Mass grave of plague victims discovered in Germany, potentially the largest in European history

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Archaeologists have unearthed the skeletal remains of around 1,000 Black Death victims in southern Germany in what may be the largest mass grave of its kind in Europe.

Excavations in Nuremberg, which preceded the construction of new apartment buildings in the city, uncovered eight pits each filled with hundreds of adult, child and baby bones dating from the late 15th to early 17th centuries. Ta.

Archaeological excavation company In Terra Verita said in a statement that so far three of the pits have been fully excavated and the remaining four will be investigated in the coming weeks. Ta.

“A discovery like this has never happened before and honestly, no one thought this was possible. This site is of great importance to the city of Nuremberg and we will do everything possible to We’re working with them to get all the information we can,” said Melanie Langbein of the city’s Heritage Preservation Office.

In two mass graves, the dead were packed tightly together with adult skeletons in a sitting position along the southern edge of the pit.

The excavation company said about nine more people were sitting on top of these skeletons.

The corpses of children and babies were stuffed into holes between the “sitters”, as if in an attempt to fill all the available space.

In one of the pits, nearly 300 bodies were unearthed.

However, evidence of excavations carried out after an unknown number of bodies were buried suggests that we may never know exactly how many people were originally buried there.

The archaeological excavation company said nearly 1,000 bodies have been found in the holes excavated so far, recorded and undergoing further testing, and that number is expected to rise to about 1,500.

“Despite the destruction, the skeleton is in very good condition for examination,” anthropologist Florian Meltzer said.

“Now we can learn more about all the information stored in these bones, including the susceptibility of different types of cancer, the genetic mutations that appear in the skull, the determination of age and gender, and the condition, and the conclusion from that to general health and life, etc. That is the situation at this time,” he added.

The Black Death killed hundreds of thousands of people in Europe in dozens of episodes between the 14th and 18th centuries.

According to previous research, the population of the Nuremberg area was affected by three major epidemics and several smaller epidemics between the 16th and 17th centuries, with more than 5,000 people dying in 1533 and one in 1563. Approximately 10,000 people died in 1634, and nearly 15,000 in 1634.

“As far as we know, this site is the largest scientifically excavated mass grave in Germany and probably the largest in Europe in terms of the number of estimated bodies,” Terra Verita said.