Forensic evaluation of a 750-year-old skeleton has revealed {that a} Hungarian duke was brutally murdered by at the least three assailants. Béla, Duke of Macsó, was stabbed greater than two dozen instances by weapons together with a saber and a protracted sword, in keeping with a brand new examine.
“We reconstructed the order by which the blows landed by how they overlap and the way a physique would react, then what elements of the physique can be uncovered and undergo the subsequent blows,” examine co-author Martin Trautmann, an osteoarchaeologist on the College of Helsinki, advised Dwell Science.
The workforce counted 26 accidents from concerning the time of dying — 9 to the cranium and 17 to different bones. Their examine is revealed within the February 2026 difficulty of the journal Forensic Science Worldwide: Genetics.
However the discovery of Béla’s explanation for dying is just one a part of a twisty medieval homicide thriller. Throughout an archaeological excavation in 1915, the stays of a younger man have been found at a Thirteenth-century Dominican monastery on Margaret Island, an island within the Danube River close to Budapest.
Based mostly on the placement of the burial and indicators of traumatic accidents on the bones, it was assumed that the stays belonged to Béla, a grandson of King Béla IV of Hungary who was born in about 1243, in keeping with a historic report that talked about the younger man’s assassination in 1272. That account indicated that his mutilated stays have been collected by his sister Margit and niece Erzsébet and buried within the monastery.
An preliminary investigation recognized many sword cuts on the skeleton and accidents on the cranium, however the bones went lacking throughout World Struggle II.
In 2018, the bones have been rediscovered in a picket field within the Hungarian Pure Historical past Museum. However it was unclear if the stays actually have been these of Duke Béla, so examine first creator Tamás Hajdu, an archaeologist at Eötvös Loránd College in Hungary, and colleagues got down to examine the thriller.
Skeleton examine
Their evaluation instantly hit a snag when radiocarbon courting produced a outcome that was earlier than Béla was born.
“After we obtained the primary radiocarbon outcomes, we have been shocked,” Hajdu advised Dwell Science. But when Béla ate loads of seafood, as royals of the time did, this might throw off the radiocarbon date, Hajdu mentioned. That is due to the reservoir impact, by which aquatic animals devour or make shells from historic carbon from the deep ocean or from outdated calcium carbonate, making their very own carbon appear older than it truly is. This outdated carbon then has the same impact on the bones of whoever eats it.
A brand new evaluation of microfossils present in calculus on the younger man’s enamel indicated that he ate bread and cooked semolina flour, in addition to loads of animal protein, as might need been anticipated of a royal. He additionally ate a major quantity of aquatic animals like fish, they discovered.
Adjusting for the shift from this marine weight loss program put the date into roughly the proper interval, Hajdu mentioned.
Subsequent, the workforce in contrast the skeleton’s DNA with DNA from two of Béla’s kin: King Béla III (lived from 1148 to 1196) and Ladislaus I (lived from 1040 to 1095). This confirmed that the long-lost skeleton belonged to the grandson of King Béla IV, so the younger man should be Béla, Duke of Macsó, the workforce reported.
Horrible accidents
An in depth examine of Béla’s skeleton delivered to mild beforehand unknown particulars of his gory dying.
Béla had defensive wounds on his arms and palms, Trautmann mentioned, so he in all probability did not have a sword or defend accessible to parry the blows. The depth of the cuts on his stays additionally counsel he wasn’t carrying armor on the time, pointing to a coordinated, premeditated assassination that may have been very bloody.
“The assault very in all probability began from the entrance, and the primary blows struck the top and the higher physique,” Trautmann mentioned. The cuts have been made with at the least two completely different weapons, an evaluation discovered. “That tells us we’ve at the least two completely different assailants,” Trautmann mentioned — one from the entrance with the saber and one from the facet with a protracted sword.
The duke probably reeled, was hit on the facet, and fell down onerous, smacking his head on the ground. “In all probability, he was very dazed after this influence and tried to fend off additional assaults along with his legs and arms, which have defensive accidents from parrying blows,” Trautmann mentioned.
One of many assailants stabbed the duke within the again, probably paralyzing him, Trautmann mentioned, and Béla was completed off with extra strikes to the top.
There have been many extra accidents than have been essential to kill him, which is named overkill in a forensic context, Trautmann mentioned, and it suggests an occasion filled with hostile feelings.
One historic account had acknowledged that Béla was killed by one other noble, Henrik Kőszegi, and his allies. Béla and Kőszegi had been associates, and Kőszegi was initially Béla’s mentor, however that ended after a misplaced battle escalated issues, Trautmann mentioned.
Rival factions of nobles have been combating for energy on the time, and Béla, as somebody with a declare on the throne, was probably seen as a risk who wanted to be assassinated. “I believe it was very private,” Trautmann mentioned.
Eleanor Graham, a forensic scientist at Northumbria College in Newcastle, England, who was not concerned within the examine, is satisfied by the identification, regardless that the preliminary radiocarbon-dating outcomes didn’t match with Béla’s lifespan, she advised Dwell Science by e mail.
“The claims made within the article are for the primary half appropriately hedged and are supported by scientific proof, together with the forensic traumatological evaluation which signifies an especially violent dying, and appears consistent with historic accounts of the duke’s demise,” Graham mentioned.
