They expanded the hotel and they found a massive tomb, they all died of the plague! Archaeological discovery in Istria (PHOTO)

Archaeologists of the museum of the City of Umag excavated and put together the remains of almost 30 people who were found when the expansion of the hotel "Cittar" in Istria Novigrad started, 24sata.hr writes.

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Those are medieval bones thrown into the mass tomb, and the deceased probably died from plague or malaria.

TWO GRAVES FOR CHILDREN

As explained by the archaeologist and external associate of the Umag City Museum, Vjekoslav Ilicic, since the hotel is located near the city ramparts, the rule is to perform preventive archaeological research before construction works. And the archaeologists found a massive tomb with two graves for children in those preventive research, with the remains of the medieval buildings.

The interesting part is that the children were buried to the legs turned to the north, contrary to what is usual, southward. 

PLAGUE OR MALARIA SWEPT THROUGH THE POPULATION 

- It is evident that these people died because of an epidemic because we also found traces of lime which was used to cover up the bodies to prevent the plague and diseases from spreading. It was most probably the epidemic of plague or malaria, which was quite common at the time in Istria. We are still taking out the bones which are mostly fragmented because of the previous constructions during the years. This is a very important archaeological find, and according to the reports of the population around Novigrad, there were several such mass graves - explains Vjekoslav Illicic.

The found remains of medieval Istria inhabitants will be transported to the Museum of the City of Umag where archaeologists will clean and sort all the bones, and then, and then to the Anthropological Institute in Zagreb where the scientific anthropological analysis will determine the cause of death and the age and gender of the deceased.

(Telegraf.co.uk)