Medieval Knight Found Buried Scottish Parking Lot

A medieval knight's skeleton has been found in a Scottish parking lot. The Huffington Post reported that the skeleton was discovered alongside several other bodies. The knights remains was uncovered during construction work.

A long with the remains was a sandstone slab with carvings on it and artifacts believed to be from the 13^th century, Blackfriars Monastery.

We hope to find out more about the person buried in the tomb once we remove the headstone and get to the remains underneath but our archaeologists have already dated the gravestone to the thirteenth century," said Councillor Richard Lewis who is member of the City of Edinburgh Council in a statement that was released by the Edinburgh Center for Carbon Innovation.

He also added that the discovery has "the potential to be one of the most significant and exciting archaeological discoveries in the city for many years, providing us with yet more clues as to what life was like in Medieval Edinburgh," and that "We hope to find out more about the person buried in the tomb once we remove the headstone and get to the remains underneath but our archaeologists have already dated the gravestone to the thirteenth century."

MSN reported that the building site is Edinburgh's Old Town. There were three buildings in the area that had historical significance that used to be in the area including the 18^th-century High School, the 16^th-century Royal High School and the 13^th-century Blackfriars Monastery.

The Blackfriars Monastery was destroyed in 1558 during the Protestant Reformation and the location was unknown before the archaeological dig.

"The car park had been demolished to make way for the University of Edinburgh's Edinburgh Centre of Carbon Innovation (ECCI), which will work to create and support a low carbon economy through knowledge and skills. The green building has been designed to be highly efficient and sustainable by incorporating many low carbon measures including a rainwater harvesting tank which will be placed on the site of the former car park," reported MSN.

"We always knew that the building retrofit might uncover historical artifacts, given the site's history, but this knight is an extraordinary and exciting find," Ross Murray, from Headland Archaeology, who studied at the University of Edinburgh's archaeology ECCI director Andy Kerr told MSN. "We want our new building to play a key role in shaping Scotland's future, as these historical buildings on this site did in their time."

The team leading the excavation is from Headland Archaeology. They said in a statement released by them that they group is "looking forward to post excavation analyses that will tell us more about the individual buried there."

See photo of the Knights remains here.