London’s Crossrail project will, when completed, cover more than 60 miles and require 40 construction projects. It has also allowed for one of the largest archeological project in British history.

The latest site is the Bedlam cemetery. Active from 1569 to 1738 it is the final resting place of more than 3,000 people. Now archeologists are preparing to exhume the remains in an attempt to better understand the lives of 16th and 17th century residents of the city.

“This is probably the first time a sample of this size from this time period has been available for archaeologists to study in London. The Bedlam burial ground was used by a hugely diverse population from right across the social spectrum and from different areas of the City,” Jay Carver, lead archaeologist for Crossrail told the Financial Times.

The burial site which lies at the western end of Liverpool Street, took its name from the nearby Bethlehem Hospital for the Mentally Ill. The hospital, which was originally founded in 1247, was originally devoted to helping sick “paupers”. At some point between 1350 and 1400 it began to specialize in mental illness, becoming England’s first mental institution. It was the local population that shortened the name from Bethlehem to Bedlam

In 1247 the Priory of St Mary of Bethlehem was founded, devoted to healing sick paupers. The small establishment became known as Bethlehem Hospital. Londoners later abbreviated this to ‘Bethlem’ and often pronounced it ‘Bedlam’.

It is from that hospital that the term “bedlam” meaning “a very noisy and confused state or scene” or “a lunatic asylum” finds its origin. Few of the hospital’s patients are believed to be buried in the cemetery, but it was a resting place for those on the fringes of society. Among those people, plague is thought to have been the most common cause of death.

A team of 60 experts will work six shifts per week at the site until September in order to complete the work on time so that the Liverpool Street Crossrail station can be built.

Researchers hope to gain new insight into the diet and lifestyle of London’s 16th and 17th century inhabitants, as well as more information on how the bacteria behind the plague developed.

The cemetery is only the first layer of the site. Beneath it experts will be able to exhume a medieval marsh and a roman road.

“Construction for Crossrail is providing rare and exciting opportunities for archaeologists to excavate and study areas of London that would ordinarily be inaccessible, such as under established road-systems. There are up to six metres of archaeology on site, in what is one of the oldest areas of the city, so we stand to learn a great deal,” said Nick Elsden, Project Manager from the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) in a statement.

Bedlam was London’s first municipal burial ground and was located just outside the original city wall.

The Crossrail project has, to date, revealed more than 10,000 artifacts from 55 million years of history.

Included among the artifacts are a 55 million piece of amber, prehistoric animal bones and human remains and items dating from the Roman period to the dawn of the industrial revolution.