During the study of the corpse of a mummified bishop hundreds of years ago, scientists discovered another small corpse hidden between his feet that baffled experts.
Experts recently discovered the body of a small child wrapped in a cloth between the legs of a famous 17th-century Swedish mummified bishop.
Bishop Beder Weinstrup was a prominent member of the Lutheran Church and was buried in 1679 in the crypt in Lund Cathedral, Sweden. Upon discovering the body of the child between his legs, experts tried to determine his relationship with it for several years.
The bishop’s body was qualified by scholars after preserving its shape for hundreds of years after it was buried and hidden in a secret crypt, where scientists believe that the leakage of cold distraction made the body mummify in its current form.
Surprisingly, a small child was discovered hidden with the corpse when studying and imaging it, which caused a lot of controversy about the relationship of the bishop to the child and the background of the death.
The researchers used new, developed devices to analyze the DNA of both bodies with the aim of determining the degree of relationship between them.
https://youtu.be/RUXPMs3HZeI
The researchers took genetic samples from both the bishop and the fetus, and found that the child was a baby, a male who was not fully developed.
According to the research published in the scientific journal “sciencedirect”, it is believed that the baby’s mother suffered a miscarriage at about the sixth month of pregnancy, which led to the birth of a stillbirth.
#Archaeology. AD 1679. Tiny bones in his coffin between his calves… Was Bishop Peder Winstrup entrusted with caring for the soul of the stillborn fetus? https://t.co/4X9HFMEqu0 pic.twitter.com/uhWP765cfE
— Kathleen O'Neal Gear (@GearBooks) April 7, 2021
The scientists found a match of 25% in the genetic material for both bodies, as this percentage expresses the presence of a second degree kinship.
Foetus found hidden in coffin of 17th century Swedish bishop Peder Winstrup #science http://t.co/jk5qqm6Jr6 pic.twitter.com/WnGOHaGR7Z
— ODDSLINK TV (@OddslinkTV) June 23, 2015
Scientists led by “Lund University” confirmed that the child has a different lineage from the DNA of the bishop, which proves that they are not of the same lineage as the mother, and therefore the child is bound to the bishop by his father.
As a close second-degree bishop, Winstrope could have been the baby’s uncle, grandfather, half-brother, or child’s cousin.
The researchers analyzed the family tree of the prominent bishop and believed that the most likely explanation is that the fetus is the son of his son, meaning that he is his grandson.
“It is possible that the stillborn child was the son of Pedersen Weinstrup, and thus the bishop was his grandfather,” says Maja Krzywinska from the Center for Paleogenetics at Stockholm University, who was involved in the analyzes.
Bishop Winstrope was studied by scholars due to his exceptional state of preservation, but the mystery of the embryo buried with him baffled academics.