How I created Julia Tertia's story
I made up this possible scenario using my imagination and knowledge and based on the forensic clues:
Skull shape shows she was mixed race with definite African characteristics;
Her bones showed she died young, aged around 19;
Isotopes show she came from a hot place outside Britain – possibly somewhere Mediterranean;
Her diet matched that of the local population in York;
Her grave was closer to the fortress than to the Colonia; perhaps she was in life;
She was buried in a stone sarcophagus, a mark of wealth.
Her grave goods also indicate wealth and some might be clues:
- bangle made of jet; jet a local material with 'magical' properties
- bangles made of ivory - an exotic material from tooth of elephant
- blue glass perfume flask from the Rhineland - again a mark of wealth
- blue glass bead bracelet: she liked blue?
- silver and bronze lockets
- two yellow glass earrings
- two marbled glass beads
- small round glass (!) mirror: she was concerned with her looks
- a bone plaque with the words SOROR AVE VIVAS IN DEO, (Hail, Sister, May you live in God) indicating that she was perhaps a Christian and almost certainly literate
