The Wildcard · Northern Ontario Morning Wire

They put iron nails on three Roman skeletons. Why?

You won't believe what they found in Roman graves

Bonjour from the North — three cities, one corridor, and the stories that don't make it south of Barrie. You know, I was having my first coffee this morning, looking out at the St. Marys Rapids, thinking about what kind of weirdness I could bring you today, and *tabarnak*, did I find it. So, archaeologists in Rome, in this old necropolis, they found three skeletons, okay? And on their chests? Iron nails. Not like, accident nails, but like, *placed* there. The experts, they're saying it was a ritual, maybe to keep the spirits from wandering, or even to protect the living from the dead. Can you imagine?

It makes you wonder, hein? Here in the Sault, when they were building the steel plant back in the day, or even digging up old spots around the Agawa Canyon, you hear stories. Not usually about iron nails on chests, mind you. More like old tools, maybe some Indigenous artifacts if they're lucky enough to actually look. But this Roman thing, it’s a whole other level of "don't mess with the dead." We're practical up here. If someone's staying put, it's usually because the ground is frozen solid for half the year, not because someone put nails on their chest. Though, I bet if you asked some of the old trappers out by Lake Superior, they'd have a few stories about spirits that needed convincing to stay put.

Marc-André Desjardins, Sault Ste. Marie.

You need to hear what Keith and the crew think about this mess, tune in to the show at mornings.live.

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