Archaeologists have been excavating throughout the Waterloo battlefield since 2012 in search of human remains. After 12 years, only two skeletons have been found.

The other 10,000 are nowhere to be found. And historians think they know why. In the early 18th and early 19th centuries, in the Napoleonic Wars, the remains of dead soldiers became a valuable commodity. The bones are very rich in phosphates, which were just beginning to be successful as agricultural fertilizers. They were also used to produce “animal charcoal” through partial combustion.