Beheading at the Dawn of the Modern Age: The Execution of Noblemen during Austro - Ottoman Battles for Belgrade in the Late 17th century

Abstract

The early modern history of Belgrade, Serbia, was marked by battles between the Ottoman and Habsburg empires, but also by extensive reshaping of the fortress and the town. The changes that Belgrade underwent are attested by rescue excavations on the Rajićeva Street site outside the fortress walls. Trench 12 was particularly interesting to archaeologists and anthropologists. A single location yielded five bodiless skulls. All belonged to males, aged between 20 and 45 years of age. All showed decapitation marks, apparently caused by a sword cut at the level of cervical vertebrae (C2, C3 and C4), except one, inflicted at the lower third of the occipital bone and severing part of the right mastoid process. There was no evidence that the heads had been publicly displayed, except in one case, where both the skull base and C1 had suffered additional violent injuries when impaled. The skulls had probably been carefully disposed of after the execution, as evidenced by the presence of mandibles and anatomic connection of cervical vertebrae which had not yet succumbed to postmortem decomposition. From all available data, the interrelationship of ‘burials’ and structural remains, and coin finds, the beheading may be placed between 1688 and 1717.