(1) Metal detectorists discover a lead coffin in a field near Ilchester in Somerset, England. The local police call in the archaeologists. They take the coffin back to the South West Heritage Trust Laboratory, where they open and excavate the coffin and discover a young woman’s skeleton. (2) Paul Hixon participated as a student in an ethnobotany field school in the Yucatan, Mexico, at the village and ancient Maya site of Yaxunah. His film covers the Ch’a Chaak ceremony, which appeals to the Maya god Chaak to bring rain for the recently planted corn.
Produced in 2016 by Archaeological Legacy Institute
Copyright 2016 by Archaeological Legacy Institute
Web links:
Archaeologists reveal contents of 1,600-year-old Roman child coffin (Ancient Origins)
Ilchester Lead Coffins (South West Heritage Trust)
Importance of Plants in the Ch’a Chaak Maya Ritual in the Peninsula of Yucatan, by Jose Salvador Flores and Jesus Kantun Balam (Journal of Ethnobiology 17(1):97-108)
Maya Peoples (Wikipedia)
Rituals of the Modern Maya (Archaeology)
Roman Britain (Wikipedia)