Researchers crack medieval mystery in Frankfurt child grave

Frankfurt's St. Bartholomäus Cathedral added one more milestone to its 1,300-year history this month. An archaeological team revealed that a mysterious grave - the focus of over 20 years of research - contained not one, but two children believed to have noble roots. They also revised the year of death from roughly the year 850 to more than a century earlier, at some point before 730.

The 1992 excavation under the cathedral led to the discovery of the remains of a young girl. She was bedecked with golden jewelry, and these filigree rings adorned her fingers. The finery in the grave has its origins in the Merovingian Dynasty, the united group of Frankish tribes that conquered parts of northern France and paved the way for Christianity in modern-day Hesse and Thuringia.

The archaeological team first believed that the girl had been buried around the year 850, because she was laid to rest along the central axis of the cathedral (marked in red) around the time of its construction. However, further analysis led them not only to revise the year of death but also to discover that she had not been buried alone.

The grave also contained ashes. The scientists didn't realize at first that they contained the remains of another child, who was also estimated to be around 4 years old. The presence of bear claws, as well as other animal bones, pointed to a pagan tradition likely brought down by Scandinavian settlers during the sixth century.

Signs of Scandinavian influence also appear in the girl's necklace, whose center medallion originated in northern Europe. Researchers don't know anything about the link between the children, but given their prominence on the church grounds they believe that locals honored them for centuries after their death.

A gold-trimmed cross adorning the children's shroud indicates that the burial was Christian. With the presence of old German pagan rituals, the grave reflects a time in which the lower Rhine River region was undergoing a religious transition.

Researchers have that if the girl was nobility, she might have been related to the powerful Hedenen family, the same family from which Charlemagne (742-814) selected his fourth wife, Fastrada. And it was in the same cathedral in 794 where he held the Council of Frankfurt, his most important council of Western bishops, with whom he lay the theological groundwork for his Holy Roman Empire.