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