Child’s Coffin Discovered at the Real Alcázar of Seville

SEVILLE, SPAIN—El País reports that the remains of a child were discovered under the floor near the main altar in the chapel at the Real Alcázar of Seville, a royal palace in southern Spain. The burial was found during work to restore the palace’s sixteenth-century ceramic tiles. The child, who was approximately five years old at the time of death, was placed in a wooden coffin inside a lead sarcophagus. Pieces of fabric, shoe leather, and two mother-of-pearl buttons were found in the coffin, in addition to hair and skeletal remains. Archaeologist Miguel Ángel Tabales suggests that the child was the member of a powerful family who died sometime between the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and her remains were moved to the area of the altar when the chapel floor was repaved in the early twentieth century. “We have not found any documentation to confirm it, but the lead coffin was surrounded by a cist [stone coffin] made from reused bricks held together with [modern] cement,” he explained. Careful examination of markings on the coffin could reveal the child’s identity. The researchers expect to find additional remains in the chapel basement. To read about a Visigothic capital city that was built in central Spain amid the final collapse of the Roman Empire, go to "The Visigoths' Imperial Ambitions."