The mysterious Roman-era burial rite of pouring liquid gypsum over the dead wasn't limited to elite adults as previously thought; it was also performed on children, including babies as young as 1 month old, researchers have found.
The finding contradicts Roman-era legal sources who wrote that infants under 12 months old were not supposed to be mourned at all, according to two blog posts published by the Seeing the Dead project, a collaboration between the University of York and the York Museums Trust. Their team is investigating the discovery of children among the rare "gypsum burials" found in York, in northern England.
