Voices from Early Medieval Cookham: New Archaeological Insights from the Cookham Dig  
with Professor Gabor Thomas and Professor Mary Lewis

Discover the latest findings from ongoing archaeological excavations by the University of Reading, uncovering Cookham's golden age as a royal monastery in the 8th and 9th centuries A.D. Results from last summer's excavation will be set beside previous discoveries to offer new insights on the distinctive character and role of monastic settlements at the dawn of English Christianity for which Cookham represents a nationally important case study.  

 

As well as building a picture of daily life, the talk will place a spotlight on a contemporary cemetery which is shedding fascinating light on the role of contemporary monasteries as centres of healing and medical care.  
 

Gabor Thomas is Professor of Early Medieval Archaeology at the Department of Archaeology, University of Reading.  He has directed the ongoing excavation of an early medieval monastic site beside Holy Trinity Church, Cookham on the Thames, since its inception in 2021. As lead investigator and co-founder of the Middle Thames Archaeology Partnership, he has been pivotal in developing the project as both a research field school and a collaborative archaeological initiative.  

 

Mary Lewis is Professor of Bioarchaeology at the Department of Archaeology, University of Reading. She specialises in the study of child and adolescent skeletal remains and palaeopathology. Her expertise is central to the Cookham excavations, where a monastic cemetery reveals high levels of disease and injury, reflecting early medieval monasteries’ roles in care and healing.​