Elena Gocmen Rueda
AN investigation is ongoing to see if the skeleton found in the Real Alcazar of Sevilla could be those of a noble child.
The remains of a 4-year-old girl were found under the main altar, suggesting that she was the daughter of a very prominent family dating back to the 15th century.
The discovery was made in April during work being carried out in the chapel of the Gothic Palace, during the restoration project of its ceramic tiles.
A preliminary survey to study the possibility of installing an airing chamber to guarantee the chapel’s preservation had revealed the funerary remains.
Workers discovered that a lead coffin contained the remains of the child, said to be in a relatively good state of preservation and dressed with fabrics, shoes, leather and mother-of-pearl buttons.
Even parts of the girl’s hair remain. The quality of her clothing points to her being a member of a wealthy and possibly noble family.
By the position of the bones when unearthed, her hands would have been folded across her chest when she was buried.
The finding was ‘relatively expected’, said archaeologist Miguel Angel Tabales, as the chapel must have housed a crypt or at least burials.
But he was worried that significant construction and renovation work undertaken down the centuries could have seen human remains moved, but fortunately this has not been the case.
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