Anna Catharina Bischoff
Anna Catharina Bischoff (born March 23, 1719 in Strasbourg ; buried on August 30, 1787 in Basel ), also known as "Lady / Mummy from the Barfüsserkirche", was the wife of Pastor Lucas Gernler. She became known in 1975 when her mummified body was found in a shaft in the Barfüsserkirche in Basel.
prehistory
In the 19th century, after a renovation, salt of French origin was stored in the Barfüsserkirche. It loosened, seeped into the ground, rose through osmotic processes into the sandstone pillars and threatened to blow them up. Because this threatened the entire structure of the almost 800 year old church, the church was extensively renovated in 1975. In addition to the building renovation, the Archaeological Soil Research Basel-Stadt carried out a rescue excavation during which hundreds of buried people were excavated and documented.
The discovery
On October 20, 1975, workers came across a brick burial chamber in front of the choir , in which two completely preserved wooden coffins lay on top of each other, underneath were bones. In the upper, larger coffin lay a female skeleton, in the lower, smaller one lay the almost completely mummified corpse of a woman who was to be known as the "Lady / Mummy from the Barefoot Church".
First investigations
The woman had been buried in a simple fir coffin. Parts of her clothing and remnants of her hair were preserved. The mummy was in good condition, only the head and feet were skeletonized. The left hand cupped the right arm above the wrist. Her height was 142 centimeters, so the woman was short even for historical times. Many skin folds suggest a full body.
hands
hand
Rest of her dress
An initial investigation by the anthropologist Bruno Kaufmann in 1976 showed that the putrefaction had been prevented by toxic mercury sulphide , which was found in the whole body, but especially in the lungs, and which is responsible for its complete mummification. The climate in the burial chamber and coffin also blocked the decomposition of the body by microbes.
New research
Since 2015, the mummy has been examined with modern analytics under the direction of Gerhard Hotz at the Natural History Museum Basel . Computed tomographic analyzes revealed atherosclerosis of the abdominal aorta and a gall bladder filled with stones , which indicates a high consumption of high-fat meat and plenty of carbohydrates. During her lifetime, as a result of a diet rich in sugar and poor oral hygiene, she had lost all the teeth in her upper jaw, and carious front and canine teeth had survived in the lower jaw .
Evidence of mercury in the lungs and other organs led medical historians in the 1970s to the conclusion that the woman had undergone mercury inhalation therapy, a treatment method customary at the time, but which was only used in patients with serious syphilis . However, the mercury exposure measured using modern analysis technology is below the threshold that would indicate mercury poisoning . Anna-Catharina Bischoff did have mercury in her body, but based on the current data, it has not been proven whether this also led to death. So it is not clear what she died of. Further investigations will have to show whether this was due to the effects of syphilis or a combination of syphilis and mercury exposure.
How Anna Catharina got infected can no longer be determined today. In addition to sexual intercourse, other possibilities include infection at the bathers through contaminated instruments or in the nearby Strasbourg syphilis hospital, where she accompanied her husband on visits to the sick. There is also evidence of a "sweat room" where inhalations with mercury vapor may have been carried out. The patients sat - similar to a sauna - in a heated room and inhaled the toxic fumes. After a temporary improvement there was often fatal mercury poisoning.
ID
The prominent location of her grave - it was only three graves away from Mayor Johann Rudolf Wettstein - led to the assumption that she belonged to the upper class; this situation was otherwise reserved for members of the clergy or high dignitaries.
Documents from the church archives showed that the shaft in front of the choir had already been opened once in October 1843; at that time the hall of the church was converted into a store room for merchants. When workers removed the slab with the number 11, they discovered a grave with three coffins underneath. In 2016, Marie-Louise Gamma and Diana Gysin, employees of the Basel Citizens Research Project, discovered the crucial text in the notes of site manager Blendinger, which deciphered and transcribed historical sources.
Blendinger described the text on the grave plate as follows:
Gravestone N 11 brick-lined grave, contains 3 coffins. Here in God the honorary investor and fiefdom rests Mr. Isaak Byschoff, Alt Spittel Meister, died blissfully on November 2nd, 1709. His age 67 years less ... month. Expecting a happy resurrection in Christ Jesus. Here in God the honorable and virtuous Mrs. Catharina Gysendorfferin, Mr. Isaak Bischoff, Spittel Meister's married housewife, rest. Merely died on August 9th 1697. -Your age 41 years. Expecting a happy resurrection
(105)
The number 105 referred to the gravestone index of the Barfüsserkirche from 1771, in which 110 family graves and information about the buried are listed. It is kept under the signature StABS Bauakten JJ 32 to 33 in the Basel-Stadt State Archives . As position 105 in the family grave of the hospital master Bischoff is noted that his granddaughter Anna Catharina Bischoff was buried in August 1787.
