Overview
- A multidisciplinary team opened eight of the oldest tombs at the Royal Monastery of St. Mary of Pedralbes as part of preparatory work for the site’s 700th anniversary and documented their contents.
- Researchers confirmed the remains of Queen Elisenda of Montcada inside a medieval wooden box where she was buried in plain monastic dress with fragments of silk and botanical offerings and showed bone disease consistent with about age 70.
- The eight chambers together contained 25 skeletons, far more than expected, and showed clear evidence of tomb reuse and mismatches with traditional attributions such as the absence of the knight Artau de Foces in his assigned tomb.
- Multiple individuals displayed traumatic injuries, including several skull stab wounds, a partially mummified pregnant torso, and a preserved ponytail, leaving questions about violence and timing of deaths at the monastery.
- Teams collected over 200 archaeobotanical samples plus DNA traces and plan coordinated laboratory work through at least 2027 to establish identities, family ties, burial dates, causes of injury, and to reassess historical attributions.