A child’s grave has been unearthed beneath the ruins of the chapel of the fortified castle of Moha, located in the commune of Wanze, Liège Province.
The discovery was made during recent archaeological excavations carried out at the initiative of the non-profit association, ‘Les Amis du Château féodal de Moha’ (Friends of the Feudal Castle of Moha), the organisation said on Wednesday in a press release.
Moha Castle, built between the 11th and 14th centuries, occupied a strategic location in medieval times, on a rocky spur at the confluence of the Mehaigne and Fosseroule rivers. Archaeological excavations have been carried out there since 2020, with the support of the Walloon Heritage Agency (AWaP), to learn more about the castle's origins.
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The bones were discovered beneath the castle's former chapel, dismantled in 1826, during excavations carried out for the third year running by the association’s archaeologist, assisted by students from the universities of Namur and Liège who were on placement there in July, the press release stated.
According to the team, the “well-preserved” skeleton of a child buried according to the Christian rites in force in the Middle Ages lay in a pit dug in the ground beneath the chapel’s traffic level. A coin dating back to the reign of Louis VIII (1223-1226) or Louis IX (1226-1270) was also found in the backfill of the pit.
“However, this artefact alone does not allow us to date the burial period with certainty,” the association stressed.
Carbon-14 dating will therefore be carried out in the coming months, along with an exhaustive anthropological study to determine the causes of death or any pathologies, prior to possible exposure, the press release added.
