This mummy of a baby was examined by a team of researchers. And was able to determine the cause of death of the child. © Frontiers in Medicine
The remains of the "Renaissance baby" were found in a crypt of an Austrian noble family. Researchers have now found the reasons for his early death.
Munich \u16 A virtual autopsy and radiocarbon test helped scientists identify the mummified <>th-century toddler. The team, led by chief pathologist Prof. Dr. Andreas Nerlich from the Academic Clinic Munich-Bogenhausen, found that the child was about one year old when it died. To do this, the researchers investigated tooth eruption and the formation of long bones, as the researchers report in their study, which was published in Fronitiers in Medicine.
Baby from the Renaissance probably could neither walk nor crawl
The baby's soft tissue, examined in the laboratory, showed that the child was a boy who was overweight for his age. Which suggests that his parents were able to feed him well – but the bones tell a different story, according to the Munich researchers. Because the child's ribs were deformed. The child apparently suffered from scurvy or severe rickets. There is also much to suggest that it could neither walk nor crawl. In addition, a nutrient deficiency is said to have contributed to the early death of the little boy, the scientists said in their report. The deficiency could have been preceded by pneumonia, which could have been the result of rickets, the study continues.
"The combination of obesity and severe vitamin deficiency can only be explained by a generally 'good' nutritional status and an almost complete lack of sunlight," Dr. Andreas Nerlich comments on the autopsy results. This suggests that the toddler had lived in darkness for about a year before dying due to a lack of vitamin D, concludes the online portal Popular Science.
Since the overall picture of the infant clearly excludes malnutrition due to malnutrition, the bone lesions in rickets must be due to another disorder of vitamin D metabolism.
Study results of the research team led by Prof. Dr. A. Nerlich in Frontiers of Medicine
"It is interesting that in earlier times, high-ranking people in society avoided exposure to sunlight and, in particular, darkening of the skin. Aristocrats were expected to have white, pale skin, while workers were expected to have suntans," the scientists comment on the results of their study.
The left hand of the baby mummy, whose cause of death has been found out by a team of researchers. © Frontiers in Medicine
Renaissance baby: Identity of the toddler unexplained for a long time
For a long time, the question of who the boy actually was remained unanswered. A specialist examination of his clothes revealed that he had been buried in a long hooded coat made of expensive silk. He was also buried in a crypt reserved exclusively for the powerful Counts of Starhemberg. They usually buried their firstborn sons and wives in the crypt.
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Renaissance baby mummy came from an aristocratic family
The child was found in an aristocratic Austrian family crypt, where conditions allowed for natural mummification and preserved soft tissue that contained important information about his life and death. Curiously, this was the only unknown body in the crypt buried in an unmarked wooden coffin rather than the elaborate metal coffins reserved for the other family members buried there. The crypt is located near the family seat Schloss Wildberg in the small village of Hellmonsödt in Upper Austria.
A radiocarbon test of a skin sample suggested that the baby mummy was between ten and 18 months old and was buried between 1550 and 1635 AD, while historical records of the crypt's administration indicated that his burial probably took place after the crypt was renovated around 1600 AD. He was the only infant buried in the crypt. These were apparently the remains of Reichard Wilhelm, the first son of a Count of Starhemberg, as the historical reappraisal of the case revealed.
The baby mummy is not the first mummy that scientist Nerlich has taken a close look at. So, he has already examined a 19th-century Bavarian general and a one-and-a-half-year-old girl named Karolina.
