Nuremberg, in northern Bavaria (Germany) was one of the most important enclaves of the Holy Roman Empire and is still distinguished today by its characteristic medieval architecture such as the fortifications and towers of its Old City (Altstadt). There, in addition, one of the most famous trials in history was held, the judicial process in which leaders and officials of the Nazi regime were put before the stand.
Close collaborators of Adolf Hitler such as Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Karl Dönitz, Alfred Jodl, Franz von Papen, Alfred Rosenberg and Albert Speer sat on the defendant's bench at the end of the Second World War.
The city has changed a lot since 1946. Just a few weeks ago the construction of new apartments was going to begin in one of the modern districts of Nuremberg and a group of archaeologists carried out the necessary checks. What they found, however, was anything but routine.
The researchers expected to come across parts of the walls built during the 30 Years War (1618-1648) but what appeared in the northern half of the studied area left them stunned. They found up to eight mass graves, of which they have already excavated three completely and hope to be able to thoroughly examine the other four in the coming weeks.
According to experts from the company In Terra Veritas, a specialist in archaeological excavations, the remains belong to two separate events of the Black Death.
“At first glance you could see something surprising about the bones: their color. Over the centuries, various metal processing industries, such as foundries, were located near and inside the tombs, resulting in deposits containing metal oxides such as copper. Hence, the foundry sand dyed these bones green,” they explain in a statement.
The burials can be divided into two groups. Pits 1, 3 and 7 are located under a layer of dark brown sand that appears to be the soil excavated during the construction of the aforementioned fortification of 1634. The other group (4, 5, 6 and 8) passes through this layer and therefore it must be a little earlier.
Radiocarbon dating indicates that the construction of mass grave number four was sometime between the late 15th century and early 17th century. Two silver coins have been found in grave number two indicating that it was created shortly after 1619.
Ceramic fragments found in pit three align with this dating. Archaeologists conclude that the oldest group must date back to one of the plague epidemics that occurred between 1622 and 1634.
The dead from graves one and two were crowded with adults sitting along the southern end. On top of the lowest row of people were up to nine more individuals stacked, also in a sitting position. The corpses of babies and small children were squeezed between these "nannies" to fill all the available space. The eastern and western edges of the pit were filled with corpses in a prone position, most of them on their sides.
In the space between the layers of bodies, a thin filling of brown sand was inserted to cover the dead in the next layer. Although researchers do not yet know exactly the number of victims buried here, they have already documented almost 1,000 bodies. “We estimate that the number will increase to about 1,500,” he notes.
The Black Death was a recurring epidemic in Europe since the Great Plague of the mid-14th century, reproducing in dozens of waves. The last outbreak in Nuremberg was in the 18th century. “These catastrophic events shaped society and led to innovations such as quarantine stations outside the walls, specialized caregivers, and infrastructure designed to keep outbreaks under control,” the experts recall.
Nuremberg suffered three major and several smaller outbreaks of plague between the 16th and 17th centuries, killing 5,000 people in 1533, 10,000 in 1563, and 15,000 in 1634. With that enormous number of corpses, they could no longer be buried in cemeteries, so so the authorities emergency excavated the mass graves.
“As far as we know, this site is the largest scientifically excavated mass burial in Germany and, with the number of bodies we have estimated, possibly also the largest in Europe,” say the German archaeologists.
Anthropologist Florian Melzer, who is studying the site, says that the skeletons "are in very good condition for examination, despite the destruction that occurred. We can now detail all the information that is stored in those bones: the age and the sex of those people, the prevalence of different types of cancer or the genetic mutations shown in the skulls.
The destruction Melzer refers to is that caused by a bomb that fell on the western half of pit three in 1943, in the middle of World War II. The penetrating shock wave shattered an unknown number of bodies that could only be recovered as a large number of bone fragments.
"A discovery like this has never happened before and, honestly, no one had thought it was possible. The site is of enormous importance for the city of Nuremberg and we are working to obtain as much information as possible," says Melanie Langbein from the city's Conservation Department. of Heritage.
From an archaeological perspective, these burials offer the possibility of delving deeper into the city's society at the dawn of the Enlightenment since the dead provide a representative sample of the time. With the bodies of men and women alike, babies, children and adolescents, the general health status and age structure of the city can be examined.
