Zach
2006-01-03 21:57:38 UTC
Thought lists members may enjoy this. On a tangential note: does
anyone know where I can read the latest analysis of Bach's bones? Has
a forensic anthropologist tried to do a reconstruction of what Bach's
face looked like? I saw a program on the Learning Channel where a team
at an FBI crime lab reconstructed what a person may have looked like
using computer modeling software and the assistance of a forensic
anthropologist.
SDG,
Zach
By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer Tue Jan 3, 1:04 PM ET
VIENNA, Austria - Have scientists found Mozart's skull? Researchers
said Tuesday they'll reveal the results of DNA tests in a documentary
film airing this weekend on Austrian television as part of a year of
celebratory events marking the composer's 250th birthday.
The tests were conducted last year by experts at the Institute for
Forensic Medicine in the alpine city of Innsbruck, and the
long-awaited results will be publicized in "Mozart: The Search for
Evidence," to be screened Sunday by state broadcaster ORF.
Past tests were inconclusive, but this time, "we succeeded in getting
a clear result," lead researcher Dr. Walther Parson, a renowned
forensic pathologist, told ORF. He said the results were "100 percent
verified" by a U.S. Army laboratory, but refused to elaborate.
The skull in question is one that for more than a century has been in
the possession of the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg,
the elegant Austrian city where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on
Jan. 27, 1756.
Parson said genetic material from scrapings from the skull was
analyzed and compared to DNA samples gathered in 2004 from the thigh
bones of Mozart's maternal grandmother and a niece. The bones were
recovered when a Mozart family grave was opened in 2004 at Salzburg's
Sebastian Cemetery.
Mozart died in 1791 and was buried in a pauper's grave at Vienna's St.
Mark's Cemetery. The location of the grave was initially unknown, but
its likely location was determined in 1855.
The grave on that spot is adorned by a column and a sad-looking angel.
Legend has it that a gravedigger who knew which body was Mozart's at
some point sneaked the skull out of the grave. Through different
channels, the skull - which is missing its lower jaw - came to the
Mozarteum in Salzburg in 1902, according to Dr. Stephan Pauly, the
foundation's director.
The foundation, a private nonprofit organization that works to
preserve Mozart's legacy, was founded in 1880 by Salzburg residents
and made the skull available for the DNA tests.
The skull long has fascinated experts: In 1991, a French scholar who
examined it made the startling - though unconfirmed - conclusion
that
Mozart may have died of complications of a head injury rather than
rheumatic fever as most historians believe.
Anthropologist Pierre-Francois Puech of the University of Provence
based his belief on a fracture he found on the skull's left temple.
Mozart, he theorized, may have sustained it in a fall, and that would
help explain the severe headaches the composer was said to have
suffered more than a year before his death.
Austria has designated 2006 a Mozart jubilee year, with dozens of
events in Salzburg, Vienna and elsewhere to commemorate his 250
birthday.
___
On the Net:
International Mozarteum Foundation: http://www.mozarteum.at
anyone know where I can read the latest analysis of Bach's bones? Has
a forensic anthropologist tried to do a reconstruction of what Bach's
face looked like? I saw a program on the Learning Channel where a team
at an FBI crime lab reconstructed what a person may have looked like
using computer modeling software and the assistance of a forensic
anthropologist.
SDG,
Zach
By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer Tue Jan 3, 1:04 PM ET
VIENNA, Austria - Have scientists found Mozart's skull? Researchers
said Tuesday they'll reveal the results of DNA tests in a documentary
film airing this weekend on Austrian television as part of a year of
celebratory events marking the composer's 250th birthday.
The tests were conducted last year by experts at the Institute for
Forensic Medicine in the alpine city of Innsbruck, and the
long-awaited results will be publicized in "Mozart: The Search for
Evidence," to be screened Sunday by state broadcaster ORF.
Past tests were inconclusive, but this time, "we succeeded in getting
a clear result," lead researcher Dr. Walther Parson, a renowned
forensic pathologist, told ORF. He said the results were "100 percent
verified" by a U.S. Army laboratory, but refused to elaborate.
The skull in question is one that for more than a century has been in
the possession of the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg,
the elegant Austrian city where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on
Jan. 27, 1756.
Parson said genetic material from scrapings from the skull was
analyzed and compared to DNA samples gathered in 2004 from the thigh
bones of Mozart's maternal grandmother and a niece. The bones were
recovered when a Mozart family grave was opened in 2004 at Salzburg's
Sebastian Cemetery.
Mozart died in 1791 and was buried in a pauper's grave at Vienna's St.
Mark's Cemetery. The location of the grave was initially unknown, but
its likely location was determined in 1855.
The grave on that spot is adorned by a column and a sad-looking angel.
Legend has it that a gravedigger who knew which body was Mozart's at
some point sneaked the skull out of the grave. Through different
channels, the skull - which is missing its lower jaw - came to the
Mozarteum in Salzburg in 1902, according to Dr. Stephan Pauly, the
foundation's director.
The foundation, a private nonprofit organization that works to
preserve Mozart's legacy, was founded in 1880 by Salzburg residents
and made the skull available for the DNA tests.
The skull long has fascinated experts: In 1991, a French scholar who
examined it made the startling - though unconfirmed - conclusion
that
Mozart may have died of complications of a head injury rather than
rheumatic fever as most historians believe.
Anthropologist Pierre-Francois Puech of the University of Provence
based his belief on a fracture he found on the skull's left temple.
Mozart, he theorized, may have sustained it in a fall, and that would
help explain the severe headaches the composer was said to have
suffered more than a year before his death.
Austria has designated 2006 a Mozart jubilee year, with dozens of
events in Salzburg, Vienna and elsewhere to commemorate his 250
birthday.
___
On the Net:
International Mozarteum Foundation: http://www.mozarteum.at