Boris
Johnson and the skull of Anna Catharina Bischoff, an 18th-century
noblewoman from the Swiss town of Basel.
Reuters/SRF
A well-preserved mummy in Basel, Switzerland, has long
been a mystery.
New analysis has found her identity: Anna Catharina
Bischoff, an 18th-century clergyman's wife, and distant
ancestor of UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
She's his great-great-great-great-great-great-great
grandmother.
Her body is so well-preserved because of mercury used
to treat her syphilis.
Johnson said he was "very excited" to learn of the
connection.
A mummy whose corpse was ravaged by syphilis and buried in a
Swiss mountain village has been identified by scientists as a
distant ancestor of British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
The preserved body, which was unearthed decades ago in Basel,
Switzerland, has been given a definitive identity for the first
time after extensive research. And the results place her on the
same family tree as Johnson.
A
full-length view of the mummy, which owes its preservation to
large doses of mercury, probably administered as a primitive
treatment for syphilis.
SRF
According to SRF, a Swiss TV channel which has produced a
documentary on the mummy, she is Anna Catharina Bischoff, an
18th-century clergyman's wife. She was discovered under Basel's
Barfüsser Church in the 1970s during renovations.
According to
the BBC, Bischoff's identity has been established by
scientists with 99.8% certainty. She is Johnson's
great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother, meaning
she is nine generations away from him.
A few hours after the story broke in the UK, Johnson said he was
"excited" and "very proud" to learn of his link to Bischoff.
SRF, citing Swiss archives, said that Bischoff lived from 1719 to
1787, and died aged 68 from syphilis.
Bischoff is referred to as a mummy, but she had an ordinary
Christian burial, and her body wasn't kept intact on purpose.
An
artist's impression of what Anna Catharina Bischoff may have
looked like.
SRF
Rather, according to the BBC, her body was preserved by accident
thanks to the large quantities of mercury she ingested.
At the time she was alive, doctors believed mercury could help
treat syphilis, but it was much more likely to have hastened her
death.
Johnson tweeted about the story on Thursday evening, jokingly
referring to Bischoff as "a pioneer in sexual health care."
More details on the mummy will be broadcast on Thursday evening
in an
episode of the SRF documentary series "Einstein."
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