Just in time for the long weekend.
Genetic testing has finally confirmed Christopher Columbus’s official resting place, and the scientists who announced the discovery say they now also know his ethnicity, although they have yet to reveal it.
Forensic expert Jose Antonio Llorente said Thursday that the partial set of human remains found in an elaborate coffin in Spain’s Seville Cathedral are indeed those of the controversial explorer.
Llorente and other members of a team of scientists at the University of Granada identified the remains using samples taken from Columbus’ son Fernando and one of his brothers.
“Today, thanks to new technology, the previous partial theory that the remains found in Seville are those of Christopher Columbus has been confirmed,” Llorente said in a press conference.
Columbus died in what is now Spain in 1506, but supposedly wanted to be buried on the island of Hispaniola, which consists of present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
His remains are said to have been transferred there in 1542. All or at least some of them are subsequently believed to have been transferred to Cuba in 1795 and then to Seville in 1898, when Spain lost control of Cuba in the Spanish-American War.
Over the past century, experts have debated whether Columbus’ complete remains were transferred to Seville for their official final resting place or whether some or all of them remain unofficially in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In 1877, excavations at the Cathedral of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic uncovered a small lead box containing incomplete bone fragments bearing Columbus’ name.
Those remains — now buried in the so-called Columbus Lighthouse in Santo Domingo Este — may also belong to the explorer, because the collection of remains in Seville is also incomplete, Llorente said.
It was not clear whether testing would be performed on the remains found in the DR.
As for Columbus’ genetic background, he feigned shyness when pressed about what the DNA tests revealed.
It is known that Columbus sailed to Spain in 1492, but historians have debated whether the original story that he came from Genoa, Italy is actually true.
Over the years, experts have suggested that Columbus was actually a Spanish Jew or perhaps Greek, Basque, or Portuguese.
These findings will be shared in a documentary called “Columbus DNA: The True Origin,” which will be broadcast on Spanish national broadcaster TVE on Saturday.
Llorente described the investigation as “very complex” and is awaiting the final revelation.
“There are some really important results,” he said, “and they are results that will help us in multiple studies and analyzes that must be evaluated by historians.” To the Guardian.
Columbus is celebrated as a federal holiday in the United States on the second Monday in October each year, although it is not without controversy.
For centuries, he was credited with “discovering America,” but that description has since been largely debunked by historians who say he reached the Bahamas and elsewhere in the Caribbean but not what is now the United States. His critics also say that he forced indigenous people to work as slaves, and that his voyages brought devastating diseases to their populations.
However, some Italian Americans say his risky explorations opened the door to European settlement of the Americas, and should be celebrated as such.
In an attempt to balance the two sides, the United States now celebrates Indigenous Peoples’ Day on the same day as Columbus Day.
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