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undated portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. |
Have scientists found Mozart's skull?
Researchers said Tuesday they will reveal the results of DNA tests
in a documentary film airing this weekend on Austrian television as part
of a year of celebratory events marking the composer's 250th birthday.
The tests were conducted last year by experts at the Institute for
Forensic Medicine in the alpine city of Innsbruck, and the long-awaited
results will be publicized in "Mozart: The Search for Evidence," to be
screened Sunday.
Past tests were inconclusive, but this time, "we succeeded in getting a
clear result," lead researcher Dr. Walther Parson, a renowned forensic
pathologist said. He said the results were "100 percent verified" by a
U.S. Army laboratory, but refused to elaborate.
The skull in question is one that for more than a century has been in
the possession of the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, the
elegant Austrian city where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on Jan. 27,
1756.
Parson said genetic material from scrapings from the skull was analyzed
and compared to DNA samples gathered in 2004 from the thigh bones of
Mozart's maternal grandmother and a niece. The bones were recovered when a
Mozart family grave was opened in 2004 at Salzburg's Sebastian Cemetery.
Mozart died in 1791 and was buried in a pauper's grave at Vienna's St.
Mark's Cemetery. The location of the grave was initially unknown, but its
likely location was determined in 1855.
The skull - which is missing its lower jaw - came to the Mozarteum in
Salzburg in 1902, according to Dr. Stephan Pauly, the foundation's
director.
The foundation, a private nonprofit organization that works to preserve
Mozart's legacy, was founded in 1880 by Salzburg residents and made the
skull available for the DNA tests.
The skull long has fascinated experts: In 1991, a French scholar who
examined it made the startling - though unconfirmed - conclusion that
Mozart may have died of complications of a head
injury rather than rheumatic fever as most historians believe.
Anthropologist Pierre-Francois Puech of the University of Provence
based his belief on a fracture he found on the skull's left temple.
Mozart, he theorized, may have sustained it in a fall, and that would help
explain the severe headaches the composer was said to have suffered more
than a year before his death.
Austria has designated 2006 a Mozart jubilee year, with dozens of events
in Salzburg, Vienna and elsewhere to commemorate his 250
birthday.
(Agencies)
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科學家們已經找到了莫扎特的頭骨嗎？
本周二，有關研究人員表示，他們將于本周末在奧地利電視臺播出的一個記錄片中公布DNA測試結果，這也是紀念作曲家莫扎特誕辰250周年慶祝活動的一個重要內容。
這項DNA測試是“阿爾卑斯山城”因斯布魯克一個法醫學研究所的專家們在去年做的。期待已久的測試結果將在本周日播出的記錄片《莫扎特：揭開頭骨之謎》中揭曉。
之前所做的一些實驗都沒有得出決定性的結論，但這次測試的帶頭人著名法醫病理學家沃爾瑟·帕森說：“我們終于使‘真相’浮出水面”。他說，此項出自美國軍隊實驗室的測試結果可以說是100%的可靠。但是他拒絕做進一步的解釋。
這塊未被驗明“真身”的頭骨一直被收藏在薩爾茨堡的國際莫扎特基金會中，已有一個世紀之久。薩爾茨堡是奧地利一個風景如畫的城市，1756年1月27日，沃爾夫岡·阿瑪迪亞斯·莫扎特就出生在這里。
帕森說，他們首先分析了從頭骨上刮下的碎屑中的遺傳物質，之后將分析結果與已有的DNA樣本進行對比，已有的DNA樣本是2004年從莫扎特的外祖母和侄女的大腿骨上提取的。2004年，位于薩爾茨堡塞巴斯蒂安墓地的莫扎特家族墓穴被打開，這幾塊用作實驗的骨頭便由此獲得。
莫扎特于1791年逝世，當時他被埋在維也納圣馬克墓地的一個貧民墳墓里。最初沒有人知道莫扎特到底被埋在哪里，直到1855年，墳墓的大體位置才被確定。
據基金會負責人史蒂芬·鮑里介紹，這塊缺了下頜的頭骨于1902年來到薩爾茨堡的莫扎特基金會。
國際莫扎特基金會是一個非盈利性的私人組織，由薩爾茨堡當地居民成立于1880年，其主要目的是為了保存莫扎特遺物，DNA測試所用的頭骨就是由它提供的。
莫扎特頭骨引起了很多專家們的興趣。1991年，一位法國學者對這塊頭骨進行了研究，并得出了一個驚人的結論：莫扎特可能死于由頭部受傷引起的并發癥，而并非大多數歷史學家所認為的風濕熱。但這個結論最終沒有得到證實。
普羅旺斯大學的人類學家皮埃爾·弗蘭科斯在莫扎特頭骨的左太陽穴上發現了一條裂縫，由此，他推斷，這可能是由莫扎特摔跤所致，同時，這也為莫扎特逝世前困擾他一年多的嚴重頭痛病提供了解釋。
奧地利指定2006年為“莫扎特年”，薩爾茨堡、維也納和其他各地都將舉行各種慶祝活動，以紀念莫扎特的250周年誕辰。
(中國日報網站編譯) |
Updated: 2006-01-05 09:43
