Source : DN.se (TT)
Date : 2011-12-09, 12:04
Web : http://www.dn.se/sthlm/nya-analyser-avslojar-ladulas-bluff
Image : http://www.dn.se/Images/2011/12/09/ladulas683.jpg (Daniel Nilsson / Scanpix)
Caption : It was not Magnus Ladulås that lay in the tomb known as Magnus Ladulås grave in Riddarholmskyrkan.
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King Magnus Ladulås and his family have for centuries thought to be buried in Riddarholmskyrkan (English: Riddarholmen Church) in Stockholm. But the new analysis of the skeletal elements reveals it as a scam.
The nine people who were in the tomb which was opened last year are buried c. 1430–1520. King Magnus Ladulås died at 1290.
"We can exclude that the results would be misleading" writes Professor Göran Possnert at the Ångströmlaboratoriet (English: Ångström Laboratory) at Uppsala University in a statement.
"Already the first of the analysis that we commissioned thus reveal that King Johan III by the 1570's had placed Magnus Ladulås tomb over the wrong grave," says Maria Vretemark, Ph.D. at the Västergötland Museum. She is the scientifically responsible for the project and considers the researchers' discovery as "sensational" and a "great story". She predicts that it will bring resonance in large parts of the research community.
"It shows the importance of source criticism, of course, but also how men in power during the 1400th and 1500th centuries in a number of different ways used history to achieve political ends," she says.
But now, thus the historical lie is exposed – after more than 400 years.
The efforts to find Magnus Ladulås remain, however, and the work is not finished. The team believes that King Magnus is buried in the southern tomb in front of the choir, the same tomb where King Karl Knutsson had himself buried in the 1500th century.
A permit application to open Karl Knutsson's tomb has been sent to court.
TT
DN.se
