The muscles that attached to those bones, leaving traces of their attachment points, indicated stockiness and strength.

This was not a man who had spent his life at a writing desk.

He was built for physical work and had done it.

The Burial That Broke The Pattern

What distinguished Conquest Man from the hundreds of other medieval burials excavated at St Peter’s was not his skeleton’s specific injuries or his age.

It was how he was buried.

The oak coffin is the starting point.