Luke Harding in Berlin
Saturday November 5, 2005
The Guardian
He revolutionised astronomy, but for more than four centuries the last resting place of Nicolaus Copernicus - the man who developed the theory that the planets circle the sun - was a mystery. Yesterday, however, a team of Polish archaeologists revealed that they had discovered Copernicus's remains beneath the floor of a medieval cathedral.
His body had been discovered under Frombork cathedral, where he was a canon, on Poland's Baltic coast. The great astronomer had been buried under one of 16 altars on the south side of the building, Jerzy Gassowski, the head of the archaeology and anthropology institute in the Polish town of Pultusk, told the Guardian. "We have a skull and a few bones. We are 97% certain it's him," he said. "The only way to be absolutely certain would be to do a DNA test. But since Copernicus didn't have any children, this is tricky."
The team began searching for the astronomer, who lived from 1473 to 1543, after a request from the local bishop. They found the skull in August after a year-long search. A police laboratory in Warsaw then used it to make a virtual reconstruction of the man's face.
"The reconstruction matched contemporary portraits. We know that Copernicus had a wonky nose after an accident as a child. Our skull had a similar scar. We also know that Copernicus died at the age of 70 - an exceptional age for the time," Professor Gassowski said. "It fits."
An astronomer, mathematician and economist, Copernicus's famous treatise, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, demolished the Ptolemaic theory that the earth was the centre of the universe.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,14493,1635020,00.html
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