Secret Catacombs With Incredible Ancient Skeletons Covered In Priceless Jewelry

They call them the Catacomb Saints – ancient Roman corpses that were exhumed from the catacombs of Rome, given fictitious names and sent abroad as relics of saints from the 16th century to the 19th century. They were decorated with extreme lavishness, as you can see below.

But why – why would they be decorated with such luxury? Were they actually buried like this, or did something else happen? Well, they aren’t actually saints in the strict sense, though some of them may be early Christian martyrs.

During the 15th century, western Europe was shaken by the Beeldenstorm – the statue fury – a term used for outbreaks of the destruction of the religious image. During these spates of iconoclasm, Catholic art and many forms of church fittings and decoration were destroyed in unofficial or mob actions.

As the Catholic churches were systematically stripped of their icons, the Vatican came up with a rather strange solution. They ordered that thousands of skeletons be exhumed from the catacombs beneath Rome and installed in towns throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Few, if any, of the corpses belonged to people of any religious significance, but they were decorated like saints.

The skeletons became gruesome symbols of catholicism in areas dominated by protestants. It’s not clear if this move was effective at any time, but by the 19th century, they became an embarrassing symbol of past friction.

Although it was considered simony and forbidden to sell the skeletons or their jewellery, some ‘entrepreneur’ priests managed to make money from transporting them around the country and for some blessings.

In 1803, the secular magistrate of Rottenbuch in Bavaria auctioned the town’s two saints. 174 years later, in 1977, the residents of the town raised funds to have them returned, but for the most part, the catacomb saints were mostly forgotten and cast aside.

But it was their time to come in the spotlight again in 2013, when Paul Koudounaris revived interest in them with his new book, where he tried to photograph and document each and every one of the catacomb saints. It’s unclear if he actually did, but he certainly managed to bring them into the public eye. He explains:

‘After they were found in the Roman catacombs the Vatican authorities would sign certificates identifying them as martyrs then they put the bones in boxes and sent them northwards.  The skeletons would then be dressed and decorated in jewels, gold and silver, mostly by nuns.

‘They had to be handled by those who had taken a sacred vow to the church – these were believed to be martyrs and they couldn’t have just anyone handling them. They were symbols of the faith triumphant and were made saints in the municipalities. One of the reasons they were so important was not for their spiritual merit, which was pretty dubious, but for their social importance.

He also adds that as time passed, their significance changed, becoming from religious symbols, to city symbols.

‘They were thought to be miraculous and really solidified people’s bond with a town. This reaffirmed the prestige of the town itself.’
He added: ‘It’s impossible to put a modern-day value on the skeletons.’

What was Otzi the Iceman’s last meal, 5,300 years ago?

In 1991, German tourists discovered, in the Eastern Italian Alps, a human body that was later determined to be the oldest naturally preserved ice mummy, known as Otzi or the Iceman.

Now, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on July 12 who have conducted the first in-depth analysis of the Iceman’s stomach contents offer a rare glimpse of our ancestor’s ancient dietary habits. Among other things, their findings show that the Iceman’s last meal was heavy on fat.

The findings offer important insights into the nutritional habits of European individuals, going back more than 5,000 years to the Copper Age. They also offer clues as to how our ancient ancestors handled food preparation.

“By using a complementary multi-omics approach combined with microscopy, we reconstructed the Iceman’s last meal, showing that he has had a remarkably high proportion of fat in his diet, supplemented with wild meat from ibex and red deer, cereals from einkorn, and with traces of toxic bracken,” says Frank Maixner of the Eurac Research Institute for Mummy Studies in Bolzano, Italy. Bracken is a genus of large ferns.

Maixner and colleagues, including Albert Zink, explain that the analysis hadn’t happened earlier because scientists were initially unable to identify the Iceman’s stomach. That’s because it had moved up during the mummification process. In 2009, his stomach was spotted during a re-investigation of CT scans, and an effort to analyze its contents was launched.

“The stomach material was, compared to previously analyzed lower intestine samples, extraordinarily well preserved, and it also contained large amounts of unique biomolecules such as lipids, which opened new methodological opportunities to address our questions about Otzi’s diet,” Maixner says.

The researchers combined classical microscopic and modern molecular approaches to determine the exact composition of the Iceman’s diet prior to his death.

The broad-spectrum approach allowed them to make inferences based on ancient DNA, proteins, metabolites, and lipids.

The analysis identified ibex adipose tissue as the most likely fat source. In fact, about half of the stomach contents were composed of adipose fat.

While the high-fat diet was unexpected, the researchers say it “totally makes sense” given the extreme alpine environment in which the Iceman lived and where he was found.

“The high and cold environment is particularly challenging for the human physiology and requires optimal nutrient supply to avoid rapid starvation and energy loss,” says Albert Zink, also at the Eurac Research Institute for Mummy Studies. “The Iceman seemed to have been fully aware that fat represents an excellent energy source.”

The analysis indicated that the wild meat was eaten fresh or perhaps dried. While the presence of toxic bracken particles is more difficult to explain, the researchers say it’s possible that the Iceman suffered from intestinal problems related to parasites found earlier in his gut and took the bracken as a medicine. On the other hand, he may have used the fern’s leaves to wrap food and ingested toxic spores unintentionally.

Their analysis also revealed traces of the original gut bacterial community present in the Iceman’s intestinal contents.

The researchers say they plan to conduct further studies aimed to reconstruct the ancient gut microbiomes of the Iceman and other mummified human remains.