodying the qualities of the colder, harder north.

The woman's skeleton and jewellery were found 18 months ago, but the discovery was kept secret until Sunday to allow an analysis of her bones and a metallurgical analysis of the gold.

The discovery is part of an ongoing excavation which started a decade ago. The woman is merely the most spectacular of dozens of findings that have been made at the site - including four early Neolithic houses, 40 Bronze Age burials and several Iron Age settlements. - The Independent

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