Saturday evening, on the occasion of the Spanish national holiday which commemorates the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America, October 12, 1492, a documentary somewhat shakes up the myth of the historical character.
The documentary, broadcast in a special edition on the Spanish national channel RTVE, illustrates the conclusions of a genetic investigation carried out for almost twenty years on the remains of Christopher Columbus.
The one we imagined as the son of a weaver in Genoa, Italy, reveals a completely different DNA, raconte The Guardian.
A Spanish Jewish navigator
“We have very partial, but sufficient, DNA from Christopher Columbus,” describes forensic medicine expert from the University of Granada José Antonio Lorente, who led the research. “We have the DNA of his son, Fernando Colón, and both in the Y chromosome (male) and in the mitochondrial DNA (transmitted by the mother) of Fernando there are traces compatible with a Jewish origin.”
Christopher Columbus was surely Jewish. And then? If this origin raised by genetic analysis is intriguing, it is because it would mean that the man who played a central role in the creation of the powerful Spanish empire would come from a community hunted and persecuted by the very protectors of Christopher Columbus. Namely: King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who decided to expel the Jews from Spain, precisely the year that Christopher Columbus would have reached the Americas.
What would then make the famous explorer a Spaniard, rather than an Italian? José Antonio Lorente admits that he was not able to specify the birthplace of Christopher Columbus. On the other hand, he believes that it is likely that it originated in the Spanish Mediterranean region. “DNA suggests that Christopher Columbus originated in the western Mediterranean”says the researcher. “Now, as there were no, or very few, Jews in Genoa in the 15the century, the probability that it originated there is minimal. There was also no significant Jewish presence in the rest of the Italian peninsula, making its Italian origin all the more doubtful.»
Given that there are no solid theories or clear indications that Christopher Columbus could have been French, the search area has narrowed further. “We still have the Spanish Mediterranean, the Balearic Islands and Sicily. But if he came from Sicily, we would have found traces of Italian or Sicilian in the archives of Christopher Columbus. This means that its most likely origin is the Spanish Mediterranean region or the Balearic Islands.
According to RTVE, José Antonio Lorente’s discoveries would put an end to 500 years of speculation about the birthplace and nationality of Christopher Columbus. But his conclusions, going against history, were nevertheless received with extreme caution by some of his peers. “Unfortunately, from a scientific point of view, we can’t really evaluate what’s in the documentary because they haven’t provided any analysis data,” commented Antonio Alonso, geneticist and former director of the Spanish National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences.
Source: www.slate.fr
