ARCHAEOLOGISTS excavating a Roman cemetery have discovered 36 decapitated bodies.

The skeletons of 49 young men and seven children were found near The Mount in York.

Most of the men had had their heads removed and one was bound in shackles, believed to be the only Roman find of its kind.

Experts from York Archaeological Trust are trying to understanding why the heads were removed.

Patrick Ottaway, the trust's head of field work, said the most likely explanation was that the decapitation was part of a burial ritual, since the state of the bodies suggested the heads were removed after death.

"One theory we are working on is that the men's heads were removed after death with a very sharp implement through the cervical vertebrae," he said.

"After removal, their skulls had been placed in the grave by their feet, legs or pelvis as part of a burial ritual.

"Romans also believed that the head was the seat of the soul and they may have cut off their heads to stop them haunting the living."

He said the men could have been foreign soldiers from the Rhineland serving under Emperor Septimuis Severus in 200AD, who buried the dead according to their tradition.

Dr Ottaway said he would talk to archaeologists abroad to see if burial rituals from Rhineland or North Africa, where the emperor came from, fitted the deaths.