The relics of Charlemagne, long on display at a treasury in Germany, are likely the real bones of the Frankish king, scientists say.
Last Tuesday (Jan. 28) marked exactly 1,200 years since Charlemagne died in A.D. 814. To commemorate the occasion, a group of scientists at the Cathedral of Aachen gave a summary of the research that has been conducted on the king's bones, stretching back to 1988.
Like many saints whose body parts were scattered in various reliquaries, Charlemagne was not left to rest in one piece. (Charlemagne was actually canonized by the "antipope" Paschal III in the 12th century, though the Holy See rejected his sainthood.)
Part of Charlemagne's skull is kept in a bejeweled bust, intricately decorated with gold and silver, at Aachen. The church — which was built as Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site — is also home to relics of the king's arm and leg bones, as well as a marble sarcophagus containing most of the body. Smaller bits Charlemagne's skeleton may have been distributed elsewhere over the centuries; a 14th-century church in Prague even lays claim to some of Charlemagne's teeth. [Religious Mysteries: 8 Alleged Relics of Jesus]
Though there's no way for scientists to authenticate the bones definitively, the fragments at Aachen examined by scientists over the past 26 years, point to a match with Charlemagne.
"The evidence is that the isolated bones fit the ones in the sarcophagus, also that they belong to an older male individual," Rühli said in an email to LiveScience.
"There is always doubt about this kind of bones, still I am quite sure (but not 100%) that they may belong to him," Rühli wrote.
No further tests have yet been planned on Charlemagne's skeleton, Rühli said, though a news release about the scientists' summary noted that a DNA analysis might eventually help confirm that the bones in the known reliquaries belong to one person.
- Meghan Gannon, LiveScience
Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. This is a condensed report that appeared on LiveScience. Read the original article.
- 8 Grisly Archaeological Discoveries
- 10 Epic Battles that Changed History
- Gallery: In Search of the Grave of Richard III
Copyright 2014 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.