AFTER centuries cloaked in riverbank mud, the last remnants of a mysterious death are being painstakingly cleaned at Newport Museum.

After the discovery of Newport's medieval ship as ground was prepared for the citys arts centre, there was further exitement when human bones were found in the mud.

Archaeologists now hope they will contain clues to when and how the dead person lived.

The partial skeleton was uncovered on December 10 as archaeologists finished the excavation of the med-ieval ship's timbers along the banks of the River Usk.

They were preparing to wind up the dig when they discovered two leg bones.

Further work uncovered a pelvis, part of a spine and rib cage and some arm, hand and finger bones.

Was this a man or a woman? How did they die?

There were theories that the skeleton belonged to a man (because of the long thigh bones), that he could have died in an early industrial accident, or that the remains were a prehistoric burial.

At the moment, without hard evidence, these remain theories.

Adam Yates, one of the archaeologists who made the discovery, said: "At the moment we are not sure how old the bones are, whether they are male or female, or how the person died.

"It is still possible they are connected with the ship. Maybe they were killed in an industrial accident when they were working on it.

"The bones seemed to have been laid out, which at first we thought meant that the body was officailly buried.

"But we discovered they were lying north to south , not the Christian east to west orientation.

"That suggests that either the bones were not buried or that they are from a time before Christian burials."

Victoria Newton, keeper of archaeology at Newport Museum, said: "There is also a suggestion that the person was a woman.

"The thigh bones are cut off above the knee but that is not anything sinister, we think that it happened after burial, possibly by the timber shoring up the ship.

"A specialist will finish removing the mud and we will radio-carbon date the remains to establish how old they are."

But that will not be the end of the saga for the bones.

Ms Newton added: "When all the work is completed we must decide what to do with the remains.

"It may be that re-burial is appropriate, or it is possible we will display them.

"Whatever happens we must think about the respect we accord these human remains. "The ship was a very significant find, so was the shoring, and these remains could give us a phenomenal insight into the diet and lifestyle of the person.

"It is another significant find in Newport, during what has been a great year for local archaeology."