The living and the dead of Medieval Edinburgh

  

I chanced upon a BBC News article which led me to other online sites which report on discoveries made in studying more than a hundred skeletons found in 1981 in excavations within St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh

Edinburgh 900 was been a celebration marking the novocentenary of the charter in 1124 from King David I founding the burgh and his establishment of St Giles as its mother church.

The official video about the project and the facial reconstruction of five of the individuals can be seen at 

🔎 Edinburghs first burghers

 

The BBC News article which first alerted me to the whole project, and which concentrates on a male teenager who died from the plague in the mid-fourteenth century, can be seen at First scientific evidence of Black Death in Edinburgh found on skeleton

The scientific skills involved in such work continue to advance and are very impressive indeed.

Writing this it strikes me that this is a very suitable subject for All Souls and November Dead Lists as we recall those who were here before us, and that their residual mortal remains can still reveal that they were once flesh and blood, as well as bones, like us.