From the May 10 issue of "The Guardian"
Mozart's skull an eye-popping bone of contention
By KATE CONNOLLY
While taking a break from dancing at a Salzburg ball a few winters
ago, Gottfried Tichy overheard a piece of gossip that was to change
his life. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was apparently dozing in a locked
case in a library just a few doors away. Or at least his skull was.
"The idea sent tingles down my spine," recalls Salzburg University's
professor of paleontology.
But he was sceptical. As Milos Forman's 1985 film Amadeus shows,
according to the custom of the time, Mozart's body was wrapped in a
sack, dumped in an unmarked communal grave and covered in lime. How
on earth had his skull managed to re-emerge more than two centuries
later? The question didn't seem to interest officials at the Mozarteum,
the official body responsible for the great composer's legacy, and
whose library housed the skull. "There is indeed a skull," the
general secretary told an Austrian tabloid. "But what about it? The
head is no longer composing. So what really is the point?" Tichy's
point was that the skull was probably decomposing in its airtight
container.
The professor turned private eye discovered that, a decade after
the burial, Mozart's remains were dug up by a local gravedigger, who
cherished the skull as a keepsake. It changed hands several times,
ending up in the Mozarteum at the turn of the century.
Tichy was allowed access to the skull for several weeks. He
established that it wasn't a forgery, made measurements, took
photographs and had a cast made of both the skull and brain. He
persuaded the police to produce a photofit. He compared the skull
with portraits of Mozart. He cross-referenced his findings with
letters between Mozart and his father and with diary entries that
detailed the composer's moods and ailments - headaches, toothaches,
premonitions of death and fears that he had been poisoned.
A fascinating picture began to emerge, which Tichy has published in
his book Mozart's Unwilling Legacy. "I got so close to the skull
that I could recognise it in a pyramid of thousands of others," says
the 57-year-old bow-tied academic. "Now I can say that all the
characteristics of the skull match those of Mozart."
Mozart was a small man who died at the age of 35. He had rickets as
a boy, probably because he was weaned on a watery broth rather than
breast milk. He constantly complained of toothache, and once, when
travelling in Italy with his father, his carriage overturned, probably
causing head injuries. Headaches and rheumatic pains dogged him.
Tichy holds up his cast of the greyish-yellow cranium, apologising
for cracks around the eye sockets: he dropped it while lecturing in
China. The skull, he explains, belonged to a 30- to 35-year-old,
small-headed southern German. The forehead was steep, the nose would
have jutted out, the upper jaw was very pronounced and all the signs
are that the owner's eyeballs protruded abnormally due to an overactive
thyroid gland. Tiny holes in the teeth indicate rickets and there's
evidence of dental disease on the left side of the jaw. Marks on
the skull suggest a bout of fever and there is evidence of a break
on the left side. Pieces of meat are still stuck in the wisdom teeth.
One of the defining moments for Tichy was when he compared the skull
with a profile portrait by Dorothea Stock. Tichy managed to fit the
shape of the skull precisely into a same-scale version of the portrait.
To the lay person it might not sound convincing, but, according to
Tichy, "every skull is extremely different. If this skull doesn't
belong to Mozart, but still fits this portrait exactly, then we're
dealing with a freaky phenomenon." If this isn't Mozart, he says,
he'll not be offended "but I'll eat my hat".
Tichy's book also throws light on the various theories surrounding
Mozart's death. He dismisses the "Forman theory" that Salieri poisoned
his rival, but lists 13 possible causes of death and names several
people - including his wife's lover - who might have had a motive
to murder him. Finally, he offers the more prosaic conclusion that
Mozart died of influenza and complications caused by his fracture,
including fits of paranoia and depression.
The Mozarteum was unconvinced by his findings, perhaps because
officials didn't like the unflattering portrait of a weak, bulbous-eyed
man with protruding teeth and a misshapen nose. It turned to one of
the country's top forensic scientists, Johann Szilvassy, at Vienna's
General Hospital, who spent three years producing his report, On
Identifying The Skull Of Mozart. He, too, believed the skull to be
authentic; the Mozarteum remained sceptical. "They told me if they
admit it's Mozart's skull, they'll have to build a mausoleum for it,
which thousands of Japanese would stream past," says Szilvassy.
A further team of experts from Germany and Switzerland was brought
in to study Szilvassy's study - though not the skull itself - and
based on that, the Mozarteum delivered its official position:
"According to the status of current research, no scientific proof
has been offered that the skull is that of Mozart." Several requests
to see the skull last week were rejected, suggesting it is still a
bone of contention. "The role of the Mozarteum is a serious one and
we can't get mixed up in this," says a spokeswoman. "Professor Tichy
has been banging the same drum for years." But if the skull is not
that of Mozart, why cling to it? "The foundation never throws anything
away," the spokeswoman insists.
Both Tichy and Szilvassy have said if only they could gain access to
the skull again, they could carry out genetic tests. Mozart's son,
who apparently inherited his father's misshapen left ear, is buried
in the Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary. "If we could get access to
that and compare its bone material with that from the skull, we'd be
on to a winner," says Tichy. "We could maybe even establish what
made him a genius."
Bill Hong
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