DNA tests prove Swiss mummy is an ancestor of Boris Johnson
A SYPHILITIC 18th-century mummy, dug up more than 40 years ago in a Swiss church, is the great-great-greatgreat-great-great-great grandmother of Boris Johnson, it has emerged.
The woman’s body was unearthed in 1975 during renovation work on Basel’s Barfusser Church, but her identity has remained a mystery until now.
Known as “Switzerland’s most famous mummy”, she was buried in front of the church altar, and was wearing expensive clothes, with no signs of malnutrition – all of which suggests that she had been wealthy. The body survived in a mummified state because the woman had died of mercury poisoning, which preserved the corpse.
However, there was no gravestone, or plaque to say who she was, or even when she had been interred.
Scientists from the Natural History Museum of Basel initially thought that the body was from the 16th century because of the wooden coffin, but the discovery of new archives last year revealed that the mummy had been discovered once before, in 1843, and linked to a wealthy Basel family.
To be sure, researchers extracted DNA from the mummy’s big toe and compared it to genetic material from a suspected modern relative.
Not only was it a 99.8 per cent match, showing that the woman must have been one of the Bischoff family, but further archival research showed she was Anna Catharina Bischoff, who died in 1787, a direct maternal ancestor of Mr Johnson, the Foreign Secretary.
Gerhard Hotz, an anthropologist at the Natural History Museum Basel, said: “Thanks to state-of-the-art analysis, we were able to solve the puzzle after years. What was her name? Who was she? And how did she die? The final proof needed a relative.”
Anna Catharina had seven children, but only two survived childhood. Anna, her daughter, married Christian Hubert Baron Pfeffel von Kriegelstein. Marie Luise von Pfeffel, her great- great-granddaughter, married Stanley Williams, and their daughter Irene, who Mr Johnson always referred to as “Granny Butter” wed his grandfather Wilfred “Johnson” Kemal.
The couple changed their name from Kemal to Johnson amid growing tensions with Turkey.
In Who Do You Think You Are?, the BBC genealogy show, Mr Johnson said his grandmother had spoken about her aristocratic ancestors, but no one in the family believed her claims. He described the Von Pfeffels as “posh toffs”.
However, his Swiss relative had a more humble life. Anna Catharina married a church minister and spent most of her adult life in Strasbourg.
Researchers believe she may have contracted syphilis while caring for patients with sexually transmitted diseases. After the death of her husband she returned to Basel, and her body showed that she had undergone extensive mercury treatments, thought then to be a cure for syphilis. However, the treatment often proved more deadly than the disease, and scientists think it probably killed Anna.
On hearing of his new relation, Mr Johnson tweeted: “Very excited to hear about my late great grand ‘mummy’ – a pioneer in sexual healthcare. Very proud.”
‘My late great grand “mummy” – a pioneer in sexual healthcare’
It was sporting of Margaret Thatcher to make a laborious joke before the 2001 election. “I was told beforehand my arrival was unscheduled,” she said, “but on the way here I passed a local cinema and it turns out you were expecting me after all. The billboard read The Mummy Returns.”
And now another mummy, or rather the greatgreat-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother of Boris Johnson has been splashed all over Swiss TV. A lady buried in Basel in 1787 turns out to be from the Pfeffel side of his lineage. Unkind remarks have been made about the amount of mercury in her remains, perhaps indicating treatment for syphilis. It was hardly her fault, no doubt, if that was her malady, and is certainly not the Foreign Secretary’s. Digging up dirt and grandmother’s footsteps are games that should not be confused.