 Good afternoon. I would like to thank the organizers for accepting my paper. And for those of you who weren't at the last annual meeting in Maastricht, Maastricht is a little town in the southern part of the Netherlands. It's a very rich history, coming from paralytic up to now, actually. And north of the city of Maastricht, there has been a large nature and landscape project in the alluvial valley of the River Meuse. Gravel extraction and diminishing the risk of flooding were the key goals of that project. And archaeology was a condition right from the start in 1999. Now, all phases of the archaeological heritage management are finished. And the excavations gave us a lot of new insights on the landscape and the influence of mankind on it, especially in the site called Borekhara. And in one of the trenches, some bones were found. And the find turned out to be the largest mass grave known at that moment, 65 animals, probably horses. The media had a lot of interest. And we were on prime time TV and had a lot of attention from local, national, and also international papers, even the Washington Post. And equestrian magazines from all over the world. Borekhara had its 15 minutes of fame. On a day for the public, we had over 1,000 visitors on one afternoon. And the local committee immediately came into action and demanded that with its very important archaeological find, something had to be done to commemorate it in the future. And of course, they were right. This was a very important archaeological find. But what was it, actually? To commemorate something, you have to at least know what you were talking about. We immediately assumed that this was one of the relics from one of the many sieges of Maastricht, which in its history has been besieged by Spaniards, French, Dutch, Germans, Austrians, and others. But is this the case? And how can we prove this? Well, looking at the archaeological context and the cadavers themselves is of course the first thing to do. And a fixed date of this find would be very nice and would give a lot of insight in this find. So this would be the questions to be answered. OK, the archaeological context. As I said, the site was north of the village of Borekhara. And as we can see in this picture, the cadavers are not in a straight line, but in a kind of zigzag. They are lying in a 2-meter-wide and 40-meter-long ditch. The zigzag form suggests that this could be a so-called circumvallation, a ditch to protect the besieges from rescue troops for the besieged, to cover their back, so to say. As we can see, the animals are lying next to and over each other in two or three layers. And it looks that they were put there in one time and not over a long period of time. There's no favorite direction or something like that. It looks fairly at random. That is to say, neatly placed, but no real structure. So the ditch suggests a military context. What about the cadavers? We know some things about the cavalry out of historical sources. So let's see if there's some kind of clue. What kind of animals? Well, that's to say, horses are also donkeys and mules. Horses are used in the cavalry and for transport, mules and donkeys only for transport. And by comparing a combination of different skeletal remains, it is possible to identify horses from donkeys and mules. And as it turned out, there were only horses. What sex? Well, in French historical sources, it is stated that the cavalry prefers stallions or geldings above mares. Geldings are castrated stallions, or as I prefer to say, stallions with a handicap. The question is, of course, if this is absolute as stated. But teeth statistics show that 70% of the horses are stallions. The other 30% is just not easy to define because the teeth were missing. What age? Well, cavalry horses need to have a certain age before they can be ridden on. And they need a certain time to be trained as a cavalry horse. This age would be four years old than they are considered adult. And it turned out that also on teeth characteristics that only two horses were not adult yet, the rest was between four and 10 years old. So what? Age. The height at withers. This can say something about the function an animal had in the army. Large and mean is suited for cavalry, small and firm for heavy transport. And it's getting a bit tedious, but also here 70% was more than average large and thus suited for cavalry. The provenance of the horses. By strontium isotope research from the teeth, what would we do without the teeth, information over the geological origin of the horses are possible. But because this is a very expensive research, a sample of 11 horse horses was taken. And these 11 horses were no locals. The area of their origin was estimated for one group as the coastal area of France, Belgium and Holland. And for another group, the sandy areas in the north of the Netherlands, probably Gelderland. Okay, let's see how these horses died. And the bones were researched for this remarks. And of course injuries can happen in different ways and can lead to different bone fractures. But most of them are not lethal. And the killing of a horse by violence is not always clear. If it's done by a sword or by the cutting of a carotidal artery, this will leave no traces in the bones. More evident, of course, are the traces of the impact of a bullet. 