Remains of Jewish victims of the Inquisition found in a garbage dump in Portugal

August 19, 2015, 17:51

During routine excavations in the Portuguese city of Évora, archaeologists unearthed the remains of dozens of bodies with evidence that they were victims of the Inquisition's court, whose bodies were dumped in a dump near the courthouse along with ordinary garbage.

Based on the surviving plans of the building, archaeologists have been able to establish that this landfill belonged to a prison annex to the courthouse of the Inquisition. Archaeologists have also set a time frame for when people were killed - between 1568-1634.

In a recent issue of the journal Anthropological Archaeology, the researchers wrote that "the sediment surrounding the skeletons is indistinguishable from the layer of household waste where they were found, suggesting that the bodies were dumped directly into a landfill."

Although the Portuguese Inquisition was not as well known as the Spanish, their methods were almost identical. Portugal capitulated under pressure from Spain, and eventually set up their own Inquisition in 1536 using the same methods and reasoning. At that time, Jews were considered heretics in Portuguese society.

Attempts by the Roman Catholic Church to get the population to maintain the purity of the faith, recognized as true only in the Catholic spirit, led to a "witch hunt" among the Jews, who at that period of history were considered heretics in Portuguese society.

Also examining the surviving prison records, archaeologists have established that the remains belonged to those people who continued to secretly profess Judaism.

To date, it is known that in the city of Évora, 9973 people were executed in the auto-da-fé ceremonies between 1536 and 1781. And throughout Portugal from 1536 to 1794, 31,457 people were publicly executed as part of an "act of faith."

http://cursorinfo.co.il/news/world/2015/08/19/na-pomoyke-v-portugalii-obnaruzheni-ostanki-evreyskih-zhertv-inkvizicii/