Page 14 - IAV Digital Magazine #444

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Swiss Mummy Identified As Ancestor of Boris Johnson
By Jill Lawless, AP
Scientists have identified a mummified body found in a Swiss churchyard as the great-great- great-great- great-great- grandmother of British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
The body of an apparently wealthy woman was found decades ago during renova- tions on the Barfuesser Church in Basel. There was no gravestone, and her identity was a mystery.
Basel's Natural History Museum said Thursday that by matching DNA extracted from the
mummy's toe with a living descendant, its experts led an international team that identi- fied the woman as Anna Catharina Bischoff, a member of a prominent Basel family who died in 1787 at the age of 68.
The BBC report- ed that Bischoff
was likely poi- soned by mer- cury, then a common treat- ment for syphilis, which she may have acquired while tending to patients with the sexually transmitted dis- ease.
Bischoff's daughter mar- ried Christian Hubert Baron
Pfeffel von Kriegelstein, and their descendants include Britain's foreign minister, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.
Johnson tweet- ed that he was "very excited to hear about my late great grand 'mummy' - a pioneer in sexu- al health care.
Very proud."
The foreign sec- retary's father, author Stanley Johnson, said he was "totally thrilled."
Natural History Museum anthro- pologist Gerhard Hotz said a team of more than 40 people worked to identify the mystery woman.
"It was a risky project," he said. "We didn't know where we were going and whether we would gain any- thing. We had so much luck. And then entered Boris Johnson — what more do you want?"
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