CRISTOBAL COLON la verdad (DNA)

["Raquel Isaula" <raquel@rds.org.hn>]

From: HONDURASNEWS@aol.com
Subject: CRISTOBAL COLON  la verdad (DNA) 


MADRID, Spain (June 2) - A chest containing the supposed remains of
Christopher Columbus was exhumed Monday for DNA and other tests 
to determine whether the bones are really those of the famed explorer.

The test aims to settle a long debate over where Colombus is buried:
in Spain's Seville Cathedral or in a sprawling monument in the
Dominican Republic's capital, Santo Domingo.

In the presence of two descendants of Columbus - Jaime and 
Anunicada Colon de Carvajal - researchers removed two boxes from 
an ornate tomb at the cathedral in the southern city of Seville. One box 
is believed to hold the explorer's bones; the other is known to hold 
those of his son Hernando.

Another box, thought to contain the bones of Colombus' brother Diego,
was exhumed close to Seville. All three were taken across southern
Spain, with a police escort, to the University of Granada.

''This is possibly the first time the three ever traveled together,''
joked Marcial Castro, the researcher who launched the project.

In Granada, experts will conduct an array of tests - including DNA
analysis - to find out if the two sets of remains in question are
related to those of Hernando, whose identity is certain.

Castro says he believes the true bones are in Santo Domingo but 
adds, ''No historian in the world has conclusive proof of where 
Columbus is buried. That's what we're trying to find out.''

Castro said the exhumation Monday was tense.

''We thought we might just find a pile of dust in the box,'' he said.
''But there were plenty of bones for the scientists to work off.''

The results of the tests will not be known for several months.

Researchers have asked to exhume the supposed remains in Santo 
Domingo as well, but Dominican authorities are waiting to see the 
outcome of the Spanish tests, Castro said.

All three sets of remains will be returned to their resting places
Friday, he said. Columbus died and was buried in the Spanish city of 
Valladolid on May 20, 1506, although he had asked to be buried in the 
Americas.

Three years later, his remains were moved to a monastery on La
Cartuja, next to Seville. In 1537, Maria de Rojas y Toledo, widow of
another of Columbus' sons, Diego, sent the bones of her husband and
his father to the cathedral in Santo Domingo for burial. There they
lay until 1795, when Spain ceded the island to France but decided
Columbus' remains should not fall into the hands of foreigners.

So a set of remains that the Spaniards believed were Columbus' were
shipped to Havana and, when the Spanish-American War broke out in
1898, over to Seville.

However, in 1877, workers digging in the Santo Domingo cathedral
unearthed a leaden box containing bones and bearing the inscription,
''Illustrious and distinguished male, don Cristobal Colon'' - as
Columbus is called in Spanish - thus sparking the controversy.

AP-NY-06-02-03 1911EDT

Nelson Rubi
Hondurasnews@aol.com
Apoyemos la creacion de los DDEE DISTRITOS ELECTORALES para 
terminar con el pandillerismo en el Congreso nacional de Honduras.