20% of the horses show traces of bullet impact. And the most part of them in the frontal legs. Is this an implication of a frontal charge of cavalry horses? Furthermore, the research of the bones showed that they were well nurtured and well treated, so no signs of starvation. Some of the horses, though, show traces of spa, which is a sign of either old age or for carrying too much burn. And 15 horses showed bone fractures, indicating signs of violence. And no, they were not eaten. They did not end up in the stew or as we call it, zeuvles or sauerbraten. The evidence shows that these horses were killed during or as a result of military action. Some might have been so injured that they had to be killed on the spot. So it seems that these 65 cadavers were really the relic of one of the many sieges of mastery. But which one? What dating of these finds are available? Well, carbon date gave too wide a range from the 16th to the 19th century. Well, where are any objects found in this marshal of grave? And I have to make one significant remark here. The people who so delicately excavated these horses were archaeologists. Their main concern was to document the horse bones and have a clear insight in this massive bone puzzle. They had less attention for other finds. And from some objects, it is not clear where they were exactly found. This, of course, does not account for the horse's shoes and the buckle's attempt attached to the horses. But unfortunately, these finds gave no exact clue about the date, probably 17th or 18th century. Only one buckle could perhaps date in the second half of the 18th century. A lot of uncertainty, though. The bullets found in and between the cadavers only suggest that they were fired with a pistol and not by muskets, a clue for mercy shots. And the only object which can be dated with some certainty is a small fragment of a clay pipe dating in the second half of the 18th century. But the exact circumstances of that find is unclear. So the dating question remains open. Well, which historical seed is unknown, and is there any source talking about battlefields with cavalry charges north of Borehane? Well, as you might know, cavalry was of great importance in the battlefields up to World War II. And usually, well-stated in the stories about such a battlefield. Well, here you see all the known sieges of Maastricht, but only the siege of 1632 has clear evidence of cavalry action at our location. We have a map about that which was made afterwards. And here you can see the red arrow is the location where we found the horses. And there's a name called Reuterschans, cavalry scans. And on the same picture, there are already lying dead horses in the field. Well, and this is also the point where archaeologists and historians start to disagree. Historians say 1632, and the archaeologists say 1794. So what to do? Well, the answer, of course, is to do more research to settle this conflict. Well, this was the first time that such a large amount of horses was found and excavated, and there was no real reference. So some things were done just as pioneers. The only other side that can be compared is Orsingen in Germany with 42 horses, and recently Bastille-Europe in France with 40 horses. So more research needed. What's new? We are still not sure if these animals were caballos, chevaux, fairer horses, or Holland's knoll. Although their provenance slightly indicate that they came from the north, or were they just loot of the Sonnen armies. All the bones are in large boxes now, and available and waiting for the new research. That is to say, 63 of them. Two cadavers are in two different exhibitions, and one of those is exhibited in the National Museum of Antiquity of the Netherlands in Leide, as one of the top finds of our country. As stated before, the public and the local committee wanted a nice and sustainable remembrance of this unique find on the same spot as they were found or elsewhere. They started to write letters and emails to our politicians and demanding the municipality, that's me, to get into action, and of course, the municipality had to finance their plans. The fact that so many people visited the excavation, the international attention of the press, and the fact that one of the horses was in this special exhibition of top finds of the Netherlands, were enough arguments for them. They were proud of their horses. And they stated that this find was of great importance to their identity and the cohesion of their community. They literally stated in one email that their soul was at stake in this matter. And of course, they were aware of the scientific value of the find. But to them, this was just a secondary importance, and they only mentioned it as arguments to emphasize their pride. So what did they propose? Well, there were some suggestions to re-burry the bones on the same spot in the same way as they were found and covered up with a huge glass plate. But using the bones themselves is out of the question. They have to be available for further research. And the costs for proper conservation on so many bones on the spot, they would have been gigantic. And of course, money is an issue, is always a hot item. And the municipality wasn't able to finance everything. So the local community started to address other stakeholders and started crowdfunding. And they managed to persuade the company who did the gravel extraction to contribute in materials and in money. And they also raised money from local institutional budgets. With that budget, they asked an artist to come up with some realistic ideas. And this artist combined the idea of gravel extraction with the war horses. He took big gravel blocks and put them in the same location as the horses were found. As an artistic impulse, he designed four black rocks, and this is the artist, André Bohouk, in a smooth shape as sitting elements. And yes, we can discuss the artistic value, but on the other hand, I'd rather not. Both, but to the people of Bohouk, this is of minor importance, and it's something they proudly show to their guests and all their visitors. And they proudly tell the story of this find, whether it's correct or not, because we don't even know what we're really talking about. So I presume this is an example of a scientifically interesting archaeological site and a place that for the public has a special meaning, a meaning for their local identity and for their local pride. Thank you for your attention.