Researchers are now using DNA analysis and forensic studies to uncover the identities and histories of the people buried inside the monastery tombs. (Image: Culture Institute of Barcelona) Archaeologists in Barcelona have uncovered the skeletal remains of Elisenda of Montcada, one of medieval Europe’s most influential queens, during an excavation marking the 700th anniversary of the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Pedralbes. The investigation, carried out inside the historic monastery founded in 1326, revealed 25 skeletons spread across eight tombs. Alongside the queen’s remains, researchers also discovered several mysterious burials, including men with stab wounds to their skulls and a pregnant woman whose partially mummified remains still contained a foetus. Queen Elisenda was the wife of James II of Aragon and played a major political and religious role in medieval Catalonia. After her husband’s death in 1327, she spent the rest of her life near the monastery she had founded in Barcelona.…