A Curious Invitation present London Month of the Dead
Skeletal Secrets
SKELETAL SECRETS
Discovering London’s past through its bone archive with Jelena Bekvalac

Sunday the 16th October 2022 at 1:30 pm

The Museum of London hosts an extensive collection of skeletal remains of dead Londoners in a secret lair beneath a roundabout in the City of London. This Bone Archive holds nearly 20,000 skeletons, spanning 16 centuries and Jelena Beklavac, the museum’s Curator of Human Osteology, is the mistress of this cadaverous catalogue. In her talk Jelena will relate some of the stories and secrets she has discovered from the archive’s human remains from the post medieval era. This period from 1547 – 1852 is a time that saw momentous changes in the capital, affecting people’s living environments, socio-economic status, health and lifestyles. Indicators of all this are revealed in the burials and in the bones & teeth of the skeletons: which provide a unique insight to each individual, as well as a reflection of the time in which they lived and died.

Join us at Kensal Green Cemetery as Jelena takes us on a journey across London and through time, based on the excavated post medieval sites she has worked on and describes how her forensic archaeological work has uncovered some extraordinary facts about life and death in the capital.

Tickets £12 including a 20% donation toward a host of restoration projects at Kensal Green Cemetery.

Jelena Bekvalac
Jelena Bekvalac is the Curator of Human Osteology at the Museum of London and was an original member of the research osteologist team at the Wellcome funded Centre for Human Bioarchaeology.



Kensal Green Cemetery