History / 2 teachers from Spain will try to end the debate about the burial place of Christopher Columbus
Emma Daly, New York Times
The tomb in Santo Domingo (right) and Seville. The bones will be tested genetically
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Madrid. In his death as in his life, it seems, Christopher Columbus could not stay in one place. The many journeys that Columbus' body went through, caused confusion as to his resting place; The authorities in Seville and Santo Domingo claim that the explorer is buried in their territory.
Two Spanish educators, one of whom is a history lecturer interested in genealogy, have now recruited a forensics team, trying to resolve the debate through DNA identification. "In the church of La Cartuja in Seville, two members of the Columbus family are buried, and possibly even a third," explained a teacher from Andalusia who is behind the project, Marcial Castro.
Many historians have grappled with the question of Columbus's burial place, but Castro is the first so far to find a practical solution to the issue: he seeks to solve the mystery using the skeleton of Hernando, Columbus's illegitimate son from the love affair he had with a woman from the city of Cordoba.
Castro asked Dr. José Antonio Llorente, director of the genetic identification laboratory at the University of Granada, to examine bones taken from Hernando's grave, and to try and match the DNA code to bones taken from Columbus' disputed burial sites.
It is not clear if the project will be approved by the Spanish and Dominican authorities, and if the Catholic Church will approve the removal of the bodies from their graves. It is also not clear if usable genetic material will be found, which will make it possible to make the identification with certainty.
Nevertheless, Castro - who works with his colleague, biology teacher Sergio Algrada - is very enthusiastic. Both hope to achieve results by 2006, when it will be the 500th anniversary of his death.
Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain, on May 20, 1506. In his will, he ordered to be buried in America. Since a church of sufficient stature was not built there, he was buried in the Franciscan monastery in Valladolid. Three years later he was transferred to the family church, in a monastery on the island of La Cartoja in Seville. According to Castro, in 1537 María de Rojas y Toledo, the daughter-in-law of Columbus, received royal permission to transfer his body to the Dominican Republic, to be buried in the new cathedral of Santo Domingo. However, this was not his last burial place either: in 1795, Spain transferred ownership of the island to France, and decided to move Columbus' bones to Havana, where they remained until the Spanish-American War. Then, the bones were returned to Seville.
At that stage, the controversy was already in full swing: in the excavations carried out in 1877 in the cathedral in Santo Domingo, a chest was discovered containing bone fragments, on which were engraved the words, "a famous and great man, Don Cristóbal Colón". These remains are now buried in the "Faro de Colon" monument in the Dominican Republic. In another grave discovered at the same time, there were, according to information, the bones of Luis Colón, the grandson of Columbus; The Dominican authorities said that when the Spaniards moved the body of Columbus, another skeleton was mistakenly moved instead of the explorer's remains. According to Castro, matters got even more complicated after, in 1950, an amateur historian uncovered another body in the church where Columbus was once buried.
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