Cadavers Crowded a Common Grave When the Initial Plague Epidemic Hit This Early Medieval Settlement. Recent Studies Investigate the Identities of the Deceased

Scientists examined isotopes and DNA present in the teeth of skeletons discovered in a mass burial site from the Plague of Justinian, which ravaged the Byzantine Empire

In 541 C.E., a devastating illness spread across the Byzantine Empire. Known today as the Plague of Justinian, named after Emperor Justinian I, the epidemic waned and surged for two centuries, claiming the lives of millions. It was the earliest recorded instance of the plague.

A recent research article published in the Journal of Archaeological Science uncovers insights about the victims of the plague. Insights regarding the structure of their society and those who were most susceptible during calamities remain applicable to modern health emergencies, according to the researchers.

In the sixth century C.E., the Byzantine Empire—the eastern division of the Roman Empire—encompassed a large portion of Mediterranean territories, including North Africa, southern Europe, and Asia Minor. The city of Jerash served as one of the major focal points of the plague, being a trading hub in today’s Jordan. Nearly half of the city’s population of 20,000 perished, and swiftly.

“In some instances, death occurred instantly, while in others it took several days,” noted Procopius, a historian from the sixth century C.E. who witnessed the plague in Byzantium (now Istanbul). “In some cases, the body erupted with black pustules roughly the size of lentils, and these individuals did not survive even a day, but all died immediately. Many experienced spontaneous vomiting of blood without an apparent cause, leading directly to death.”

In Jerash, as in many other towns, the deceased accumulated so rapidly that residents abandoned previously sacred burial practices. The hippodrome, which had once hosted chariot racing, was, at that time, repurposed for ceramics and textiles production. When the plague struck, it transformed into a mass grave.

“That was filled within days—hundreds of bodies,” Rays Jiang, a geneticist from the University of South Florida, shared with All Things Considered’s Durrie Bouscaren. “And there was no ceremony. There were no burial items. It was minimal effort to clear the body away from the city.”

Last year, Jiang’s team pinpointed the specific bacteria responsible for the Plague of Justinian: Yersinia pestis. Recently, Jiang and other researchers extended that inquiry with fresh analyses of human remains excavated from the mass grave in Jerash.

“The previous narratives identified the plague pathogen,” Jiang stated in a university announcement. “The Jerash site translates that genetic evidence into a human narrative about who succumbed and how a community endured a calamity.”

The hippodrome was excavated during the 1990s, revealing over 200 skeletons. The remains are believed to date from the mid-sixth to early seventh centuries C.E.—the initial wave of the plague. According to Jiang speaking to the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe, the skeletons comprise men and women, the elderly and the young, “individuals in their prime and adolescents.”

Isotopes found in the victims’ teeth yielded insights into their dietary habits. The study indicates that most consumed substantial amounts of wheat and barley, yet the oxygen in their enamel disclosed “varied childhood water sources.” Some accessed water “from wells, some from cisterns, and some from mountain streams,” Jiang explained to All Things Considered. This suggests that a significant number of the deceased likely originated from other locations, possibly for work, trade, or coercion into travel.

“During that period, there were slaves, mercenaries, a diverse array of individuals, and our findings suggest this was a transient population,” Jiang informed the Guardian. DNA extracted from the teeth enabled researchers to trace the victims’ heritage back to central Africa, Eastern Europe, modern-day Turkey, and other regions.

Study co-author Karen Hendrix, an archaeologist at the University of Sydney, remarked to All Things Considered that Jerash was “admired in documented sources as a Roman Byzantine urban hub integrated into a dynamic regional trading network.” The city’s cosmopolitan and commercial nature rendered it more susceptible to the spread of disease.

“Immigrants flocked to the city seeking work, and then the pandemic strikes,” Nükhet Varlik, a historian at Rutgers University, expressed to All Things Considered. “They form one of the most exposed populations.”

Nevertheless, she adds, the genetic variety of the plague victims from Jerash also exemplifies “a shared experience for humanity.” Locals and newcomers alike were engulfed in the disaster.

Plague 101 | National Geographic

The remains in the hippodrome burial contain a “single, uniform strain of Yersinia pestis, validating a simultaneous epidemic occurrence,” according to the new study. In effect, the outbreak escalated so swiftly that these numerous individuals perished before the bacteria could mutate.

The research asserts that Jerash’s mass grave can definitively be recognized as the earliest “disastrous plague burial in the Near East.” It became one of several. In Byzantium, massive pits were excavated, and when they overflowed, bodies were stacked against the towers of the city walls. These sent out “a foul odor” permeating the city, as recorded by Procopius. Once the towers were filled, corpses were loaded onto wooden vessels that were cast adrift and set on fire.

The peak of the Justinian plague subsided by the close of the sixth century C.E., but outbreaks persisted into the mid-eighth century. Yersinia pestis reemerged in the 1300s, this time unleashing the Black Death in Western Europe, where individuals were compelled to excavate their own grim “plague pits.”