The beaver from Avebury , ( English Barber surgeon of Avebury ) is a semi-legendary person of the British Middle Ages associated with the prehistoric monument of Avebury in the English county of Wiltshire .
Description
According to local tradition, in the fourteenth century a pious traveler helped the inhabitants of Avebury demolish and bury pagan menhirs . While he was digging under one of the menhirs, he toppled over and fell, burying the unlucky zealot of faith under him.
Archaeologist Alexander Keiler ( en: Alexander Keiller ) lifted the stone in 1938 and discovered a human skeleton beneath it. Various objects were discovered with the body, including coins, scissors and an iron probe. Thus, it was established that the deceased was a barber by profession (in the Middle Ages this profession implied both hairdressing and medical services, up to simple surgical operations, therefore the corresponding English term sounds like barber surgeon , the letter “barber surgeon”).
Keiler handed over the remains to the curator of the museum at the Royal College of Surgery . It was believed that the remains were lost during the bombing during the Second World War, however, in 1998 they were discovered in storage tanks and re-examined.
Traces of a major injury that were treated were found on the skull, but no trauma of traumatic death was found. Thus, the barber was more likely buried under a stone than killed by this stone, which, however, does not exclude the possibility of death due to asphyxiation during compression of the abdomen and chest.