Opening Tycho Brahe's tin coffin
This week, scientists at Aarhus University in Denmark exhumed the remains of Renaissance-era astronomer Tycho Brahe to see if they could find any new evidence to explain the cause of his death, which some believe was due to suspicious causes. Brahe was legendary in his time as much for his exploits as for his science: he wore a silver prosthetic nose after his own was cut off in a duel, and he owned a pet moose which entertained guests at his castle.
The remains of Brahe's skull still have hairs from his mustache attached
Brahe is most noted in astronomy for his accurate calculations of planetary orbits made without the benefit of telescope; his apprentice, Johannes Kepler, would become the astronomer who proved the theory of heliocentrism — that the planets, including Earth, revolve around the sun. It is not the first time Brahe’s remains have been disinterred: they were exhumed in 1901 for similar examination.
A note left by the 1901 team that last examined Brahe's remains
Sometimes the remains of famous figures are exhumed for less noble reasons. EnglishRussia.com had a post the other day about the rather inglorious relocation of Joseph Stalin’s remains in 1961. When Stalin died in 1953, his body was embalmed in the same way as V.I. Lenin’s and placed in permanent display alongside Lenin’s in Red Square.
Stalin's burial in Lenin's tomb
By the early 1960s, however, Khrushchev’s repudiation of Stalin had become SOP for the Soviets, and Stalin’s body was removed from the tomb and reburied in a simple grave outside the Kremlin walls.
A simple slab is the marker for Stalin's second grave
