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Tens of thousands of soldiers died or suffered grievous wounds at 1815’s Battle of Waterloo, but despite that, few remains have been found at the site of the battlefield.
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A recently discovered skeleton by a volunteer group of experts prompted a further search, which resulted in the discovery of a massive pit full of evidence of the battle.
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Buried in the “gore pit” were tons of remains—some were those of dead animals that were killed in the battle and some were human limbs that were amputated during the fight and had piled up across the battlefield.
By the time the Battle of Waterloo drew to a close on June 18, 1815, nearly 40,000 men were killed, wounded, or captured on Napoleon Bonaparte’s side, with 22,000 casualties on the opposing side. And yet, to date, only two full skeletons have ever been uncovered at the battleground which has fascinated historians for centuries.
Waterloo Uncovered, “a UK charity that combines archaeology with veteran care,” found the most recent of those, CNN notes, at Mont-Saint-Jean farm in Belgium believed to have been the site of the Duke of Wellington’s field hospital.
Bolstered by this discovery, the group returned to the site earlier in September to see what else they could uncover in the area surrounding where they found the skeleton. But while a full skeleton certainly qualifies as macabre on its own, what they ended up finding upon further digging was something far more grisly.
They described what they found as a “unique battle clearance trench.” But it’s also known by another, more descriptive name: a gore pit.
The pit appears to have been dug purposefully to collect the remains of battlefield surgeries and dead animals that would have otherwise overwhelmed the field hospital. Per a press release put out by the University of Glasgow, the contents of the pit were “deposits of human and animal remains separated by a barrier of ammunition boxes stripped from soldier’s leather satchels.”
Of the animal remains, there was an ox and “at least seven horses.” Most of the animals showed signs of being slaughtered, but three appeared to have been “euthanised via a musket ball to the head.” On the other side of the pit, nearer where the complete skeleton had been discovered in 2022, they found what was described as a “pile” of human limbs. The limbs had been amputated, it was determined, as many “still contain evidence of removal by the surgeon’s saw.” This, according to the press release, aligns with eyewitness reports from the battle, which described amputated limbs as “piling up in all four corners of the courtyard.”
“I can’t think of any other site that has this combination of elements,” notes Waterloo Uncovered’s Archaeological Director Tony Pollard. “It’s truly unique, within Napoleonic archaeology and beyond. The layout of the trench, with all animal remains on one side of the ammunition box barrier and all the human remains on the other, strongly suggests that the men who buried this individual attempted to offer him a level of dignity and respect despite the horrific scene they would have found themselves facing while clearing the field hospital of the dead.”
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Source Agencies