Blendinger also stated:
NB.
Under this stone was a walled grave (without earth) in which there were 2 black people and a yellow coffin, all in good condition. In the two black coffins were male corpses, in the yellow one a female corpse. They were all well preserved and looked like mummies, for their bodies had only dried up, their clothes were still wrinkled. Hair, teeth and fingernails still intact. After they were taken out and inspected, they were immediately lowered back into their tomb, but covered with earth.
This was the first time a name of the deceased was available. Blendinger's description of the “small female corpse” corresponds to the mummy of Anna Catharina Bischoff, which was excavated for the second time in 1975.
genealogy
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A team of researchers from the Eurac Research Institute for Mummy Research in Bolzano succeeded in isolating the mitochondrial DNA of the mummy and detecting a variant of the haplogroup U. This created the basis for scientific identification. Now living descendants of the mummy had to be found via the female line in order to compare their saliva with the mummy's DNA. The team of genealogists of the Basel Citizens Research Project took on this laborious work and created a family tree of the female line. The genealogical information comes from church records, marriage directories and internet forums.
Justina Froben, born in 1512 and a daughter of the Basel book printer Johann Froben, proved to be the ancestor seven generations in the past . From her, Diana Gysin and Marie-Louise Gamma succeeded in reconstructing an uninterrupted female line over 15 generations that led from the beginning of the 16th century to Rosemary Probst-Ryhiner in the present. Since a descendant of Anna Catharina Bischoff emigrated to the USA in the 19th century, a second line could be determined there.
DNA samples were analyzed from both families . Both showed a match of their DNA with that of the mummy of more than 99.8 percent. This proved that Anna Catharina Bischoff, born on March 23, 1719 in Strasbourg, had been buried on August 30, 1787.
Via Anna Catharina Bischoff's son-in-law Christian Friedrich Pfeffel von Kriegelstein , the line leads directly to the English politician Boris Johnson ; his great-grandmother was Marie Luise von Pfeffel.
A team from BBC World News traveled to the media event at the Natural History Museum in Basel in January 2018 to report on the ancestor of the prominent politician.
| Relationship with Boris Johnson | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| marriage | ⚭ 1738 | ⚭ 1759 | ⚭ 1808 | ⚭ 1836 | ⚭ 1881 | ⚭ 1906 | 1936 | ⚭ 1963 | |
| w |
Anna Catharina Bischoff 1719–1787 |
Anna Katharina Gernler 1739–1776 |
Carolina von Tettenborn 1789-1811 |
Karoline von Rothenburg 1805–1872 |
Hélène Arnous de Rivière 1862–1951 |
Marie Louise von Pfeffel 1882–1944 |
Yvonne Eileen Williams 1907-1987 |
Charlotte Fawcett * 1942 |
|
| m | Lucas Gernler 1704–1781 |
Christian Friedrich Pfeffel von Kriegelstein 1726–1807 |
Christian von Pfeffel 1765–1834 |
Karl Max von Pfeffel 1811–1890 |
Hubert von Pfeffel 1843–1922 |
Stanley Fred Williams 1880-1955 |
Osman Johnson Kemal 1909-1992 |
Stanley Johnson * 1940 |
Boris Johnson * 1964 |
Ancestors of Anna Catharina Bischoff
Parents
Hans-Jakob Bischoff (* December 12, 1683, † 1733); Augusta Margaritha Burckhardt (* January 24, 1697, † December 28, 1735)
Maternal grandparents
Catharina Burckhardt-Krug (1659–1714); Johann Rudolf Burckhardt (1654-1730)
Paternal grandparents
Catharina Bischoff-Gysendörfer (1656–1697); Isaak Bischoff (1642–1709)
In-
laws Theodorf Gernler (1670–1723), Valeria Gernler-Ortmann (1677–1746)
Descendants of Anna Catharina Bischoff
Theodor Gernler (born November 25, 1738 in Strasbourg, † 1740 ibid)
Anna Katharina (* 1739, † 1776 in Versailles), ⚭ with Christian Friedrich Pfeffel von Kriegelstein (1726–1807)
Valérie Gernler (* 1741 in Strasbourg, † unknown)
Augusta Maria Gernler (* 1744 in Strasbourg, † 1804 in Basel)
Salome Gernler (* 1744 in Strasbourg, † 1746 in Strasbourg)
Lukas Gernler (* 1749 in Strasbourg, † 1750 ibid)
Johann Lukas Gernler (* 22 November 1751 in Strasbourg , † unknown)
Life
Anna Catharina Bischoff, a granddaughter of the Basel hospital master Isaak Bischoff, came from an old Basel family. She was born on March 23, 1719 in Strasbourg as the oldest of five siblings, of whom only her younger sister Anna Margaretha survived. Her parents were the Swiss Reformed pastor Johann Jakob Bischoff (1683-1733) and Augusta Margaretha Burckhardt (1697-1735). The wealthy family lived in the middle of Strasbourg in a two-story house with ten rooms and a maid. Her father died in 1733 at the age of 49 when Anna Catharina was almost 14 years old. In the same year, the widow Augusta Margaretha Bischoff-Burckhardt returned with her two underage daughters to their home town of Basel. Before that, however, Anna met her future husband, Lucas Gernler (1704–1781), who was 15 years her senior. From 1732 to 1733 he had been her father's deputy pastor in Wolfisheim , where the services were held. He later became his successor.
