University of Chester student has her dissertation named best of the year by renowned society

Jan 10 2011 Chester Chronicle

A GRADUATE from the University of Chester has had her dissertation named the best of the year by a revered archaeological society.

Archaeology student Ruth Nugent has been awarded The Society for Medieval Archaeology’s John Hurst Prize for the Best Undergraduate Dissertation, 2010, for her work Feathered Funerals: Birds in Early Anglo-Saxon Burial Rites.

Ruth, 29, said: “I think it shows that you don’t have to dig things up in order to reveal new ideas about the past, since my dissertation made use of information readily available in cemetery reports.”

Ruth’s work centred on the role of birds in early Anglo-Saxon burials. A lot of archaeological research has been carried out on horses, dogsŠand farming animals found in these burials, but Ruth discovered there had been none on the different kinds of birds in burials.

She showed that birds were not used as supplementary wealth, as has been assumed, simply to ‘make up the numbers’, but are far more likely to be the only animal, and sometimes the only artefact, included in the burial.

Furthermore, the

She explained: “I concluded that birds in burials were home comforts for the deceased, acting as a ‘touchstone’ between the dead and the mourners.

“During my time at Chester, I’ve been very privileged to have been taught by experts in early medieval archaeology – Dr Meggen Gondek and Professor Howard Williams.”

Ruth, from Birkenhead, is now continuing to research early Anglo-Saxon burials at post-graduate level at Chester, incorporating some of the themes and ideas from her dissertation alongside new approaches and ideas.