Friedrich Schiller's Skull
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Friedrich Schiller's skull has been the source of much controversy.
Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, philosopher and historian. Schiller is considered by most Germans to be Germany's most important classical playwright. He was born i ...
was one of the most famous poets in German history. Long believed to be entombed in the '' Fürstengruft'' in
Weimar Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...
, Germany, the location of the writer's skull is unknown.


Death, burial and move to Fürstengruft

Three days after Friedrich Schiller died on 9 May 1805, he was hastily buried in a
mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be considered a type o ...
for distinguished citizens whose families did not have a family grave, the ''Kassengewölbe'', in
Weimar Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...
's Jacobs cemetery. The burial was quick and unceremonious. There was, as the writer and Nobel Prize laureate
Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
put it in 1955, "no mild sound of music, no word from the mouth of priest or friend". Schiller's widow
Charlotte von Lengefeld Charlotte Luise Antoinette von Schiller (née von Lengefeld; 22 November 1766 – 9 July 1826) was the wife of German poet Friedrich Schiller. Early life Lengefeld was born in Rudolstadt, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, into an German nobility, aristocra ...
had planned to move him to an individual grave later. However, the cheaply made coffin burst and his remains ended up mixed with those of other people in a
mass grave A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may Unidentified decedent, not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of exec ...
. Twenty-one years later, in 1826, the town's mayor, Karl Leberecht Schwabe, an enthusiast of Schiller's writings, decided to dig up the poet's remains. He hired three day labourers and the cemetery's gravedigger to help. By that time, Schiller's body was decomposed beyond recognition. Schwabe reported that only smoking prevented him and his men from getting sick, as the stench of decay was so strong. He described the ''Kassengewölbe'' as a "chaos of decay and rot". Though not entirely legally, he unearthed a total of 23 or 27 skulls. Schwabe took them home, placed them all on a table and decided the largest must be Schiller's.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...
, another famous writer and Schiller's friend, later secretly took the skull home, where he kept it on a blue velvet cushion underneath a bell jar and even wrote a poem about it entitled " Lines on Seeing Schiller's Skull" ("Bei Betrachtung von Schillers Schädel"). In the poem, he described the skull as a "mysterious vessel". The skull, along with the body believed to correspond to it, were then moved to the ''
Weimarer Fürstengruft The Klassik Stiftung Weimar (roughly "Weimar Classicism Foundation") is one of the largest and most significant cultural institutions in Germany. It owns more than 20 museums, palaces, historic houses and parks, as well as literary and art colle ...
'', Weimar's ducal vault, in 1827, to be joined by Goethe's remains in 1832 as a shrine to
German Classicism Weimar Classicism () was a German literary and cultural movement, whose practitioners established a new humanism from the synthesis of ideas from Romanticism, Classicism, and the Age of Enlightenment. It was named after the city of Weimar in the ...
.Harding, Luke:
Tale of two skulls divides Germany
'. ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
''. 8 May 2005.


First doubts

The authenticity of the skull in the Fürstengruft was first questioned in 1883 by the anatomist Hermann Welcker. He claimed the poet's
death mask A death mask is a likeness (typically in wax or plaster cast) of a person's face after their death, usually made by taking a cast or impression from the corpse. Death masks may be mementos of the dead or be used for creation of portraits. The m ...
and the skull did not match. Although experts agreed with him, laymen were outraged by his claims. In 1911, rumours that Schwabe may have chosen the wrong skull started circulating. This led a group of scientists headed by
August von Froriep August von Froriep (10 September 1849 – 11 October 1917) was a German anatomist born in Weimar. He studied medicine in Leipzig, and after earning his doctorate in 1874, he became an assistant to Christian Wilhelm Braune (1831–1892). Later he ...
to reopen the original mass grave and unearth another sixty-three skulls and pick one as Schiller's. In 1914, it was added to the Fürstengruft in an unmarked, inconspicuous, greyish-brown coffin to the side of the one containing the original skull. During World War II, both Schiller's and Goethe's remains were moved to an underground bunker to protect them from Allied air raids. After the war, the Allies moved them back to Weimar. A decade later,
East German East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from its formation on 7 October 1949 until its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally vie ...
scientists opened the sarcophagus once again and concluded that the first skull did belong to the writer after all.


