Scientists in Spain claim to have solved the two lingering mysteries that still haunt Christopher Columbus more than five centuries after the explorer’s death: Are the well-traveled remains buried in a beautiful tomb in Seville’s cathedral really his? And did the navigator who changed the course of world history really come from Genoa – as history has long claimed – or was he in fact Basque, Catalan, Galician, Greek, Portuguese and perhaps of Jewish descent?

The answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the second is…wait until Saturday.

The long-running and often competitive theorizing has not been helped by the posthumous travels of his corpse. Although Columbus died in 1506 in the Spanish city of Valladolid, he wanted to be buried on the island of Hispaniola, which today is divided into Haiti and the Dominican Republic. His remains were taken there in 1542, moved to Cuba in 1795, and then taken to Seville in 1898 when Spain lost control of Cuba after the Spanish-American War.

On Thursday, after two decades of DNA testing and research, forensic medical expert José Antonio Lorente said the incomplete set of remains in Seville’s cathedral were indeed those of Columbus.

“Thanks to new technology, the previous partial theory that the remains in Seville are those of Christopher Columbus has been definitively confirmed,” said the expert, who led the research at the University of Granada. The conclusion followed comparisons of DNA samples from the grave with other samples from one of Columbus’ brothers, Diego, and his son Fernando.

The trickier question of the explorer’s precise origins will be revealed in Columbus DNA: His True Origin, a special TV program showing on Saturday, October 12, the date on which Spain celebrates its national holiday and the arrival of Columbus in the New World commemorates.

While numerous claims have been made about where the navigator came from – theories include Italy, Sweden, Norway, Portugal, France, Greece, Scotland and a handful of different Spanish regions – the program makers insist they now have the answer.

“Twenty-five possible origins and eight finalists, but there can only be one,” Spanish state broadcaster RTVE said in a statement.

Lorente, who described the investigation as “very complicated,” remained tight-lipped about the conclusions. “There are some very important results – results that will help us in multiple studies and analyzes that need to be evaluated by historians,” he told reporters on Thursday.

However, he has previously said rather bluntly that he believed Columbus was Genoese, saying in 2021: “There is no doubt on our part (about his Italian ancestry), but we can provide objective data that can… close a range of existing theories . .”

The scientist also pointed out that parts of Columbus could still be in the Caribbean. In 1877, an excavation of the Cathedral of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic unearthed a small lead box containing bone fragments with the inscription: “Illustrious and distinguished man, Christopher Columbus.” Those remains are now buried at the Faro a Colón Monument (Columbus Lighthouse) in Santo Domingo Este.

Lorente said that since both sets of bones were incomplete, either could belong to the explorer.

If, as the program and the associated hype suggest, fascination with Columbus remains as strong as ever, so too does the controversy over his legacy.

In 2015, Ada Colau, then mayor of Barcelona, ​​joined many on the Spanish left in denouncing the October 12 celebrations. “It’s a shame that a nation celebrates a genocide and also with a military parade that costs 800,000 euros,” she tweeted.

José María González Santos, then mayor of Cádiz, agreed. “We never discovered America, we slaughtered and oppressed a continent and its cultures in the name of God,” he said. “Nothing to celebrate.”

Four years ago, a statue of Columbus in Richmond, Virginia, was torn down, set on fire and thrown into a lake. A sign reading “Columbus Represents Genocide” was then placed on the spray-painted foundation where the figure once sat.