Many bones were damaged as a consequence of bombs dropped near the Großweidenmühle district of the city of Nuremberg (Bavaria, southeastern Germany) during World War II. Many others are also strikingly green, waste from a copper foundry having been dumped at the site of their identification. But this does not diminish the historical significance of their discovery. These skeletal remains could be those of the largest mass grave of victims of the Black Death ever unearthed in Europe.
As noted in the Science section of Spiegel Online on February 16, 2024, archaeologists did not expect anything particular when they preemptively excavated this district of Nuremberg—except perhaps to uncover remnants of a Thirty Years’ War fortification (1618-1648) or an old 19th-century children’s home.
They eventually stumbled upon the centuries-old remains of 650 individuals, possible victims of the Yersinia pestis bacterium. And hundreds more, up to 1,500, could be excavated in the coming weeks.
Several Black Death Outbreaks in Nuremberg
Many of history’s most devastating pandemics have a connection to the Yersinia pestis bacterium, which causes bubonic plague. Notably, the Black Death of the 14th century, which is said to have decimated at least a third of Europe’s population, Throughout the ages, this highly contagious infection has frequently resurfaced, such that after the initial wave, local epidemics persisted for about four centuries, ravaging cities.
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Nuremberg was no exception; it struck several times between the Middle Ages and the modern period. The city even has a famous cemetery, Saint Roch, created to bury the victims of the 1517–1518 plague epidemic. To prevent the spread of the disease, authorities built it at a distance, outside the walls of the old town.
Radiocarbon dating on remains from one of the newly detected graves places it later than the Saint Roch cemetery, between the late 15th and early 17th centuries. With the discovery of two coins from 1619 and 1621, archaeologists from the Bamberg-based company In Terra Veritas, in charge of the excavations, are “fairly certain” that the mass grave could have housed victims of the 1632–1633 Nuremberg epidemic.
A contemporary source mentions a very precise number of potential victims: 15,661 inhabitants, or more than a third of the city’s population at the time. However, the same note seems to indicate that about 2,000 of them were buried at the site under study here, behind the old city wall. However, according to specialists, the bones unearthed there indicate something much more desperate and devastating than at Saint Roch.
“No distinction of gender, age, or social status”
In the eight detected mass graves, the dead were not buried in an ordinary cemetery and according to Christian burial rites—meaning a large number of people who had died had to be buried in a short period, regardless of Christian burial practices,” said Melanie Langbein, from Nuremberg’s heritage conservation department, to CNN.
An archive clue speaks of a nearby plague hospital. The expert assumes that not only the hospice dead were buried in the graves but also those found in the city. During the various waves of the epidemic, streets were traversed with carts to quickly collect and transport contagious victims to mass graves—poor and rich, men and women, young and old alike.
Because, unlike regular cemeteries or graves dug after battles, researchers found in the graves a representative sample of the population.
“The graves contain the mortal remains of children and the elderly, men and women; the plague made no distinction of gender, age, or social status,” explained Nuremberg Mayor Marcus König to Spiegel Online. Due to space and time considerations, everyone was pressed together. Some were simply wrapped in shrouds, others clothed—many buttons, hooks, eyelets, and buckles were found in the “overcrowded” graves.
Reconstructing the Lives of 17th-century Nurembergers
The Black Death is indeed the prime suspect. However, scientists must confirm this through anthropological and archaeogenetic analyses. Since the disease leaves no visible traces on bones, DNA studies should confirm traces of Yersinia pestis.
If so, it is assumed that by spring and the end of the work, the site “will be the largest emergency cemetery for plague victims ever excavated in Europe.” Never before on the continent have so many “plague-ridden” remains been identified in one place.
Whatever the case may be, “the mass grave is a huge research opportunity,” archaeologist Julian Decker, director of In Terra Veritas, explained to our colleagues. “It can help us better understand the life and suffering of 17th-century people.” Like in Cambridge, where skeletons help reconstruct the forgotten lives of medieval inhabitants, these bones and teeth could indeed help estimate diet and recurring physical ailments and offer multiple other insights into the ancient Bavarian population.