Friedrich Schiller Code

At first resisting the idea, the Foundation of Weimar Classics, which oversees the Schiller archives and exhibitions,Rising, David:
DNA puzzler at poet's tomb: No poet!
'. ''
NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Media Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations r ...
''. 4 May 2008.
finally allowed scientists to analyze the skulls' DNA to reveal which is Schiller's in 2006, shortly before celebrations of the 200th anniversary of his death. Dubbed "The Friedrich Schiller Code", the study was sponsored by the foundation and the television station
MDR MDR may refer to: Biology * MDR1, an ATP-dependent cellular efflux pump affording multiple drug resistance * Mammalian diving reflex * Medical device reporting * Multiple drug resistance, when a microorganism has become resistant to multiple drugs ...
. It was undertaken by an international team of scientists from the Universities of
Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...
,
Jena Jena (; ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 in ...
,
Innsbruck Innsbruck (; ) is the capital of Tyrol (federal state), Tyrol and the List of cities and towns in Austria, fifth-largest city in Austria. On the Inn (river), River Inn, at its junction with the Wipptal, Wipp Valley, which provides access to the ...
and others, led by Ursula Wittwer-Backofen. Among them were the scientists who had identified
Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age ...
's skull,
Ötzi the Iceman Ötzi, also called The Iceman, is the natural mummy of a man who lived between 3350 and 3105 BC. Ötzi's remains were discovered on 19 September 1991, in the Ötztal Alps (hence the nickname "Ötzi", ) at the Austria–Italy border. He ...
's skeleton and victims of the
2004 tsunami On 26 December 2004, at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+7), a major earthquake with a magnitude of 9.2–9.3 struck with an epicentre off the west coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The undersea megathrust earthquake, known in the scient ...
in Asia. The Foundation expected to prove that they did, in fact, possess the poet's remains.
Geheimnis um Schiller-Schädel entschlüsselt: DNA-Analysen widerlegen Echtheit
'. '' Scinexx''. 7 May 2008.
First, anthropologists created
forensic facial reconstruction Forensic facial reconstruction (or forensic facial approximation) is the process of recreating the face of an individual (whose identity is often not known) from their skeletal remains through an amalgamation of artistry, anthropology, osteolog ...
s of both skulls. The original skull recovered in 1826 matched portraits of the poet almost perfectly. The size and both two- and three-dimensional facial reconstructions matched the death mask. It was indeed extraordinarily large; only 1.5% of the population has a skull of this size and Schiller was also said to be tall. An analysis of the
cementum Cementum is a specialized calcified substance covering the root of a tooth. The cementum is the part of the periodontium that attaches the teeth to the alveolar bone by anchoring the periodontal ligament. Structure The cells of cementum are ...
of the teeth of the skull indicated an age of 39 to 52 at death, Schiller having died aged 45. All of this clearly indicated that the skull must indeed be Schiller's and those involved were reasonably sure it was. The skull from 1911, on the other hand, was exposed as a fake and later identified as belonging to
Luise von Göchhausen Louise Ernestine Christiane Juliane von Göchhausen (13 February 1752 – 7 September 1807) was Chief Lady-in-Waiting to Duchess Anna Amalia of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Known for her sharp wit, she became a close friend of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ...
,
Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (24 October 173910 April 1807), was a German princess and composer. She became the duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach by marriage, and was also regent of the states of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach from 1758 t ...
's first Court Lady, whom Schiller knew and disliked. Scientists also took DNA samples from the bones, both the skull and the skeleton, in the casket on 14 July 2006. They were compared to samples from the teeth and thigh bones of Schiller's relatives, both of his second son, Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm and the poet's wife,
Charlotte von Lengefeld Charlotte Luise Antoinette von Schiller (née von Lengefeld; 22 November 1766 – 9 July 1826) was the wife of German poet Friedrich Schiller. Early life Lengefeld was born in Rudolstadt, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, into an German nobility, aristocra ...
, who were exhumed from
Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...
's Old Cemetery, since there are no direct descendants still alive. To much surprise, it was announced in 2008 that both the Institute of Legal Medicine in Innsbruck and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in
Rockville, Maryland Rockville is a city in and the county seat of Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, and is part of the Washington metropolitan area. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census tabulated Rockville's population at 67,117, making it the fourth ...
had concluded that the DNA did not match. In fact, the two skeletons together were shown to contain bones belonging to a total of six different people, but none of them to Schiller.


Explanations of the disappearance

There are several theories as to how Schiller's skull may have been lost. The anatomist
Franz Joseph Gall Franz Joseph Gall or Franz Josef Gall (; 9 March 175822 August 1828) was a German neuroanatomist, physiology, physiologist, and pioneer in the study of the localization of mental functions in the brain. Claimed as the founder of the pseudoscienc ...
is one; a notorious collector of skulls who believed it to be possible to determine a person's character by the characteristics of their skull, he travelled to Weimar shortly after the poet's death. Another is Ludwig Friedrich von Froriep, also an anatomist as well as the grandfather of August von Froriep, who unearthed the second skull in 1911. He could have stolen the skull from the Fürstengruft and then replaced it with one from his sizable collection. Another possibility raised by Ralf Jahn, a historian on the team of investigators and others is that Schiller's remains were stolen by grave-robbers in the 19th century. The Foundation of Weimar Classics has announced it would not search for Friedrich Schiller's actual skull. According to Hellmut Seemann, the foundation's president, "for us the Schiller skull dispute is over. We only had to answer the question of whether either of the two skulls in the Fürstengruft was Schiller's or not." He added that "searching European anthropological collections for Schiller's skull is not the Classics Foundation's task."
Schillers Schädel: Weimar sucht nicht weiter
'. ''
Die Welt (, ) is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE. is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group and it is considered a newspaper of record in Germany. Its leading competitors are the ...
''. 5 May 2008.


References

{{Friedrich Schiller
Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, philosopher and historian. Schiller is considered by most Germans to be Germany's most important classical playwright. He was born i ...
skull The skull, or cranium, is typically a bony enclosure around the brain of a vertebrate. In some fish, and amphibians, the skull is of cartilage. The skull is at the head end of the vertebrate. In the human, the skull comprises two prominent ...
Schiller, Friedrich