Apparently, car parks, or parking lots as well call them, seem to be the place for finding medieval skeletons. First there was King Richard III, found in a car park in Leicester. And now another bloke, a medieval knight, was found when construction workers were making way for a new building for the University of Edinburgh.
According to a BBC article,the thirteenth century knight was buried on the site of a monastery of the same age. It was already known the area had been the site of the 18th Century Old High School, the 16th Century Royal High School and the 13th Century Blackfriars Monastery.
Along with the knight or nobleman's grave and skeleton, the excavation has revealed the exact location of the monastery, which was founded in 1230 by Alexander II (King of Scotland 1214-49) and destroyed during the Protestant Reformation in 1558.
You can more of the story here.
One time at the medieval conference at Leeds, I attended most of the archaeology sessions and I swear the all started with:"While they were digging for a carpark, they found_____ and called us in."
Posted by: Shelly | March 13, 2013 at 10:14 AM
That's funny, Shelly. And when you consider it wasn't all that long ago--compared to, say, an Aztec mummy--it seems sad that these burial places, monasteries et al, should so vanish.
Posted by: Jeri Westerson | March 13, 2013 at 04:02 PM