It has been a mystery for more than a century — is a skull in an Austrian basement really that of arguably the greatest composer of all time, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?
Over the weekend a group of archaeologists began to answer the question by digging up the remains of Mozart’s close relatives.
In a controversial operation, the scientists exhumed several skeletons from Mozart’s family vault in Salzburg, where the composer spent most of his life.
On Monday they appear to have discovered the remains of the composer’s 16-year-old niece Jeanette, whose bones could unlock the mystery of whether the skull, currently kept by Salzburg’s Mozarteum Foundation, really is Mozart’s.
Mozart died at 35 and was buried in Vienna in 1791 in a plot that was subsequently re-used. It is not known what happened to his skeleton.
But it is said that a gravedigger who buried Mozart later recovered the skull — minus the lower jaw. It was eventually given to the foundation in 1901.
On Tuesday Gerhard Reiter, the archaeologist in charge of the dig, said he hoped to solve the dispute by retrieving DNA from Mozart’s relatives and matching it with DNA from the skull.
The apparent discovery of Mozart’s teenage niece was a ”hot lead” because the relevant DNA was passed on down the female line — in this case, via Mozart’s sister Nannerl, he told the website Salzburg.com.
The exhumation was proving trickier than expected because more bodies were buried in the vault in Salzburg’s Sebastian cemetery than originally thought, he added.
”The grave has been extensively renovated and moved,” he said. The scientists have so far found nine skulls and numerous bones — including, it seems, the remains of Mozart’s father Leopold and of his wife Constanze.
On Tuesday Dr Herbert Ullrich, a forensic pathologist who has studied the skeletons of famous Germans and Austrians, said he was convinced the Mozart skull was a fake. ”I examined a cast of the skull in 1999. All the characteristics of the skull suggest it belonged to a woman,” he said.
”The problem is that nobody really knows. Mozart had a fairly simple burial and after a while nobody knew where his grave was any more. The only way to find out is through DNA tests.”
The decision to dig up Mozart’s relatives has provoked some consternation in Salzburg, which attracts thousands of tourists every year on the strength of its Mozart connection. Over the weekend Heinz Schaden, the town’s mayor, said the bones of Mozart’s family shouldn’t leave Salzburg. ”To preserve the peace of the dead, unnecessary to-ing and fro-ing should be avoided,” he said. The scientists are likely to reveal the results of the tests in 2006 — the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. – Guardian Unlimited Â