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posted by janrinok on Sunday January 28 2018, @04:40AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-wonder-if-she-regrets-anything dept.

BBC News writes:

Scientists in the Swiss city of Basel have solved a decades-old mystery over the identity of a mummified woman.

Their research revealed a surprise: the woman is the great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother of UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

The body was uncovered in 1975 while renovations were being done on Basel's Barfüsser Church.

[...] There was no gravestone to indicate her identity, but initial testing of her wooden coffin suggested it dated from the 16th Century.

Another clue: her body was riddled with mercury - a standard treatment for syphilis from the late 15th to the 19th Century. Highly toxic mercury treatment was more often a kill than a cure and it was this that preserved her body.

The story continues to explain how scientists using historical records and DNA testing have managed to ascertain (with 99.8% probability) that the mummy was "none other than Anna Catharina Bischoff. Born in Basel in 1719, she died there in 1787." The Bischoffs are a well-established and prominent family in the Basel region.


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  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @06:00AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @06:00AM (#629348)
    Even if were true, how do you know it isn't a bunch of right-wing white fascists who are knifing the otherwise peaceful Muslim immigrants and raping their women?
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