Skeleton holds key to Holy Roman cathedral
The discovery of a dusty skeleton has revealed one of the most important churches in mediaeval history: a cathedral built by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto the Great in the 10th century.
"This is one of the biggest finds in recent years in the history of mediaeval archaeology," said Dr Babette Ludowici, an archaeologist at the Centre of East Central European History and Culture in Magdeburg.
Many historians regard Otto I, king of the Germans from 936 to 973 AD, as the architect of the Holy Roman Empire, ruling an area encompassing modern Germany, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, eastern France and northern Italy.
Ludowici, with her fellow archaeologist Rainer Kuhn, uncovered the foundations of the once-proud building in Magdeburg, where Otto founded an archbishopric and built a cathedral in 968 AD to consolidate church power in the Eastern Europe. Later destroyed, a new cathedral was built in its place.
Ludger Koerntgen, lecturer in mediaeval history at the University of Tuebingen, said the cathedral was central to the establishment of Christianity in what is now eastern Germany, lands previously occupied by heathen Slavonic tribes.
"The cathedral was designed as the centrepiece of Otto's power base and thus a key element to the empire's structure which proved to be so enduring," Koerntgen said.
The received wisdom had been that the current archaeological site, a neighbouring section of which was excavated in the 1960s, contained the remains of one of Otto's palaces. Historians had long believed that Otto's cathedral was sunk under the current cathedral building, completed in 1520.
Ludowici disagreed. Her research indicated that the old cathedral lay buried some 50 m from its successor. "Previous wisdom said the cathedral was one of Otto's palaces, but our findings show that people who are prepared to put in the research get rewards for their efforts," she said.
Kuhn said the skeletal remains of a man recently unearthed in a tomb found within the walls of the excavated building were the final proof it could only be a church. And the costly marble and mosaic recovered there indicated a very special kind of church. "The lavish decoration and the building's 41-metre width invite the conclusion that the church must be a cathedral, that is, the cathedral of Otto the Great," he said.
The cathedral's dimensions alone make it one of the largest to have been found from that period in Western Europe, and the discovery is of prime importance to art historians. "Architectural finds of this order are so scarce that it will definitely challenge the preconceptions of art historians about monumental buildings from this period," said Ludowici.
At a time when closer integration in Europe is top of the political agenda, Otto's legacy strikes a familiar chord. He inherited the eastern part of an empire founded by the France's King Charlemagne, who reinstated the office of the emperor as the secular head of the Church with his coronation in Rome in 800 AD after becoming master of Western Europe.
After his death, the empire split between east and west, and it was Otto's forebears, the dukes of Saxony, who eventually emerged as Charlemagne's successors in the Eastern Europe. In 962 AD, Otto was the first German king in almost a century to be crowned emperor by the Pope. The power base he secured proved the foundation for the office of Holy Roman Emperor which would endure until its abolition by Napoleon in 1806.
Little of the actual masonry of Otto's cathedral remains, as most was removed to build the new building when the old one was torn down, most likely after a fire in the city in 1207. Work will continue in the six by 50-metre dugout until 22 June 2003, when it will be filled in, but exhibits from the excavation will be displayed in local museums.
Founded in the ninth century, Magdeburg has had a history of misfortune since its mediaeval heyday. An early centre of Protestantism, it was besieged and destroyed in the Thirty Years War in 1631. Large areas were flattened by bombing in World War Two.
Ludowici says the discovery has given a welcome boost to self-esteem in a city where unemployment runs at 20%.
"The discovery has helped the city's population rediscover its rich heritage," she said. "In Otto's day, the city was one of the main cultural centres in Europe. People forget that."