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Article: Lisbon mass grave yielding clues to a 1755 catastrophe.(Front)
- Article from:
- The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA)
- Article date:
- April 29, 2007
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 The Virginian Pilot-Ledger Star. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of the Dialog Corporation by Gale Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: BARRY HATTON
LISBON, Portugal -- By BARRY HATTON
the Associated Press
LISBON, Portugal - It was a chilling discovery: a mass grave of human bones - skulls smashed and scorched by fire, dog bites on a child's thigh bone, a forehead with an apparent bullet hole.
Three years after the find by workers digging up the cloisters of a 17th-century Franciscan convent, forensic experts and historians say they have solved the mystery.
They say the estimated 3,000 dead in the grave were victims of the earthquake that devastated Lisbon in 1755, and that this is the first mass grave of its kind ever found in the Portuguese capital.