How science digs up the royal dirt
2013-02-04 22:03
Paris - The identification of King Richard III's skeleton
is the latest coup by forensic scientists who use radiocarbon-dating, DNA
analysis, 3D scanning and other hi-tech tools to unlock the secrets of the
long-dead.
Other famous cases include:
Oetzi the iceman
In 1991, hikers in the Oetztal Alps in Italy's Tyrol
region found the mummified remains of a man that had been extraordinarily
preserved by the ice.
Since then, scientists have uncovered that
"Oetzi" lived 5 300 years ago, died at the age of about 45, was 1.6m
tall, weighed 50kg, had brown eyes and brown hair... and was probably allergic
to milk products.
He was shot in the back with an arrow but lived for some
time after his fatal wound, according to atomic microscope images of blood
cells.
Louis XVI
In December 2012, scientists from Spain and France
authenticated the remains of a rag said to have been dipped in the blood of
France's last absolute monarch after his beheading in January 1793.
They linked DNA found in the sample, kept in an
ornately-decorated vegetable gourd, to another gruesome artefact: A mummified
head believed to belong to Louis' 17th century predecessor Henri IV.
The rare shared genetic signature gave firm evidence for
authenticating both sets of remains.
Henri IV
The revolution in which Louis and Queen Marie-Antoinette
lost their heads also saw mobs ransack the royal chapel at Saint-Denis, north
of Paris.
Ancient monarchs like Henri were hauled from their tombs,
defiled and thrown into a pit.
An individual was recorded to have rescued a severed head
from the chaos, allegedly that of "Good King Henri", famous for
promoting religious tolerance but assassinated by a Catholic fanatic in 1610.
In 2010, scientists found proof that the head was
Henri's, citing physical features that matched 16th-century portraits,
radiocarbon dating, 3D scanning and X-rays.
Louis XVII
Pathologist Philippe Charlier, dubbed the "Indiana
Jones of the graveyards" by French media, used genetic data in 2000 to
determine that a mummified heart held in a glass urn came from the uncrowned
son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.
The lad died in prison during the French Revolution. A
doctor removed his heart and smuggled it out of the jail in his handkerchief.
In 2000, a DNA match was found between the heart and
locks of hair from Marie-Antoinette, her two sisters and DNA samples from two
of the sisters' living relatives.
In 2004 the heart was buried alongside the bodies of his
parents.
Ramses III
Scientists said in December 2012 that an assassin had
slit the throat of Egypt's last great pharaoh at the climax of a bitter
succession battle.
Hieroglyphs show that the wife and son of Ramses, who
ruled from 1188 to 1155 BC, were convicted of plotting his death.
No evidence had existed that the plan was carried out
until the experts announced last year that computed tomography (CT) imaging of
the mummy revealed the pharaoh's windpipe and major arteries were slashed.
Napoleon
For years, maverick historians in France argued that
Napoleon Bonaparte had been poisoned by his English captors during his final
exile on Saint Helena.
Scientists from Switzerland, Canada and the US trawled
over a doctor's diagnosis of the patient and an autopsy conducted after the
emperor died.
The verdict in 2007 matched that of 1821:
"Boney" died of stomach cancer brought on by an ulcer.
Joan of Arc
Bones venerated as the remains of France's patron saint,
authenticated in 1909 by a papal commission, came in fact from an Egyptian
mummy and a cat, Charlier found in 2007.
He enlisted the help of two leading "noses" in
the French perfume industry to help his investigation.
They smelled hints of vanilla in the relics - a useful
tip, as the molecule vanillin is produced when a body decomposes, thus not
someone who was burned.
