The barber surgeon of Avebury is the name given to a skeleton discovered in 1938 at

Avebury Avebury () is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, in southwest England. One of the best known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest megalithic stone circle in t ...

henge monument in

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

, England. The body was found underneath a buried megalith by

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

Alexander Keiller in 1938. It was dated by coins to the early 14th century, and identified as a

barber surgeon The barber surgeon, one of the most common European medical practitioners of the Middle Ages, was generally charged with caring for soldiers during and after battle. In this era, surgery was seldom conducted by physicians, but instead by barbers ...

by a pair of scissors and a medical-looking probe. The stone was re-erected by Keiller. Many stones of the Avebury

stone circle A stone circle is a ring of standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being built from 3000 BC. The be ...

had been buried, presumably as a result of attempts to de-paganise the site or to clear land for agriculture. The story of the barber surgeon is one that most visitors to the prehistoric Avebury stone circle will have heard. The traditional interpretation goes as follows; a pious traveller was assisting the folk of Avebury village in burying the pagan standing stones during the fourteenth century. As he was digging out the underside of a stone it fell over, crushing him and entombing him beneath it. Keiller lifted the stone (which was 3 metres tall and weighed 13 tons) to reinstate it in 1938 and found the man's remains underneath. Items found with the body including three silver coins dated to around 1320–25, as well as a pair of iron scissors and an iron probe led to him being identified as an itinerant

mediaeval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

barber surgeon. Keiller sent the remains to the curator of the museum at the

Royal College of Surgeons The Royal College of Surgeons is an ancient college (a form of corporation) established in England to regulate the activity of surgeons. Derivative organisations survive in many present and former members of the Commonwealth. These organisations a ...

, who he felt would appreciate the find. It was thought to have been destroyed during bombing in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

but was rediscovered in a store at the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...

by Mike Pitts, the former curator of the

Alexander Keiller Museum, Avebury Avebury () is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, in southwest England. One of the best known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest megalithic stone circle in ...

, and re-examined in 1998. A large healed cut wound was noticed on the skull but no evidence of traumatic death was identified and it was suggested that the man had been buried beneath a stone rather than crushed by it.''British Archaeology'', Issue no 48, October 1999, "Lost skeleton of `barber-surgeon' found in museum"
Retrieved on 16 June 2009

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barber surgeon of Avebury 14th-century English people Legendary English people History of Wiltshire

See also

References