A corpse was thrown into a well 800 years ago. Turns out it was a medieval biological weapon.

“Scholars have long debated the reliability of the chronicle as a historical document,” The New York Times noted regarding this particular account of medieval germ warfare. The conflict took place centuries ago, historical accounts from that period are not always reliable, and what concrete proof could one find?

In this case, the proverbial “smoking gun” was a rotting corpse. And after someone discovered the well (and of course the corpse at the bottom of it), DNA Analysis revealed that that unfortunate figure was indeed the Nordic bioweapon named ‘Well Man’.

The young Håkon Håkonsson is taken to safety from his enemies during the Norwegian Civil War, painted by the 19th century painter Knud Bergslien (1869)

“This is the first time that the remains of a person or character described in a Norwegian saga have been positively identified,” Michael D. Martin, an evolutionary genomicist at the Museum of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, told The New York Times . . The study that describes this analysis was recently published in the magazine iScience, and confirms “written history with ancient DNA.”

Interestingly, the body from which the DNA came was actually discovered decades ago. In 1938, an archaeological team was excavating an abandoned well amid the ruins of Sverresborg. castle stronghold of the aforementioned king Sverre Sigurdsson – when they discovered “well intact human remains” about six meters underground. But given the limitations of their equipment at the time, they could only photograph the corpse and move on.

The outbreak of WWII further plans to investigate the site were scuttled, and it was not until the new millennium that archaeologists were able to revisit the corpse that could be the remains of ‘Well Man’. An initial partial excavation allowed the team to radiocarbon date a shard of his ribs. That analysis showed that the man had lived 800 years ago – exactly when the Baglers’ bioweapon attack took place.

Later, in 2016, Anna Petersén – an archaeologist at the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research in Oslo – led a larger-scale excavation in which the wooden structures of the pit were exposed and the body exhumed. The man, who was between 30 and 40 years old when he died, “was dressed in nothing but a perfectly preserved leather shoe and was missing a foot, an arm and a shoulder blade.”

“To me he looked like he had been seriously injured before being thrown into the well,” Petersén assessed. skull was a fresh wound, possibly caused by a blow to the head.” Above ground and out of the pit for the first time since the Baglers sacked Sverresborg 800 years ago, it was finally time to find out who had gone from a man in the king’s court to a biological weapon.

As The New York Times described:

“To understand the Well Man’s ancestry, the research team collaborated with deCODE Genetics, an Icelandic company that has compiled one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of population data on genealogy, genotypes and phenotypes. DNA from his premolars suggested that he, like almost everyone else in present-day Norway, had it blue eyesfair skin and blond or light brown hair. The geneticists also concluded that his ancestors came from the southernmost Norwegian province, modern-day Agder.”

The fact that the Well Man came from the South is significant. As Martin said NYTWell, Man seems to be from the same region as the Baglers who sacked Sverresborg and eventually threw him into the well. “It shows,” Martin joked, “that you can’t mate genetics with political association.”

Michael Natale is news editor for the Hearst Enthusiast Group. His stories have appeared in Popular Mechanics, Best Products, and Runner’s World.