When archaeologists opened up eight graves in a 14th-century monastery in Barcelona, they were surprised to find 25 skeletons, including the remains of a medieval queen.
They studied the queen’s remains in honor of the 700th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria Pedralbes in Barcelona. The monastery was founded by Queen Elisenda of Montcada, the wife of James II of Aragon and Valencia.
The queen was buried in a small wooden box and dressed in simple clothing. Among the graves of Elisenda’s inner circle were men who had been stabbed to death, as well as a woman who died halfway through pregnancy.
Elisenda was 30 years old when she married 55-year-old James II. They got married one month after his third wife died. She became the stepmother to his 10 children.
From 1291 until his death in 1327, James II ruled over Aragon and Valencia, now known as eastern Spain. Toward the end of his life, he became ill.
That was when Elisenda founded a monastery for the Order of the Poor Clares, a group of Catholic nuns. After her husband died, she lived in a small palace next to the Pedralbes monastery until she passed away in 1364.
When the archaeologists opened up Elisenda’s tomb, they discovered a box of her bones in a corner between the church and the cloister that was divided into two by a low wall. This likely represented the fact that the queen was both a sovereign and a penitent.
An analysis of her bones revealed that she was about 70 years old at the time of her death. Her remains showed evidence of osteoarthritis associated with aging.
She was laid to rest in a plain monastic habit, but there were traces of gold-embroidered silk, rosemary, and myrtle.
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The researchers also noticed a traumatic facial injury that occurred shortly before or at the time of her death. The wound appeared to have been made using a knife. The research team is still investigating the injury.
Another tomb that was previously believed to have belonged to the knight Artau de Foces actually contained the bones of five people: two adult women and three children. One woman had a long ponytail that was still preserved and attached to her skull.
The tomb thought to belong to Francesca Saportella, the second abbess of Pedralbes and the queen’s niece, contained the bones of at least nine people.
They were interred at different times. There were four male skulls with stab wounds and the mummified torso of a woman who was carrying a 20- to 23-week-old fetus. Papers and parchment, including sheet music, were recovered as well.
“The study of the foundational graves offers a unique opportunity to delve deeper into the first decades of the monastery’s life, a decisive period for understanding its evolution and its role within medieval Catalan society,” wrote the Culture Institute of Barcelona in a statement.
So far, only 6% of Queen Elisenda’s genome has been sequenced. Overall, the research team plans to use DNA from bone and teeth samples to learn more about the identities of the skeletons in the tombs.
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
