Christopher Columbus ‘was Jewish and Spanish’ study finds following the discovery of the famous explorer’s remain 500 years after his death

Christopher Columbus was Jewish and from Western Europe, according to a study after the discovery of his remains 500 years after his death.

The origins and final resting place of the 15th-century explorer who led Spanish-funded expeditions from the 1490s, paving the way for the European conquest of the Americas, have long been debated among experts.

Many historians have questioned the traditional theory that Columbus came from Genoa, Italy. Other theories range from him being a Spanish Jew or Greek, to Basque, Portuguese or British.

To solve the mystery, investigators conducted a 22-year investigation, led by forensic expert Miguel Lorente, by testing small samples of remains buried in Seville’s cathedral, long marked by authorities there as the last resting place of Columbus, although there had been rival claims that he was buried in the Dominican Republic.

They compared them with those of known relatives and descendants and their findings were announced Saturday in a documentary entitled ‘Columbus DNA: The True Origins’ on Spanish national broadcaster TVE.

‘We have DNA from Christopher Columbus, very partial, but enough. We have DNA from Hernando Colón, his son,” Lorente said in the program.

‘And both in Hernando’s Y chromosome (male) and in the mitochondrial DNA (transmitted from the mother) there are traits that are compatible with Jewish ancestry.’

About 300,000 Jews lived in Spain before the ‘Reyes Catolicos’, the Catholic monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand, ordered Jews and Muslims to convert to the Catholic faith or leave the country.

Many settled all over the world. The word Sephardic comes from Sefarad, or Spain in Hebrew.

After analyzing 25 possible places, Lorente said it was only possible to say that Columbus was born in Western Europe.

On Thursday, Lorente said they had confirmed previous theories that the remains in Seville Cathedral belonged to Columbus.

Research into Columbus’s nationality has been complicated by a number of factors, including the large amount of data. But “the outcome is almost absolutely reliable,” Lorente said.

Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain, in 1506, but wanted to be buried on the island of Hispaniola, which today is shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

His remains were taken there in 1542, then moved to Cuba in 1795 and then, it was long believed in Spain, to Seville in 1898.

Lorente said last Thursday: “Today it has been possible to verify it with new technologies, so that the previous partial theory that the remains of Seville belong to Christopher Columbus has been definitively confirmed.”

Many experts believe that the tomb in the cathedral held the body of Columbus for a long time, but it was not until 2003 that Lorente and historian Marcial Castro were allowed to open it and discovered that the previously unknown bones were inside.

At the time, DNA technology was unable to “read” a small amount of genetic material to obtain accurate results.

Columbus set sail from the Spanish port of Palos on August 3, 1492, hoping to find a route to the legendary riches of Asia.

Together with three ships, the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, Columbus and about a hundred men embarked on the journey that took them to the other side of the world – and far from their original destination.

On October 12, 1492, the ships made landfall in what is now the Bahamas and later that month Columbus sighted Cuba and thought it was mainland China.

And two months later the ships came ashore, which Columbus thought might be Japan.

On the second voyage in 1493, Columbus deliberately sailed back to the New World and landed in Puerto Rico, where he enslaved many of the Taino people living on the island – some of whom were sent back to Spain.

Over the next four years, many Spaniards arrived, resulting in the deaths of approximately seven million Taino – 85 percent of the population.

The arrival of the Europeans also led to a spread of deadly diseases such as smallpox and measles, with many historians claiming that Columbus also brought the first syphilis-like diseases to the Americas.

But a January study found the disease was widespread thousands of years ago.

The first beginnings of a syphilis epidemic were documented in Europe in the late 15th century, leading historians to believe that it was brought to the Americas when Columbus set foot on the continent.

DNA evidence has now shown that treponematosis, an ancient syphilis-like disease, existed in Brazil for more than 2,000 years before the explorer set sail for the New World.

Kerttu Majander, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Basel, said: ‘The fact that the findings represent an endemic type of treponemal diseases, and not sexually transmitted syphilis, still leaves the origin of the sexually transmitted syphilis uncertain.’

The team examined the bones of four people who died thousands of years ago in the coastal region of Santa Catarina in Brazil.

Pathogens found in the remains showed signs of a syphilis-like disease that likely resulted in mouth sores and shin pain.

The study, published in Nature, says the bones were excavated from the archaeological site of Jabuticabeira II and have been studied since 2016.

Researchers screened 37 of 99 sequencing data samples and found that there were between seven and 133 positive hits for diseases arising from the Treponema family.

Verena Schünemann, co-author of the study, said: ‘While the origins of syphilis still leave room for imagination, at least we now know without a doubt that treponematoses were no strangers to the American inhabitants who lived and died centuries before the continent. was explored by Europeans.