nfluential medieval queen’s skeleton found alongside mummified pregnant woman, stabbed men in Barcelona monastery | Technology News
3 min readMay 30, 2026 05:17 PM IST Archaeologists in Barcelona have uncovered the skeletal remains of Elisenda of Montcada, one of medieval Europe’s most influential queens, during an excavation marking the 700th anniversary of the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Pedralbes. The investigation, carried out inside the historic monastery founded in 1326, revealed 25 skeletons spread across eight tombs. Alongside the queen’s remains, researchers also discovered several mysterious burials, including men with stab wounds to their skulls and a pregnant woman whose partially mummified remains still contained a foetus. Queen Elisenda was the wife of James II of Aragon and played a major political and religious role in medieval Catalonia. After her husband’s death in 1327, she spent the rest of her life near the monastery she had founded in Barcelona. When experts opened her tomb, they found her bones stored inside a small wooden box within a larger burial chamber divided into two sections. The scholars think that the strange arrangement represented her double status as queen on one hand and a …








