Boris Johnson has been accused of being a fossil and a dinosaur in his time, but he’s never drawn comparisons with a mummy. But now DNA testing has revealed that a mummified body found beneath a Swiss church is the Foreign Secretary’s seven-times-great-grandmother.
The corpse was uncovered during construction work at the Barfusser church in Basel in 1975, in an unusually well-preserved state due to the body’s high levels of mercury, once commonly used to treat syphilis.
The mystery of the “Lady of Barfusser church”, Switzerland’s best-known mummy, has puzzled local historians for more than 40 years, the Basler Zeitung reports.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Scientific analysis dated the coffin to the 16th century, when Basel was “a wealthy trading city” on the busy Rhine shipping route, says the BBC.
However, the identity of the woman within seemed lost to history until recently discovered archives revealed that the mummy had actually been unearthed before, in 1843.
Details in those records led researchers to suspects that the spot where the body was found was the final resting place of Anna Catharina Bischoff, a Basel gentlewoman who died in 1787.
The lead opened the door to the possibilities of DNA testing. Genetic material extracted from the big toe of the mummy was compared to DNA donated by modern members of the Bischoff family.
The DNA was a 99.8% match, leading historians to identify the body as that of Bischoff.
A clergyman’s wife, she “may have contracted syphilis while caring for patients with the sexually transmitted disease”, says the BBC - which would explain the presence of the mercury that preserved her body.
Her daughter, also named Anna, married into the Von Pfeffel family, whose heritage is evident in the Foreign Secretary’s full name: Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.
The connection makes Anna Bischoff the great-great-great-great-great-great-great- grandmother of the politician, through his father, Stanley Johnson.
-
Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ comes into confounding focusIn the Spotlight What began as a plan to redevelop the Gaza Strip is quickly emerging as a new lever of global power for a president intent on upending the standing world order
-
‘It’s good for the animals, their humans — and the veterinarians themselves’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
The world is entering an era of ‘water bankruptcy’The explainer Water might soon be more valuable than gold
-
Panama and Canada are negotiating over a crucial copper mineIn the Spotlight Panama is set to make a final decision on the mine this summer
-
Why Greenland’s natural resources are nearly impossible to mineThe Explainer The country’s natural landscape makes the task extremely difficult
-
Iran cuts internet as protests escalateSpeed Reada Government buildings across the country have been set on fire
-
US nabs ‘shadow’ tanker claimed by RussiaSpeed Read The ship was one of two vessels seized by the US military
-
How Bulgaria’s government fell amid mass protestsThe Explainer The country’s prime minister resigned as part of the fallout
-
Femicide: Italy’s newest crimeThe Explainer Landmark law to criminalise murder of a woman as an ‘act of hatred’ or ‘subjugation’ but critics say Italy is still deeply patriarchal
-
Brazil’s Bolsonaro behind bars after appeals run outSpeed Read He will serve 27 years in prison
-
Americans traveling abroad face renewed criticism in the Trump eraThe Explainer Some of Trump’s behavior has Americans being questioned
