Ohio Forensic Guide

( heritage-key.com ) Scientists announced that bones excavated in Magdeburg Cathedral in 2008 are those of Saxon Queen Eadgyth (‘Edith of England’) who died in AD 946. Crucial scientific evidence came from teeth preserved in the upper jaw. The bones are the oldest surviving remains of an English royal burial. The original excavations were carried out by a joint team of the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt, and Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Eadgyth was the granddaughter of Alfred the Great and half-sister of Athelstan, the first acknowledged King of England. She was sent to marry Otto, King of Saxony in AD 929, and bore him at least two children before her death aged around 36. She lived most of her married life at Magdeburg and was buried in the monastery of St Maurice. Her bones were moved on at least three occasions, before being interred in an elaborated tomb in Magdeburg Cathedral in 1510. It was this tomb that was opened by German archaeologists in 2008, a tomb long expected to be empty…But instead it contained a lead box carrying the inscription “EDIT REGINE CINERES HIC SARCOPHAGVS HABET…”