CNN
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Bones believed to belong to fallen soldiers Battle of Waterloo Discovered in attic in belgium.
Scientists are now analyzing the bodies to learn more about the identities of those who died.
The battle took place on 18 June 1815 near the village of Waterloo, south of Brussels. Napoleon his Bonaparte was finally defeated by the Duke of Wellington’s allied force of 68,000, supported by his 45,000 Prussians led by Gebhard von Blücher.
More than 10,000 people are believed to have died in the battle, but only two bodies have ever been found.
Historians recently revealed that many of those who fell at Waterloo were exhumed by farmers and sold the bodies to the sugar industry for use in industrial processes.
Last November, when Bernard Wilkin, senior researcher at the Belgian National Archives, was speaking in Waterloo about the process of using bones as a kind of charcoal to refine sugar, something amazing happened.
Speaking to CNN after the talk, he said: Wilkin, I have these Prussian bones in my attic.
The man, who wished to remain anonymous, showed Wilkin a photograph of the bones and invited him to his home near the battlefield of Prancenois, where Napoleon’s army confronted the Prussians.
A few days later, Wilkin visited the man’s home and came face-to-face with the remains he had owned since the 1980s. He said he was running a “small private museum” at the time and was given the remains for display by a friend who had found them several years earlier.
Despite being a collector of Napoleonic-era memorabilia, the man told Wilkin that he could not “ethically” display the remains, but kept them in the attic.
Wilkin says of a man who lives alone: When he saw the research we published last summer, he thought, ‘This guy knows about bones and the Napoleonic wars, and he works for the government. ”
Wilkin said he felt “a mixture of surprise and excitement” when he saw the remains.
“It was a very brutal way to die, as one of the skulls was deeply damaged by swords and bayonets,” he said.
An initial examination revealed the bodies belonged to at least four soldiers. Items found near the bones, such as leather and bone buttons, and where they were found suggested that some of the dead were Prussian soldiers.
Wilkin said: One of his demands of me was to have them buried in a dignified manner.
That’s certainly the plan, but for now an extensive forensic examination of the remains is taking place in Liège, Wilkin’s home base. Scientists hope to extract DNA to identify the dead. They also hope to do at least one facial reconstruction of her skull.
German military historian Rob Schaefer, working with the German War Graves Commission, is working with Wilkin to learn more about the soldiers.
He told CNN: As a casual observer, you might get the impression that it wasn’t all that bad, but this particular skull with major facial trauma shows for the first time just how violent those times really were. ”
Schaefer told CNN that there is a 20% to 30% chance of extracting DNA from a corpse.
he said: “It’s a long way off, but if we’re successful, our next goal is to load his DNA into a database so people can come forward if they find out they’re related.”
After encountering bones in the attic, Wilkin had another surprise in store for him.
“When I was visiting, the man said to me, ‘By the way, another man with probably four British soldiers who I found during (metal) detection next to Lion’s Mound (battlefield)’ I have a friend,” he said.
“I was blown away. This was going really crazy.”
Wilkin told CNN that the bones were later examined by Walloon Heritage Department archaeologist Dominique Bosquet. They have since been transferred to Brussels and are being studied by a team from Bosquet and the Natural History Museum and the University of Brussels.
This discovery led Wilkin and his colleagues to suspect that there were skeletons in the closets of people who lived near the battlefield.
“It’s clear that we need to talk to people who have lived there for generations,” he said, adding, “I’m sure more bones need to be returned to the Belgian authorities.” added.
