3 min learnUp to date: Could 30, 2026 05:19 PM IST
Archaeologists in Barcelona have uncovered the skeletal stays of Elisenda of Montcada, one among medieval Europe’s most influential queens, throughout an excavation marking the 700th anniversary of the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Pedralbes.
The investigation, carried out contained in the historic monastery based in 1326, revealed 25 skeletons unfold throughout eight tombs. Alongside the queen’s stays, researchers additionally found a number of mysterious burials, together with males with stab wounds to their skulls and a pregnant girl whose partially mummified stays nonetheless contained a foetus.
Queen Elisenda was the spouse of James II of Aragon and performed a serious political and spiritual function in medieval Catalonia. After her husband’s loss of life in 1327, she spent the remainder of her life close to the monastery she had based in Barcelona.
When specialists opened her tomb, they discovered her bones saved inside a small wood field inside a bigger burial chamber divided into two sections. The students assume that the unusual association represented her double standing as queen on one hand and a really pious woman on the opposite.
It seems that, in keeping with preliminary evaluation, Elisenda died at across the age of 70, affected by osteoarthritis of outdated age. Whereas she was buried in plain monastic gown, some fragments of beautiful golden embroidery silk in addition to aromatic herbs like rosemary and myrtle had been found in her burial place.
Through the excavation, many extra shocking discoveries have been made.
Within the tomb of Sobirana Olzet, believed to be the monastery’s first abbess, researchers recognized facial accidents probably brought on by a knife shortly earlier than or throughout her loss of life. One other grave, as soon as thought to belong to a medieval knight, really contained the stays of two ladies and three youngsters. One of many ladies nonetheless had a preserved ponytail connected to her cranium.
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Maybe essentially the most puzzling discovery got here from the tomb related to Francesca Saportella, the monastery’s second abbess and the queen’s niece. Archaeologists discovered the stays of not less than 9 people buried there over completely different durations. Amongst them had been 4 male skulls, all bearing stab wounds, although historians are nonetheless uncertain how the boys died or why they had been buried on the monastery.
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The identical tomb additionally contained the partially mummified torso of a pregnant girl with the stays of a foetus estimated to be between 20 and 23 weeks outdated. Researchers moreover recovered medieval papers, parchments, and fragments of sheet music that at the moment are being preserved and studied.
Scientists plan to proceed DNA evaluation on the stays to substantiate identities, uncover household relationships and seek for indicators of historic illnesses. Full outcomes from the archaeological investigation are anticipated by mid-2027.