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Researchers have linked the identity of skeletal remains found in a well in Norway’s Sverresborg Castle to a passage in a centuries-old Norwegian text.
The 800-year-old Saga of Sverris, which follows the story of the real king Sverre Sigurdsson, involves the dumping of the body of a dead man – later known as “The Good Man” – into a well during a military raid in central Norway in 1197.
It is likely, according to the text, that the attackers put the body in the well to poison the main water source for the locals, but little more is said about the man or who he was in the saga.
Researchers first discovered the bones in the castle well in 1938, but they were only able to perform a visual analysis at the time. Scientists now have a variety of analytical techniques at their disposal, including genetic sequencing and radiocarbon dating.
A new study on the remains, published Friday in the journal Cell Press iScience, reveals unprecedented insights into Well-man’s appearance based on in-depth research on samples of his teeth.
“This is the first time that a person described in these historical texts has actually been found,” said study co-author Michael D. Martin, a professor in the department of natural history at the University Museum of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. , in a statement.
“There are many of these medieval and ancient remains across Europe, and they are increasingly being studied using genomic methods.”
The findings not only shed new light on what Well-man looked like, but who he was, with a surprising twist on how he ended up in a Norse saga.
The Sverris Saga is a window into the ambitious rise of King Sverre, who lived from 1152 to 1202 and reigned over Norway during the second half of the 12th century. The text includes revelations about Norway’s early history, describing periods of political instability and conflict – with wars caused by disputes over who would succeed to the throne after King Sigurd Munn, according to the study.
Sverre threw his name into the mix when he claimed to be Munn’s son. Munn was killed by his brother in 1155, which caused subsequent strife.
While many of the Norse sagas derive from oral traditions and older lost manuscripts, the story of Sverris appears to have been written along with the events described within it – by someone close to the king. The text is rich in detail, including full names, locations, battles and military strategy, as well as Sverre’s speeches.
Throughout the story, Sverre’s men are referred to as Birkebeiner, meaning “birch foot,” said to be due to their use of primitive birch bark as shoes and foot coverings. Meanwhile, Sverre’s opponents, organized by representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, were called Baglers, derived from the Norwegian “bagall”, which means “bishop’s stick”, the authors of the study noted.
In 1197, while King Sverre wintered in Bergen along Norway’s west coast, the Baglers launched a surprise attack hundreds of miles away against Sverresborg Castle, which the monarch had built in 1180 in what is now the city of Trondheim. Bagler’s army entered the fort through a secret door while residents were having dinner, burning everything inside, according to the study.
Well-man appears in one line in the text: “They took a dead man and threw him into the well and filled him with stones.”
Some of his skeletal remains were discovered under large stones during a well excavation in 1938. More of his remains were discovered in new excavations in 2014 and 2016 along the south side of the well, including parts of his left hand (the left arm was missing) and the skull, which researchers found detached from the body.
Research conducted in conjunction with the most recent excavations suggested that the remains belonged to a man between 30 and 40 years old at the time of death. It has been difficult for scientists to determine how much of the trauma recorded by his bones occurred after death, but a sharp injury to the back of the left skull, as well as two sharp cuts to the skull, are likely happened before he died. according to the authors of the study.
For the latest study, Martin and his colleagues wanted to piece together the historical, archaeological and genetic context for Well-man’s remains.
An initial radiocarbon dating analysis helped the research team confirm that Well-man’s remains were about 900 years old, which matches the timeline in the Sverris saga.
The team hoped to sequence Well-man’s genome from his bones, given that they appeared to be in good condition, but surprisingly, the DNA was poorly preserved within them, Martin said.
The main author of the study Dr. Martin Ellegaard at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology instead used samples of a tooth to sequence the genome, which enabled the team to find that Well-man likely had a medium skin tone, blue eyes and blond or easy. – brown hair.
The researchers collaborated with Agnar Helgason to compare Well-man’s genome with the genomes of anonymous modern Norwegians stored in reference databases at Iceland’s DeCODE Genetics, where Helgason is head of anthropology.
The results showed that Well-man was closely related to people in southern Norway.
King Sverre’s defeated army came from parts of central Norway, while the raiding Baglers came from the south.
“The biggest surprise to all of us was that Well-man did not come from the local population, but that his ancestry went back to a specific region in southern Norway. This suggests that the besieging army threw one of their dead into the well,” Martin said.
While it is impossible to know the true intention of the Baglers when they threw the body down the well, the saga of Sverris says that the attackers wanted to make the castle uninhabitable and defenseless for King Sverre and his people.
Placing a corpse in the only nearby source of drinking water would cause contamination, which could have been compounded if Well-man had a disease. No pathogens were detected during the study of Well-man’s teeth, but this may have been due to the destructive techniques used in examining the tooth.
To sequence Well-man’s genome, the researchers had to remove the outer surface of the tooth to avoid contamination from whoever had previously handled it during excavation, and then ground half of the tooth into powder, meaning that the sample cannot be used for the future. the tests. But other teeth from the remains can be tested.
“Although there are other teeth available from this individual, we need to consider whether new techniques in the future will provide additional information than is available with today’s methods,” Ellegaard said. “Another consideration is the scientific value we get. In this case we have only one side of the story – the saga – which has a clear agenda, and so here we can justify our approach of validating the one-sided written words, as opposed to if there were several records or tools other available data.”
Maja Krzewińska, a researcher at the Center for Paleogenetics in Stockholm, Sweden, found the study’s methodology to be well executed, but said she was most impressed that the remains could be linked to an event described in a historical source. Krzewińska was not involved in the study.
“There is always uncertainty about such old descriptions, so finding a well-dated male skeleton in this context already adds to the interpretation,” Krzewińska wrote in an email.
“However, showing that its genetic origin may have been in southern Norway rather than central Norway, as originally expected, changes our perception of the circumstances surrounding the conquerors’ decision to deposit this particular human corpse in the well. It opens up new possibilities for interpretation (why the body was dumped) and allows for deeper understanding and new insights into stories we thought were largely understood.
While Well-man’s exact identity may never be known, he is now more than just the anonymous “dead man” from the saga, Martin said.
“Archaeological science, ancient DNA and genetic analysis give us tools to separate fact from fiction, which should ultimately give us a more objective and complete picture of human history,” Martin said.