Remains found in a tomb in northwestern Spain likely belong to a ninth-century bishop believed to have helped create the Camino de Santiago, one of the most popular Christian pilgrimages, new research has found.
The Camino de Santiago (Way to Santiago) is a route followed by pilgrims from Spain and all over Europe that leads to Santiago de Compostela, the city where the relics of Saint James the Apostle are located.
A combination of bone analysis, carbon, stable isotope analysis and DNA testing provided data that "supports the possibility" that the human bones found in 1955 were those of Bishop Theodomir, according to an article published Tuesday in the journal Antiquities.
Oral tradition says that Theodomir discovered the tomb of the holy apostle James between 820 and 830 after a divine revelation in today's Santiago de Compostela, the capital of the Spanish region of Galicia.
News of the discovery reached King Alfonso II of the neighboring region of Asturias, who set out with his court from Oviedo to Santiago.
The 146 km royal pilgrimage established what is now known as the "Primitive Way", the oldest route used by the Kamin pilgrims, or the Way of Saint James.
Teodomir's existence was hotly debated until 1955, when the Spanish archaeologist Manuel Šamoso Lamas discovered a tombstone under the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela with his name inscribed on it.
An initial examination of the bones concluded that they probably came from an older adult man, but three decades later a new assessment based on photographs of the site declared that they belonged to a woman between 50 and 70 years old.
The latest study, led by Patki Perez-Ramalo of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, combined different analytical methods in an attempt to recreate an individual's life story.
Carbon-14 dating indicates that the person died after age 45, and bone features indicate that she was of slight build and did little physical labor during her lifetime, consistent with the lifestyle of the high clergy during that period.
Perez-Ramalo told the newspaper El Pais that there is a "98 percent probability that it is Teodomir."
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