Remains examined by anthropologists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
17.06.2010
It was towards the end of 2008 that researchers led by Rainer Kuhn of the Foundation for Cathedrals and Castles in Saxony-Anhalt recovered a lead coffin from what was thought to be the cenotaph of Queen Eadgyth during excavation work in Magdeburg cathedral. An international research team has now been able to confirm with a high degree of probability that the remains contained in the coffin are indeed those of Queen Eadgyth. Detailed analysis of the contents at a number of laboratories in Germany and the UK followed the discovery of the coffin. As a result, there is now little doubt as to the identity of the occupant.
For the last eighteen months, the bones, textiles, metals, and plant and insect remains found in the tomb have been examined by recognized experts in each field. The main scientific analyses have now been concluded, allowing to answer a number of key questions, including of course the most fundamental one: Do the bones in the coffin really belong to Queen Eadgyth, granddaughter of Alfred the Great, the most famous Saxon king of England? Eadgyth was 19 when she left Wessex and came to Magdeburg, where she married Otto the Great. She died in 946 A.D. at the age of 36. According to historical sources, she was originally laid to rest at the Monastery of St Maurice (Mauritiuskloster) in Magdeburg.
Anthropological studies of the bones were conducted by a team led by Professor Dr. Kurt W. Alt of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Evidence of the sex, age, and lifestyle of the corpse matches exactly the picture we have of Eadgyth from written sources. Furthermore, the evidence shows that all the bones in the coffin belonged to a single individual. Morphological and metric analysis of the skeleton points to a 30 to 40 year old woman approximately 1.57 meters tall. The bones show clear signs of an infection or possibly malnutrition when the individual was aged ten to fourteen years. The preserved head of the femur shows abrasion that is attributable to frequent horse riding - evidence of a noble lifestyle. The absence of the feet, parts of the hands and especially the skull, of which only the upper jaw remains, cannot be explained by the condition of the skeleton. The fact that these bones are missing may be due to the trade in relics or other popular religious practices that were common during the Middle Ages.
Strontium and oxygen isotope analysis can be used to establish where a person spent different parts of his or her life thanks to the chemical signals stored in the bones. In this case, it produced some fascinating results that shed further light on the life of Queen Eadgyth. The tests were conducted in two laboratories - by Corina Knipper at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany and by Dr. Alistair Pike at the University of Bristol in Englan. Both experts came independently to the same conclusion, i.e. that the woman placed in the coffin thought to be that of Eadgyth had grown up near Winchester in Wessex in the south of England. The tests performed in Bristol using a special laser ablation technique provided even more specific results. "We measured the strontium isotopes by taking minute samples from the dental enamel. This micro-sampling technique allows us to determine where a person was up to the age of fourteen by identifying certain sequences - in the same way as tree rings," explains Dr. Alistair Pike.
According to Professor Mark Horton of the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at Bristol University, the results can be linked with complete certainty to the areas where Eadgyth spent her childhood and teenage years in Wessex: "Eadgyth appears to have spent the first eight years of her life in the south of England, although she moved frequently between different locations. From the age of about nine, the isotope measurements remain constant. Eadgyth must have followed her father, King Edward the Elder, as he travelled around the kingdom during his reign. When her mother was divorced in 919 - Eadgyth was between nine and ten at that point - both were banished to a monastery, maybe Winchester or Wilton in Salisbury."
The tests conducted in Mainz also revealed that the subject had regularly consumed high status foodstuffs. This matches the nutritional patterns already identified for Magdeburg's upper classes in the medieval period. There is clearly a high proportion of animal protein and of fish, the latter probably due to the Christian practice of avoiding meat on certain days. The teeth, which were originally preserved intact, show little evidence of abrasion, suggesting that much of the food consumed by Eadgyth was soft.