The couple married in Basel in 1738 and then moved back to Strasbourg. Anna Catharina gave birth to a total of seven children, of which only two daughters survived. Augusta remained single, the other, Anna Katharina Gernler (1739–1776), married the German historian and diplomat Christian Friedrich Pfeffel von Kriegelstein. She died in Versailles in 1776 at the age of 37.
In 1781, Lucas Gernler died of a stroke at the age of 77; he left numerous letters and a church hymn book. One year after his death, Anna Catharina, then 62 years old, moved to Basel. There she probably lived with her younger sister Anna Margareta Geymüller-Bischoff (1724–1804), who had married a wealthy businessman, until her death.
Anna Catharina's great-grandson Karl Maximilian von Pfeffel (1811–1890) later married Paul von Württemberg's illegitimate daughter, Karoline von Rothenburg. The two are the great, great, great-grandparents of Boris Johnson, who is the eighth generation of the descendants of the lady from Basel's Barfüsserkirche.
Open questions
A team of forty from numerous fields such as anthropology , genealogy , forensics , molecular genetics , medical history, and toxicology laid the foundations that led to the identification of the dead in two years. Despite these comprehensive clarifications, questions still remain unanswered:
- What about the striking hand position of the mummy?
- Where are the two male mummies mentioned by Blendinger in 1843?
- Where does the skeletonized body that was found in the upper coffin in 1975 come from? The skull comes from a man around 25 years old, the rest of the skeleton from a woman around 40 years old. It could be Anna Catharina's grandmother Catharina Gysendörffer, who was buried in 1697. She was 41 years old. The man's skull has not yet been identified.
- Was there an exchange of letters between Anna Catharina Bischoff and her daughter Anna Katharina Gernler (1739–1776)? If so, in which archive can these letters be found?
- Is there a portrait of Anna Catharina Bischoff and her husband Lucas Gernler?
How will the research continue?
The forty-strong team continues to research with the aim of answering the open questions and making the life and work of Anna Catharina Bischoff available to a broad, interested public in book form. This research is carried out in cooperation with the Department of History at the University of Basel . The research is coordinated at the Natural History Museum Basel.
Web links
- Naturhistorisches Museum Basel: pictures, complete family tree
- Alois Feusi in the NZZ on January 25, 2018
- Swiss Radio and Television | SRF: "Einstein" broadcast on January 25, 2018
- Guardian of January 25, 2018
- Citizen Research Project Basel
- Archaeological soil research Basel-Stadt
literature
- Gerhard Hotz et al .: The mysterious mummy find from the Barfüsserkirche in Basel ; Swiss Society for Family Research in Switzerland; Yearbook 2018, Vol. 45, pp. 35–64
Individual evidence
- ↑ spectrum of science; Special Archeology - History - Culture 3/2018, p. 76ff
- ↑ Thomas Briellmann report, forensic toxicologist, University of Basel
- ↑ bzbasel.ch of January 25, 2018
- ↑ www.bzbasel.ch. January 25, 2018
- ↑ This is the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandma of Boris Johnson. Spiegel Online, January 25, 2018
- ↑ www.bbc.com, January 28, 2018
- ↑ Naturhistorisches Museum Basel: complete family tree
- ^ Gerhard Hotz et al .: The mysterious mummy find from the Barfüsserkirche in Basel; Swiss Society for Family Research in Switzerland; Yearbook 2018, Vol. 45, pp. 35–64
- ↑ spectrum of science; Special Archeology - History - Culture 3/2018, p. 81
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bischoff, Anna Catharina |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Wife of Pastor Lucas Gernler (found as a mummy in 1975) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 23, 1719 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Strasbourg |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 1787 |
| Place of death | Basel |