Scientists from the University of Bristol may have helped identify the remains of an early English queen.
Around 1,300 bones from Winchester Cathedral are being examined as part of a conservation project launched in 2012.
And now researchers believe some of the bones might belong to Queen Emma of Normandy, who died in 1052 in Winchester.
Professor Kate Robson Brown, who led the investigation, said: “We cannot be certain of the identity of each individual yet, but we are certain that this is a very special assemblage of bones.”
Queen Emma was born in the 980s, the daughter of Richard I, Duke of Normandy.
She married two kings, Æthelred the Unready and Cnut the Great, and was the mother of two as well - King Harthacnut and Edward the Confessor.
Attempts are being made to match the bones, found in mortuary chests, with eight kings, two bishops and Queen Emma.
A cathedral spokesman explained that 23 partial skeletons had been reconstructed - which is more than the remains of 15 people thought to have been contained in the chests.
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Describing Queen Emma, the spokesman said: "She was a powerful political figure in late Saxon England, and her family ties provided William the Conqueror with a measure of justification for his claim to the English throne.”
He added: "These discoveries could place Winchester Cathedral at the birth of our nation and establish it as the first formal royal mausoleum."
