Archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research, excavating Sverresborg Castle in Trondheim, they found a 800-year-old human skeleton at the bottom of a well which confirms the historical facts narrated in the Viking sagas .
The location and contents of the well are mentioned in the Sverre Saga, one of the chronicles of the kings of Norway, which is at the same time one of the few manuscripts describing the events of the Viking Age during the Middle Ages.
The veracity of this manuscript as a document has been controversial since its discovery, but now a part of it has been confirmed with archaeological evidence, with a level of detail that has surprised researchers.
According to Anna Petersen, who led the team of archaeologists, it is the first time that the remains of an individual historically connected to such a remote act of war have been found, which corroborates what is described in the Sverre Saga and dated to the year 1197.
According to the sagas in that year the king Sverre Sigurdsson and the mercenaries of him Birkebeiner they were attacked and defeated in the castle by their rivals the Baglers . They would have burned the building and destroyed the water supply to the castle by throwing one of Sverre's men into the well and later covering it with stones.
The Birkebeiners they were a rebellious group of peasant warriors who took up arms against King Magnus V and came to power in 1184. They were so poor that instead of shoes they wore strips of birch bark, hence the nickname birkbeiner (literally birch legs ) given to them by their enemies.
The Baglers On the contrary, they were the faction of the Norwegian aristocracy, which also included priests and merchants. They were grouped around the pretender Inge Magnusson, with the aim of deposing Sverre I of Norway from the throne.
The pit and skeleton were discovered during a test pit in 2014, and a full excavation was carried out in 2016, to recover it and submit it to radiocarbon tests, which have confirmed that the individual died at the end of the 12th century, the same time mentioned in the sagas.
Sverresborg Castle , also called Sion (after King David's castle in Jerusalem), was built by King Sverre in the medieval city of Nidaros (now Trondheim) in 1183 and is said to be one of the first fortresses built in Norway. After the battle of 1197 the castle was rebuilt at some point, it is not known exactly when.
Possibly by Sverre himself, who survived the battle and continued to reign until his death in 1202. Since 1909 the castle has housed one of the most important historical and cultural museums in the country.