Scientists in Spain claims to have solved the two lingering mysteries that cling to Christopher Columbus more than five centuries after the explorer died: are the much-traveled remains buried in a magnificent tomb in Seville Cathedral really his? And was the navigator who changed the course of world history really from Genoa – as history has long claimed – or was he actually Basque, Catalan, Galician, Greek, Jewish or Portuguese?
The answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the second is… wait until Saturday.
The long-running and often competing theorizing was not helped by his corpse’s posthumous travels. Although Columbus died in the Spanish city of Valladolid in 1506, he wanted to be buried on the island of Hispaniola, which today is divided into Haiti and the Dominican Republic. His remains were taken there in 1542, moved to Cuba in 1795, and then brought to Seville in 1898 when Spain lost control of Cuba after the Spanish-American War.
On Thursday, after two decades of DNA testing and researchForensic medical expert José Antonio Lorente said the incomplete set of remains in Seville Cathedral were indeed those of Columbus.
“Today, thanks to new technology, the previous partial theory that the remains in Seville are those of Christopher Columbus has been definitively confirmed,” said the expert, who led the study at the University of Granada. The conclusion followed comparisons of DNA samples from the grave with others taken from one of Columbus’ brothers, Diego, and his son Fernando.
The thornier question of the explorer’s exact origins will be revealed in Columbus DNA: His True Origin, a special TV show to be shown on Saturday, October 12, the date Spain celebrates its national day and commemorates Columbus’s arrival in the New World.
While numerous claims have been made about where the navigator came from – theories include Italy, Sweden, Norway, Portugal, France, Greece, Scotland and a handful of different Spanish regions – the show’s makers insist they now have the answer.
“Twenty-five possible origins and eight finalists, but there can only be one,” Spain’s state broadcaster RTVE said in a statement.
Lorente, who described the investigation as “very complicated”, remained tight-lipped about its conclusions. “There are some very important results – results that will help us in multiple studies and analyzes that need to be evaluated by historians,” he told reporters Thursday.
However, he had previously been rather blunt about his belief that Columbus was Genoese, saying in 2021: “There is no doubt on our part [about his Italian origin]but we can provide objective data that … can close a range of existing theories.”
The scientist also pointed out that parts of Columbus may still be in the Caribbean. In 1877, an excavation of the Santo Domingo Cathedral in the Dominican Republic unearthed a small lead box of bone fragments labeled: “Imageuse and distinguished man, Christopher Columbus.” These remains are now buried at the Faro a Colón monument (Columbus Lighthouse) in Santo Domingo Este.
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Lorente said that since both sets of bones were incomplete, both could belong to the explorer.
If, as the show and the accompanying hype suggest, the fascination with Columbus remains undiminished, so does the controversy surrounding his legacy.
In 2015, Ada Colau, then the mayor of Barcelona, along with many on the Spanish left, disapproved of the October 12 celebrations. “Shame that a nation celebrates a genocide and on top of that with a military parade that costs 800,000 euros,” she tweeted.
José María González Santos, the mayor of Cádiz at the time, agreed. “We never discovered America, we massacred and oppressed a continent and its cultures in the name of God,” he said. “Nothing to celebrate.”
Four years ago, a statue of Columbus in Richmond, Virginia, was broken down, set on fire and thrown into a lake. A sign reading “Columbus Represents Genocide” was then placed on the spray-painted foundation that once held the figure.
