THE REMAINS OF A SKELETON IN THE HISTORY OF A REGION

Abstract

During excavation works for the renovation of a house lying at the Citadel foot of
Namur (Belgium), skeletal remains were discovered. With members of the DVI, we
exhumed bones fragments, including both hip bones which the left one was still connected. At the medial face of the left femur shaft, we find a concretion whose core consists of a bomb mortar fragment. In the neighborhood of these bony parts, ceramics
fragments dated from the 17th and 18th centuries, animal bones and an ancient bulletlike were found. The anthropological study of the bones fragments after some reconstruction established that they belonged to a male adult of average stature.
The archaeological history of the site reveals that the dwelling house is located in a
ravine « Le ravin de la Foliette » under the crossfire of two fortified places. We can
therefore hypothesize that the skeleton remains are from a civilian or a soldier wounded by bomb fragments during one of the military sieges of Namur.