ベートーベンの頭骨とされる破片、死没地ウィーンに

【ウィーンＡＦＰ＝時事】作曲家ベートーベン（１７７０～１８２７年）のものと推定される頭骨の破片が、米国人実業家から死没地オーストリアのウィーン医科大学へ寄贈された。専門家らが２０日、発表した。（写真はオーストリア・ウィーン医科大学で公開された作曲家ベートーベンのものと推定される頭骨の破片）
　オーストリアの検視官クリスチャン・ライター氏によると、この破片は唯一現存するベートーベンの頭骨と考えられる。計１０個あり、後頭部と右側頭部のそれぞれ大きな破片２個が含まれている。
　寄贈した米国人実業家ポール・カウフマン氏は、１９９０年にフランスの銀行にある一族の貸金庫で「ベートーベン」と書かれた小さな箱の中からこの破片を見つけた。
　ユダヤ人のカウフマン一族は、ナチス・ドイツを逃れてオーストリアから避難した。カウフマン氏の大おじにあたるフランツ・ロメオ・セリグマン氏がウィーンで医師をしていた関係で、１８６３年にベートーベンの墓の発掘が行われた際、破片を手に入れたと推測される。
　米エネルギー省傘下のアルゴンヌ国立研究所がこの頭骨片を検査したところ高濃度の鉛が検出された。過去にベートーベンの毛髪から検出されている鉛と一致したという。
　カウフマン氏によると今後、詳細な分析による判定が待たれるが、ベートーベンのものである可能性が有望視されている。
　ベートーベンの死因については毛髪の研究から鉛中毒とされていたが、今年３月にゲノム（全遺伝情報）を解読したと発表した研究チームは、飲酒など複合要因に伴う肝硬変だった可能性が高いと推定している。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/07/21-17:17）

Skull fragments, presumed to be from Ludwig van Beethoven, have returned to Vienna, where the legendary 19th century German composer was buried, experts said Thursday.
US businessman Paul Kaufmann donated the fragments, which he inherited, to the Medical University of Vienna where researchers will probe the illnesses suffered by the impresario and his cause of death.
This is where the bones belong, back in Vienna, Kaufmann told reporters.
Austrian coroner Christian Reiter said the 10 fragments, including two bigger pieces, one from the back of the head and one from the right side of the forehead, had great value.
We have received really valuable material here, with which we hope to continue to research in the next years. That was Beethoven's wish too, Reiter said.
The composer battled illness through his life and explicitly asked for his body to be studied, Reiter added.
Beethoven, whose piano, chamber and symphonic works are among the greatest of Western classical music, died at 56 in 1827 after years of struggling with unknown ailments, including increasing deafness in his later years.
The fragments are believed to be the only surviving fragments of Beethoven's skull, Reiter added.
Kaufmann -- whose Jewish ancestors fled the Nazis -- said he found the fragments in a small box with Beethoven scratched on it in a family safety deposit box in a French bank in 1990.
Kaufmann's great great uncle, Austrian doctor Franz Romeo Seligmann, is presumed to have acquired them in 1863 during an exhumation of Beethoven's body.
Kaufmann said the fragments would now be analysed further to confirm that they belong to the late composer, who died in Vienna.
- Cause of death mystery -
The available evidence suggests that they are authentic.
In 2005, a group of US scientists announced that tests on hair of Beethoven and the skull fragments showed he died from lead poisoning, which may have also been responsible for his hearing loss.
Researchers at the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois said the bone fragments, tested at the country's most powerful X-ray facility, had high concentrations of lead, matching earlier findings of lead in his hair.
The source of the lead is unknown, but they said it may have come from a wine goblet made with the metal.
Alternatively, some medical treatments in the 18th and 19th centuries made use of heavy metals like lead and mercury.
Beethoven suffered abdominal pains in his 20s which became progressively worse, and the composer saw a large number of physicians in search of a cure.
In March, researchers who sequenced Beethoven's genome using authenticated hair samples said liver failure, or cirrhosis, was likely behind his death brought about by a number of factors, including alcohol consumption.