Possible Medieval Graffiti Found at Church Site in England
Wednesday, October 21, 2020
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, ENGLAND—The Belfast Telegraph reports that investigators working ahead of the construction of a high-speed train line found graffiti on two rocks at the site of the medieval church of St. Mary in southeastern England. Archaeologist Michael Court and his colleagues suggest the images could have been used as sundials, or may have been intended to ward off evil spirits. The so-called witches' marks, which include incised lines radiating from a drilled hole, may have been believed to trap the spirits in an endless line or maze. What remains of the church building will be dismantled and the site excavated, including the exhumation of graves from the church’s cemetery for reburial elsewhere, he added. To read about a seventeenth-century English family convicted of witchcraft, go to "Searching for the Witches' Tower."
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