Mystery over 'female' remains found on male-only Greek mountain

Discovery of remains in all-male monastic community in northern Greece poses questions

Laura Wynn-Antikas specialises in bringing bones to life. Decades spent studying skeletal remains across Greece, in subterranean vaults, tombs, chapels and archaeological sites, have yielded a host of unexpected discoveries. "You never know what you are going to find," the American-born anthropologist said. "Bones don't lie. They will tell you how a person lived and perhaps even how they died. You go in prepared to see everything."

But when Wynn-Antikas was called to examine bones unearthed beneath the stone floor of a Byzantine chapel in the all-male monastic republic of Mount Athos even she was surprised. Some were so small they bore little resemblance to men's at all.