In search of the lost king of Majorca: an excavation in Soria wants to find the remains of James IV
A team of historians and archaeologists, with the support of the Council of Mallorca and the Balearic Government, will return to excavate the remains of the old convent of Sant Francesc de Sòria to locate the tomb of the prince who never came to reign in Mallorca
PalmaAlmost 650 years after his death, a team of historians and archaeologists will return to search in Soria for the remains of James IV of Majorca, the prince who inherited the rights to the Majorcan Crown but never managed to recover the kingdom. The campaign, which will last fifteen days, is supported by the Council of Majorca and the Balearic Government.
The work will be carried out on the site where the convent of Saint Francis stood in the 14th century. The goal is to locate the tomb of James IV, who died in 1375 and was buried in Soria according to his will, but without the exact location having been determined until now.
The new intervention resumes the work initiated in 2008, when a georadar study detected underground structures that could correspond to the Chapel of the Conception, one of the spaces where researchers place the possible burial.
“During these 20 years, research has continued and we know many more things,” explained the archaeological coordinator, Helena Inglada. This time the excavation area will be expanded, both in surface and depth, to about 115 square meters.
The son of James IIIThe history of James IV is closely linked to the end of the private kingdom of Mallorca. In 1349, still a child, he participated in the Battle of Llucmajor, where his father, James III, died while attempting to recover the island after having lost it to Peter the Ceremonious.
The victor had James IV imprisoned, first in Xàtiva and later in Barcelona. As explained by the medievalist Gabriel Ensenyat, he ended up sleeping inside an iron cage, with the guard inside.
![The Government's Director General of Culture, Llorenç Perelló, and the Island Councilor for Culture and Heritage, Antònia Roca, with the people who will lead the project.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 1600 1200"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
James IV managed to escape with the help of Catalan nobles, he married Joanna of Naples and dedicated the rest of his life to fighting Peter the Ceremonious and trying to recover his territories.
He managed to lead an army of 6,000 men that approached Barcelona, but the offensive failed. James IV took refuge in Navarre, where he died suddenly in 1375.
His will established that he should be buried in Soria, but no known document allows us to identify today where the grave is located.
The georadar clueThe data obtained with georadar point to an area of the oldest church of the convent and coincide with a possible underground structure.
“It is the most likely place,” noted Inglada. However, the archaeologists do not know in what state they will find the space.
“The ideal would be for the underground space to still exist and be in an optimal structural state,” he explained. It would also be important to find some element that would allow the tomb to be identified.
“He was a royal child and the heir to the crown went to the funeral,” recalled Inglada. But this does not allow us to know what may have survived after almost seven centuries.
If the tomb is located and preserves remains, a second phase of study will be necessary, with anthropological, paleontological and, if possible, DNA analyses to confirm its identity.
If the burial has been looted or no remains are left, the researchers will have to review other possible locations within the old convent.
The research thus attempts to resolve one of the pending mysteries of the history of medieval Mallorca: where was the last heir of the dynasty of James III buried, the king who never managed to recover the island?
