Discover three living “relatives” of an 18th century Swiss mummy

Anna Katrina Bischoff He died in 1787 in the city Switzerland Basel, as was customary in those days, was buried in Parfusser Church. Almost 200 years later, in 1975, his body was found during restoration work at the temple.

Now, a group of geneticists has successfully established a kinship between the 18th-century mummy and her three modern-day descendants, the site reports. RT.

At the time, experts were amazed at how good the body was.

Syphilis and Mercury: The Anna Katharina Story

Detect operators in action The coffin is very close to the altarThese details revealed that women belong to a high society.

But how is the corpse kept in such good condition for so long? This was for High levels of mercury found in the remains, which is not surprising because at that time this chemical element was used in the treatment Syphilis.

In 2018, Christina Wurst, a scientist at the Eurac Research Center in Bolzano, Italy, the study’s lead author, and other colleagues from Italy and Switzerland announced that they had identified the body.

At that time, we announced that her name was Anna Katharina Bischoff, that she was born in Strasbourg and that she was She is married to a priest and has seven children. However, only The two of them managed to survive Until the age of majority.

Once they were able to find out the identity of the mummy he had found, experts analyzed various historical archives and Archaeological discoveries to rebuild your family tree Through the maternal line that consists of 22 generation Until the present.

How did they conduct the study?

The researchers took samples from two brothers born in Basel in 1928 and 1938, and from another descendant residing in Ohio, United Statedescribes the site.

For her part, to perform a mitochondrial DNA test on Anna Katharina’s body, they used a laughing.

As a result of the research, scientists have sequenced the female genome and succeeded in proving it Kinship with the three people currently living.

In January 2018, when the deceased was identified, to the surprise of experts it turned out that among her distant descendants were the current English Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.