Napoleonic-era mass grave discovered beneath cellars in the Czech Republic
Skeletons of 12 men believed to have fought in the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 have been discovered in Brno.
Reconstruction work in the cellars of a house in the city of Brno, south-east Czech Republic, has revealed the skeletons of 12 men, thought to be soldiers who fought in the Napoleonic wars.
The bodies were aged between 20 to 30 years old, and had been placed in a previously unknown mass grave. As the grave
The Art Newspaper
November 2, 2021
© Patrick Müller/Flickr
offered no clues about the individuals’ identities, or even when they were buried, a team of researchers examined the bodies to reconstruct their lives and deaths.
“The analysis of the skeletons was very complex,” says Katerina Vymazalova, an assistant professor in the department of anatomy at Masaryk University, Brno, and one of the authors of the paper. “We were able to determine the sex and approximate age at the time of death of the individuals. Paleopathological analysis revealed war wounds, including amputation of part of the femur. Using the radiocarbon method, the skeletons were dated to the early 19th century".
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