Bodies, booze and bloody big noses: Magdalen unearthed

Archaeological excavations on the site of Magdalen’s new library extension have unearthed artefacts both grizzly and strange.

Students living in rooms surrounding the site have admitted to feeling slightly disturbed by the discovery that they have unwittingly been sharing their corner of Magdalen with dozens of medieval skeletons.

‘A large Mississippi mud pie’

In a talk given on Monday, Oxford Archaeology’s Ben Ford revealed that 59 graves have so far been identified, dating from the late-12th to mid-15th centuries.

Helen Webb, a human remains expert, explained that one unfortunate male shows traces of dental disease, osteoarthritis, multiple bone fractures, anaemia, and – worst of all – “a highly prominent nose”.

The men (and women) in action.

Among the more bizarre finds, found in the ruins of a row of eighteenth-century tenements, is a hoard of 3,000 clay wig-curlers. Alongside these wig-curlers was found a stash of wine bottles stamped with the insignia of Magdalen’s SCR.

Siobhan Fenton, whose bedroom window overlooks the site, told The Tab: “At first when we found out the dig was costing millions of pounds that could be going towards access schemes, and also was destroying a large bit of natural landscape at Magdalen, myself and some of the other students were hesitant.

“But then we found out that the college had actually found the largest collection of wig curlers known to mankind, and we were all won round.”

For curling one’s wigs

It should be noted that Martin Routh, President of Magdalen for 63 years, was renowned for being the last gentleman in England to wear a horsehair wig. Could he have slipped out with the college booze for a discreet curling session?