page_title: Prague Castle skeleton
section_title: Historical identification
hierarchical_section_title: Prague Castle skeleton / Historical identification
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Прага. Пражский Град. Маршал Советского Союза И.С. Конев и генерал армии А.И. Ерёменко на церемонии вручения чехословацкого ордена Белого льва. В почётном карауле солдаты чехословацкой армии
context_page_description: The Prague Castle skeleton is a human skeleton that was discovered in 1928 at Prague Castle in the Czech Republic. The burial was excavated by Ukrainian-born archaeologist Ivan Borkovský as part of a Czech National Museum project. The skeleton was dated to the 9th or 10th century AD and was associated with high-value burial goods. Ethnic identification of the deceased has proved controversial.
  During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in the Second World War, Borkovský was forced to withdraw a book he had published identifying early Slavic influence in the region. He was also forced to publish a journal article identifying the burial as Germanic or Nordic, to support a Nazi claim of early German involvement in the region. After the end of the war and with Prague under Soviet occupation Borkovský published a paper retracting his earlier work and identifying IIIN199 as a nobleman of the Přemyslid dynasty. The skeleton was kept in storage until 2004 and, though it has been tested extensively since then, a definitive identification has not been possible.
context_section_description: Czechoslovakia was invaded by Germany in 1939. The occupying German forces were keen to provide proof of Germanic heritage in the region. They accused Borkovský of not publishing the discovery of the skeleton as they claimed it was of a German or Nordic man, not of a Slav. They forced him, under threat of being sent to a concentration camp, to withdraw a book he published that identified pottery remains he had found as the oldest Slavic pottery in Europe. The Nazis destroyed most copies of the book. When Borkovský did eventually publish the finding of the remains, his paper supported the "Nazi-influenced Nordic interpretation". The paper's original title was "A warrior grave from Prague Castle", but it was amended before publication to "A Viking grave from Prague Castle" by Lothar Zotz, the German historian who edited the Altböhmen und Altmähren journal. The paper linked the trefoil decoration on the fire steel to similar designs on German axes and the sword to one found in German Silesia.
  Czechoslovakia was occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of the war. Borkovský narrowly escaped being sent to a Soviet gulag as he was accused of collaboration with the Nazis. After explaining he had been forced to write the pro-Nazi paper, he published a second article on the skeleton in 1946 that identified the subject as a noble of the early Přemyslid dynasty. This identification of the skeleton had been earlier expounded by Borkovský's superior at the National Museum. Borkovský's 1946 paper identified IIIN199 as an 860s AD burial, predating Christian influence in the area.
  Reassessment of the identification of IIIN199 was not possible during the Cold War due to the political ramifications, though anthropologist Emanuel Vlček published a paper in the 1970s that claimed the burial must be later in the 9th century and not related to the Přemyslids.
caption: Soviet and Czechoslovak Army personnel in the castle in June 1945
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