Scientists say skeletal remains found in castle well belong to figure from 800-year-old saga
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Researchers have connected the identity of skeletal remains found in a well at Norway’s Sverresborg castle to a passage in a centuries-old Norse text.
The 800-year-old Sverris saga, which follows the story of the real-life King Sverre Sigurdsson, includes the tossing of the body of a dead man — later known as “Well-man” — down a well during a military raid in central Norway in 1197.
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It’s likely, according to the text, that raiders lobbed the body into the well to poison the main water source for locals, but little else is said about the man or who he was in the saga.
Researchers initially uncovered the bones in the castle’s well in 1938, but they were only able to carry out a visual analysis at the time. Now, scientists have an array of analytical techniques at their disposal, including genetic sequencing and radiocarbon dating.
A new study on the remains, published Friday in the Cell Press journal 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 coauthor Michael D. Martin, a professor in the department of natural history at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s University Museum in Trondheim, in a statement.
“There are a lot of these medieval and ancient remains all around Europe, and they’re increasingly being studied using genomic methods.”
The findings not only shed fresh light on what Well-man looked like but also who he was, with a surprising twist about how he ended up in a Norse saga.
