Disir
Platinum Member
- Sep 30, 2011
- 28,003
- 9,608
- 910
Adelasius Ebalchus has a decidedly Latin name for a man who lived in Switzerland around 700 A.D., centuries after the western Roman Empire fell apart. That choice of name was deliberate, explains Mirjam Wullschleger of the Solothurn state archaeology department. It was at this time that Germanic peoples were moving into the Swiss Plateau in the country’s north, changing the language and culture of the remnant Roman empire to that of the German-speaking Alemanni tribe.
Adelasius’ name, and most of what we think we know about him, however, is speculation. His face was reconstructed from a skeleton discovered in 2014, recovered from one of 47 early medieval graves excavated ahead of building construction in the town of Grenchen in northern Switzerland. He was interred in a Roman-style burial, in a grave lined and covered with rocks and his feet pointing north.
See the face of a man from the last gasps of the Roman Empire
The slight smile is kind of different but you can see the teeth.
Adelasius’ name, and most of what we think we know about him, however, is speculation. His face was reconstructed from a skeleton discovered in 2014, recovered from one of 47 early medieval graves excavated ahead of building construction in the town of Grenchen in northern Switzerland. He was interred in a Roman-style burial, in a grave lined and covered with rocks and his feet pointing north.
See the face of a man from the last gasps of the Roman Empire
The slight smile is kind of different but you can see the teeth.
