Pieces of bones are believed to have come from the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven. Photo: Eva Manhart/APA/AFP
Fragments of a skull believed to belong to the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) were donated by an American businessman to the Medical University of Vienna (Austria). whose family had owned the relic for decades, the facility reports.
Paul Kaufmann said he discovered the pieces of bone in 1990, when his mother died, and had access to a French bank’s safe deposit box.
Among the items contained in the box, Kaufmann found a tin box engraved with the inscription “Beethoven,” which allegedly contained the great musician’s remains. The businessman later found out that the skull fragments came from the estate of his mother’s great-uncle, the Austrian doctor and anthropologist Franz Romeo Seligmann.
It is known that Beethoven, who at the age of 32 suffered from progressive hearing loss as well as gastrointestinal and liver problems throughout his life, asked his brothers for their doctor Johann Adam Schmidt to determine and communicate the nature of his “illness” after his death.
After years of research, Kaufmann discovered that Seligmann had acquired the fragments in 1863—when Beethoven’s body was being exhumed and buried in Vienna’s Central Cemetery—to investigate the origin of the musician’s illness.
Forensic pathologist Christian Reiter had previously examined the skull fragments and found them credible. However, Kaufmann explained that It would be several months before the researchers analyzed the DNA samples from the bones before they could definitively match them to the composer’s genome, which was first sequenced earlier this year.
Paul Kaufmann shows journalists the alleged Beethoven skull fragments on June 20, 2023. Photo: Eva Manhart / APA / AFP
Beethoven’s cause of death
In the last seven years of his life, the composer suffered at least two bouts of jaundice associated with liver disease, leading to the general belief that he died of cirrhosis of the liver.
The musician’s body was exhumed twice, in 1863 and 1888, in hopes of reconstructing his complicated medical history and discovering the true cause of death. To this end, medical biographers have also examined Beethoven’s letters and diaries, as well as his autopsy and the notes of his doctors.
If the remains turn out to be Beethoven’s remains, scientists hope to learn new details about his death.
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Beethoven’s DNA analysis provides clues to his health and reveals a family secret
(With information from RT)