How Duke’s DNA cracked secret of the last Tsar
Science Museum exhibit to display unseen details of how Prince Philip’s blood sample provided vital clue
IT WAS the mystery that captured the imagination of the world, as a Russian Imperial dynasty was ruthlessly executed in shady circumstances that would remain ambiguous for decades.
The true story of how the Duke of Edinburgh helped piece together the murders of Tsar Nicholas II and his family is to be told by the Science Museum in a new exhibition detailing how his DNA provided the key.
The Duke, who offered a blood sample to experts attempting to identify bodies found in unmarked graves in 1993, provided a match with the Tsarina and her daughters, related through the maternal line, proving once and for all their fate.
The research, known in detail only to scientists until now, will be put on display for the first time, with graphs of the Tsar’s own DNA exhibited alongside that of the Duke. The Duke of Edinburgh is the grand-nephew of the Tsarina; her older sister Victoria Mountbatten was his maternal grandmother.
He was invited to assist the investigation into her murder by Dr Peter Gill and his team at the Forensic Science Service, who used mitochondrial DNA analysis to prove “virtually beyond doubt” that bones found in a grave in Yekaterinburg in July 1991 were those of the Romanovs.
The Science Museum exhibition, The Last Tsar: Blood and Revolution, is designed to explore the decades of scientific development that have helped experts piece together what happened to the Romanov family.
The exhibition opens in the year that marks the centenary of their executions and features objects never seen in the UK before.
A spokesman said it would “take visitors behind the scenes of one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century” from 1900 to 1918.
Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra and their five children – Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei – were killed on July 17 1918, in Ekaterinburg and their bodies left in two unmarked graves. The 100-year-old murder case has still not been officially closed, with the Russian Orthodox Church declining to recognise the remains of the Romanovs and allow them burial with full rites.
Yesterday, that process moved one step closer after genetic tests ordered by the Church “confirmed the remains found belonged to the former Emperor Nicholas II, his family members and members of their entourage,” according to its Investigative Committee.
The Science Museum exhibition will allow members of the public to examine evidence “from the scene of the execution”, including the dentures of the imperial physician, a single diamond earring belonging to the Tsarina and an icon ravaged by bullet holes.
It will also include a photograph album created by the Imperial children’s English tutor, the family’s personal diaries and an Imperial Fabergé Egg given as a gift by the Tsar to his wife.
A spokesman said: “This investigation was one of the first occasions that forensic DNA analysis was used to solve a historic case.” The Last Tsar: Blood and Revolution
will open on Sept 21.