An international team reexamined the remains of Béla of Macsó, a Hungarian duke killed in 1272 CE, and used forensic, genetic and dental analyses to reconstruct the attack. The study authenticated the bones and documented 26 perimortem injuries—nine cranial and 17 postcranial—consistent with a coordinated ambush by three assailants. Two blade types, likely a sabre and a longsword, were identified; the wound patterns indicate Béla was unarmoured, attempted to defend himself, and was finished after falling. The skeleton also provides rare genetic material from the Árpád dynasty for future research.
Forensic Reconstruction Reveals How 13th-Century Duke Béla of Macsó Was Ambushed and Killed
An international team reexamined the remains of Béla of Macsó, a Hungarian duke killed in 1272 CE, and used forensic, genetic and dental analyses to reconstruct the attack. The study authenticated the bones and documented 26 perimortem injuries—nine cranial and 17 postcranial—consistent with a coordinated ambush by three assailants. Two blade types, likely a sabre and a longsword, were identified; the wound patterns indicate Béla was unarmoured, attempted to defend himself, and was finished after falling. The skeleton also provides rare genetic material from the Árpád dynasty for future research.
05:51, 08.11.2025Conflict
Forensic reconstruction reveals how a 13th-century Hungarian duke was brutally murdered
In 1272 CE, Béla of Macsó, a Hungarian noble of the Árpád dynasty, was killed in a violent attack whose full circumstances remained disputed for centuries. Contemporary Austrian chronicles attributed the killing to another regional magnate, Henrik Kőszegi, but motives and the exact sequence of events were unclear until a recent multidisciplinary reexamination of the duke’s remains.
Rediscovery and authentication
Béla—born around 1243 CE, a maternal grandson of King Béla IV of Hungary and linked paternally to the Rurikid lineage—served as Ban of Macsó (a regional governor). His mutilated remains were collected after the killing and buried in a Dominican monastery near present-day Budapest. After an archaeological excavation in 1915 and a bioanthropological report in 1936 that documented numerous sword cuts and skull injuries, the skeleton was presumed lost during World War II. The remains were unexpectedly rediscovered in 2018 in a wooden box at the Hungarian Natural History Museum, enabling modern scientific enquiry.
Multidisciplinary investigation and findings
An international team of archaeologists, forensic anthropologists, geneticists and dental specialists carried out a multiyear study. They first authenticated the skeleton as Béla of Macsó and then carefully catalogued perimortem trauma. While the 1936 report noted 23 sword cuts and multiple skull traumas, the new study documented 26 perimortem injuries in total: nine to the skull and 17 to postcranial bones.
Forensic analysis of wound angles and locations supports a reconstruction of a coordinated assault, most consistent with three attackers. One assailant advanced head-on while two others struck simultaneously from Béla’s left and right. The pattern indicates Béla confronted his attackers, tried to defend himself—sustaining defensive wounds to his arms and hands—and then collapsed after strikes to his flanks; the killers continued to target his head and face once he fell.
“The location of the injuries suggests that the duke faced his assassins in an open confrontation, was aware of the aggression, and attempted to defend himself,” the research team noted.
The investigators identified traces consistent with two distinct blade types, likely a sabre and a longsword, and concluded the depth and placement of gashes imply Béla was not wearing body armour at the time of the attack. The authors emphasize that the pattern of wounds points to both planning and intense emotional involvement, lending weight to the historical claim that the killing was deliberate rather than a spontaneous duel or brawl.
Historical and scientific significance
Beyond resolving aspects of a medieval murder mystery, the skeleton is scientifically valuable: it is one of the only nearly complete postcranial remains from an Árpád descendant other than King Béla III. Genetic cataloguing of the material will inform studies of medieval royal lineages, health, and population genetics, and the study demonstrates how integrating archaeology, forensic science and genetics can reconstruct violent deaths from the distant past with unprecedented detail.
Publication: The findings appear in Forensic Science International: Genetics.