Women Were Knights Too? Archaeologists Make Unexpected Discovery in Medieval Warrior Monk Burials
upstart writes:
A collaborative study conducted by the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) and the Max Planck Institute analyzed the remains of 25 individuals interred from the 12th to 15th centuries at the Zorita de los Canes castle in Guadalajara. The team exhumed these remains from the castle's graveyard, allowing them to determine the diet, lifestyle, and causes of death of the warrior monks who belonged to the Order of Calatrava.
The results, published in the journal Scientific Reports, have determined that 23 of the individuals died in battle and that the knights of the order followed a diet typical of medieval high society, with a considerable intake of animal protein and marine fish, in an area far from the coast. Unexpectedly, Carme Rissech, a researcher at the URV, identified the remains of a woman among the warrior monks.
[...] When Carme Rissech, a researcher at the URV's Department of Basic Medical Sciences, was told that they were sending her the remains of the Calatrava knights, she couldn't quite believe that they were actually knights. As part of the MONBONES project, which studies diet and lifestyle in monasteries during the Middle Ages, her project partners analyzed the presence of carbon isotopes 14 and nitrogen 15 in the bones of the 25 individuals. They also studied animal remains, found around the castle, which complemented the information provided by the isotopes and helped them to work out the habits of the people who lived in the castle between the 12th and 15th centuries. Once she got the remains in the laboratory, Rissech studied them to determine the age, sex, morphology, and health of the individuals and to determine their lifestyle and causes of death.
Of the 25 skeletons studied, 23 showed marks compatible with violent death. These were mainly penetrating puncture wounds and blunt force injuries and were found on the parts of the body that were most vulnerable to and unprotected from the weapons of the time. "We observed many lesions on the upper part of the skull, the cheeks, and the inner part of the pelvis, which is consistent with the hypothesis that we are dealing with warriors," explains Rissech. It was by studying the bone proportions that she realized that among the warriors there was a woman.
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