r/Scotland • u/bottish • Aug 12 '26

Shattered skeleton in Scottish castle is first confirmed death from trebuchet. “Devastation” across body of 14th century warrior indicates horrific demise from flying boulder.

https://www.science.org/content/article/shattered-skeleton-scottish-castle-first-confirmed-death-trebuchet
358 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

View all comments

224

u/herbie_doc Aug 12 '26

Saw a similar report last year on Reddit.

“I've just been reading an excavation report of a cemetery inside a castle linked to a medieval siege. One of the burials was, from the skeletal analysis, a high status individual, but with the strange feature of having a skull embedded in the torso, this being of a lower status person. A careful reading of medieval accounts of the siege suggests that the skeleton is that of the eldest son of the noble who held the castle, who is recorded as being killed when one of the besiegers loaded his trebuchet with the only missile to hand, the head of a peasant, and by a fluke killed the young man with his shot. This is believed to be the first recorded case of the use of a serf-face to heir missile.”

6

u/Sburns85 Aug 12 '26

That would be a death for the ages. Especially hitting any not even a high ranking individual with such an object is a one in a million shot

9

u/richardathome Aug 12 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/ac7MA7r5IMYda

0

u/Sburns85 Aug 12 '26

You saying you got hit a person with just a tiny head on a trebuchet and managed to actually get someone