Excavation report of a cemetery inside a castle
I’ve just been reading an excavation report of a cemetery inside a castle linked to a medieval siege. One of the burials was, from the skeletal analysis, a high status individual, but with the strange feature of having a skull embedded in the torso, this being of a lower status person. A careful reading of medieval accounts of the siege suggests that the skeleton is that of the eldest son of the noble who held the castle, who is recorded as being killed when one of the besiegers loaded his trebuchet with the only missile to hand, the head of a peasant, and by a fluke killed the young man with his shot. This is believed to be the first recorded case of the use of a serf-face to heir missile.
