[MR] History Blog: Walls of Medieval Bones Found in Ghent

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends,

Wow! This is pretty bizarre. Workers at Saint Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent
discovered nine bone walls during foundation work on an expansion project.
The walls were largely built from carefully stacked leg bones, with parts
of skulls used as infill. Tests show the bones date to the 15th century,
though the walls are thought to be 17th century:
http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/57901 .

Saint Bavo's is home to the 15th Ghent Altarpiece by the Van Eyck brothers,
one of the world's great art treasures. The construction is to build a new
home for the Altarpiece. The Altarpiece was stolen by the Nazis during
WWII. Its recovery by a special team of mostly American art detectives was
explored factually in the book THE MONUMENTS MEN, and in the 2014 film
adaptation (an excellent movie with a great deal of heart, though
star/producer George Clooney had to take some major liberties in the
interest of good storytelling):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monuments_Men .

To bring us back to the medieval, Wikipedia offers an extensive article on
the Ghent Altarpiece at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghent_Altarpiece .

There is also a nice article on Saint Bavo's Cathedral at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Bavo%27s_Cathedral,_Ghent .

Yours Aye,

Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