Боярыня МОРОЗОВА.Репетитор английского и фотограф.
Образование · 20 августа 2026 г.
Daily PRESS. — 20 августа 2026 г. в 15:46:33.535
Daily PRESS. NEWS. A 14th-Century Skeleton Had Injuries That Looked Like a Car Crash. What Killed Him? Researchers believe a young man buried inside a Scottish castle was a victim of the long-feared siege weapon, more powerful than a typical catapult. Today, Stirling Castle is a tourist destination nestled in the quiet hills of Scotland, but in 1304, it was a war zone. That’s when, after years of off-and-on fighting, the English captured the castle during a violent siege. Now, new research suggests that one of the shattered skeletons from this battle might be the first confirmed victim of the terrifying war catapult known as the trebuchet. The extensive injuries to this smashed skeleton, called Skeleton 150 by archaeologists, suggested to researchers that the bones were most likely broken by the high-speed and high-force impact of a trebuchet projectile. The finding was presented at the 25th meeting of the Paleopathology Association, which was held earlier this month in Berlin. “I was piecing all of these things together and then asking, ‘Well, what’s happening in medieval Stirling that could explain this?’” said Dr. Jo Buckberry, a biological anthropologist at the University of Bradford in Bradford, England, who presented the finding. “The obvious answer is the use of the trebuchets.” While the answer may seem obvious to researchers now, decades passed between the discovery of Skeleton 150 and the determination of his cause of death. The skeleton was excavated in 1997, when Historic Environment Scotland, the country’s conservator of heritage sites, was refurbishing the palace. Skeleton 150, alongside several others, was found under the floor of the castle’s royal chapel. This burial place was unusual, and suggested that those conducting the funerals were unable to access typical burial places outside the castle walls. This indicated to the researchers that the bones might date to the 1304 battle after which the English took control of Stirling.