Second saponified brain found in Spanish convent
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Archaeologists in Pontevedra, Spain, discovered a second saponified brain while excavating the Convent of Santa Clara.
The Diputación de Pontevedra funded the work, which focuses on burials beneath the convent’s choir. Clara Veiga, a forensic anthropologist and archaeologist with the A Citania team, removed the brain for preservation and histological study at the University of Santiago de Compostela. Researchers found the brain within one of three complete tombs.
While few bones remained, tissues and textiles survived, and another burial also contained a saponified brain. Saponification, a rare preservation process occurring in moist environments with fatty tissues, makes these discoveries unusual. The Diputación de Pontevedra believes these may be the first documented cases of saponified brains from this period, between the 16th and 19th centuries, on the Iberian Peninsula. Earlier Spanish and Portuguese examples date from later periods.
The team also uncovered burials including that of a male cleric with intact shoes and vestments, and two child burials. Outside the convent, they identified a rectangular structure dating to the late 14th century, possibly an early part of the building, and continued work on a ramp of unknown purpose where they found another body.
