The skeletal remains of the Counts of Urgell are being investigated.

BarcelonaThe history of the pantheon of the Counts of Urgell is very tortuous. (1239-1268) and Cecilia de Foix (?-1270) in the church of the monastery of Santa María de Bellpuig de les Avellanes (Noguera). Following the confiscation of church property by the liberal minister Mendizábal in 1835, the ecclesiastical community abandoned the monastery, and the historical and religious assets were put up for sale. Agustí Santesmases sold the tombs to the Rockefeller Foundation, which donated them to The Cloisters Museum in New York. zinc-lined wooden box in the church of Vilanova de la Sal. "In 1967, a commission from the Os de Balaguer Town Council and representatives of the Catalan nobility took the casket and, under a notary's seal, reburied it in the church of Santa María de Bellpuig de les Avellanes. Today, also with a notary," Carme Alós, director of the Noguera Museum.

The aim is to carry out an anthropological study of the remains in the monastery library itself. anthropologist, and head of the Paleopathology Laboratory at the Archaeological Museum of Catalonia. Unfortunately, the bones are not in very good condition. made a description, which is preserved as proof of the authenticity of the burial of the family of Ermengol X. Since then, however, more than 250 years, many wars and a confiscation have passed.

by Àlvar and Cecília de Foix, who could arrive around September.

The authentic tombs will remain in the New York museum. "It was a legal sale and they won't return them to us," says Alós. The images used in 3D photogrammetry models correspond to four tombs: that of Ermengol VII, the double tomb of Álvaro I of Urgell and Cecilia de Foix, and the tomb of E_N. In 2023, they made a copy of the first tomb, that of Count Álvaro I, and this fall they will have completed that of Cecilia de Foix. and manual labor, and is carried out by a company in Olot. Artificial stone with added polychromy is used to imitate the dirt and the original appearance. In parallel, documentary research has been initiated and commissioned by historian Stefano Maria Cingolani.