Not far from Jerusalem, archaeologists have discovered the fifth-century burial of a person wrapped in heavy metal chains. But the Byzantine-era grave held another surprise: The person who had practiced religious bodily punishment was female.
Excavations of a series of crypts at the Byzantine monastery at Khirbat el-Masani, about 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) northwest of the Old City of Jerusalem, revealed the skeletons of several men, women and children. One tomb contained the poorly preserved bones of an individual wrapped in chains. The corpse was not constrained for nefarious reasons, archaeologists suggested. Rather, the chains were used by the person during life to limit mobility as a part of a religious ascetic lifestyle. Initially, the Israel Antiquities Authority, which oversaw the dig, reported that this individual was male.
