2023-05-21 02:47:25
The remains of the “Renaissance Baby” were found in a crypt belonging to an Austrian noble family. Researchers have now found the reasons for his early death.
Munich — A virtual autopsy and radiocarbon test helped scientists identify the mummified 16th-century infant. The team led by chief pathologist Prof. Dr. Andrew Nerlich from the Academic Clinic Munich-Bogenhausen found out that the child was about one year old when it died. To do this, the researchers examined tooth eruption and the formation of long bones, as the researchers did in their study, which was published in Fronitiers in Medicine was published, report.
Renaissance baby probably couldn’t walk or crawl
The baby’s soft tissues examined in the laboratory showed that the child was a boy who was overweight for his age. Which suggests that his parents were able to feed him well – but the bones tell a different story, according to the Munich researchers. Because the child’s ribs were deformed. The child was apparently suffering from scurvy or severe rickets. There is also evidence that it could neither walk nor crawl. In addition, a nutrient deficiency is said to have contributed to the early death of the little boy, according to the scientists in their report. The deficiency could have been preceded by pneumonia, which could have been the result of rickets, the study continues.
“The combination of obesity and severe vitamin deficiency can only be explained by a general ‘good’ nutritional status and an almost total lack of sunlight,” comments Dr. Andreas Nerlich the autopsy results. This suggests the toddler lived in darkness for about a year due to vitamin D deficiency before dying, the online portal concludes Popular Science.
Since the overall picture of the infant clearly rules out malnutrition from malnutrition, the bone lesions in rickets must be due to another vitamin D metabolism disorder.
“It is interesting that in earlier times, socially high-ranking people avoided sun exposure and especially darkening of the skin. Aristocrats were expected to have white, pale skin, while blue-collar workers were expected to have a tan,” the scientists comment on the results of their study.
Renaissance baby: the identity of the toddler has not been clarified for a long time
For a long time, the question of who the boy actually was remained unanswered. A specialist examination of his clothing revealed that he had been buried in a long hooded cloak made of expensive silk. He was also buried in a crypt reserved exclusively for the powerful Counts of Starhemberg. They usually buried their firstborn sons and wives in the crypt.
Renaissance Baby Mummy came from an aristocratic family
The child was found in an aristocratic Austrian family tomb, where conditions allowed for natural mummification and preserved soft tissue that contained important information about his life and death. Curiously, this was the only unidentified body in the crypt, buried in an unmarked wooden coffin, rather than the elaborate metal coffins reserved for the other family members buried there. The crypt is located near the family seat of Wildberg Castle in the small village of Hellmonsödt in Upper Austria.
A radiocarbon test of a skin sample indicated that the baby mummy was between 10 and 18 months old and was buried between AD 1550 and 1635, while historical records of the crypt’s administration indicated that his burial probably took place after the renovation of the crypt Crypt took place around 1600 AD. He was the only infant buried in the crypt. These were apparently the remains of Reichard Wilhelm, the first son of a Count of Starhemberg, as the historical investigation of the case showed.
The baby mummy is not the first mummy that scientists Nerlich is scrutinizing. He has already examined a Bavarian general from the 19th century and a one-and-a-half-year-old girl named Karolina.
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