He revolutionised astronomy, but for more than four centuries the last resting place of Nicolaus Copernicus — the man who developed the theory that the planets circle the sun — was a mystery. On Friday, however, a team of Polish archaeologists revealed that they had discovered Copernicus’s remains beneath the floor of a medieval cathedral.
His body had been discovered under Frombork cathedral, where he was a canon, on Poland’s Baltic coast. The great astronomer had been buried under one of 16 altars on the south side of the building, said Jerzy Gassowski, the head of the archaeology and anthropology institute in the Polish town of Pultusk. ”We have a skull and a few bones. We are 97% certain it’s him,” he said. ”The only way to be absolutely certain would be to do a DNA test. But since Copernicus didn’t have any children, this is tricky.”
The team began searching for the astronomer, who lived from 1473 to 1543, after a request from the local bishop. They found the skull in August after a year-long search. A police laboratory in Warsaw then used it to make a virtual reconstruction of the man’s face.
”The reconstruction matched contemporary portraits. We know that Copernicus had a wonky nose after an accident as a child. Our skull had a similar scar. We also know that Copernicus died at the age of 70 — an exceptional age for the time,” Professor Gassowski said. ”It fits.”
An astronomer, mathematician and economist, Copernicus’s famous treatise, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, demolished the Ptolemaic theory that the earth was the centre of the universe.
Instead, he insisted that the planets circle the sun. Unlike Galileo, who was forced to recant his heliocentric views by the Inquisition, Copernicus had no problems with the religious authorities. Later, however, the Catholic church banned his work until the mid-19th century. The astronomer — who wrote entirely in Latin — hit the headlines last year following a row over whether he was German or Polish.
Asked why the Polish Church had asked him to dig up Copernicus, Gassowski said: ”I think the bishop wanted to make amends. The church now wants to celebrate him. At the moment there is no monument to show the thousands of tourists who visit the cathedral where he is buried.”
He added: ”We don’t know whether Copernicus spoke German or Polish. The only thing we can say with certainty is that he was a European.” – Guardian Unlimited Â