Overview
- The excavation team announced Monday that fieldwork at the Convento de Santa Clara uncovered a human brain preserved by saponification, which investigators say is the first documented case on the Iberian Peninsula and one of only a few known worldwide.
- The brain was transferred to the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela for detailed study and will undergo conservation work, chemical analyses and radiocarbon dating over the coming months.
- Archaeologists also recovered a probable chaplain burial with a nearly complete casulla, two child burials (one with footwear preserved) and more than 3,000 artefacts including ceramics, coins and glass that span roughly the late 14th to 19th centuries.
- Project leaders say the field campaign is entering its final month before a laboratory phase and that the intervention has a budget above €400,000, with specialists expected to take several months to process finds and deliver scientific reports.
- Investigators hypothesise that a stable or isolated microenvironment in the burial area allowed soft tissues to survive while bones degraded, a question that international forensic, conservation and environmental analyses will now seek to resolve and that could affect future research and restoration plans.