The ANNOTICO
Report
I
am going to await with eager anxious anticipation DNA
findings before making any strong statements, but I cannot but help
respond to some of the statements in the article below:
STATEMENTS:
"It's commonly held that the explorer was an Italian who moved to Portugal and then Spain.
But
many experts suggest he was instead a Catalan nobleman
who hid his true identity,
or the illegitimate son of a Majorcan prince, (I assume from the
island of Majorca, of the Balearic Islands off east coast of Spain)
or even a Jew who spent his life masking his true identity.
"This
much is sure: Columbus had RED HAIR, a face
covered in FRECKLES and stood 6 FEET TALL, making him a giant in his
day".
RESPONSE:
For me as much as it would be nice for me to be doubly blessed by Columbus being an Italian and a Jew.
I would be a little hesitant to claim his Jewishness, and
embarrass myself facing a completely INCONGRUOUS physical
description.
The
description instead sounds VERY Nordic, that is also found in Ireland, and is a
Lombard/Piedmont/ Ligurian trait.
The
article also states: Birth records indicate Columbus was born in Genoa sometime during the fall
of 1451. Skeptics, however, believe those records were fabricated by
zealous city fathers. BUT no proof has been forthcoming about a Fabrication, or
any other competing Birth Certificates have been offered.
I
can claim that YOUR Birth Certificate is a Forgery. Or that your mother
told the Hospital/Doctor/ Church/Civil Authorities that your Father was the
Father, when he really wasn't. Or that you were Mixed
up with another baby in the Hospital. :) All kinds of people with all kinds of
Agendas can make ANY Claim, and raise ANY far fetched possibilities without
offering ANY proof.
But
more important, What happens if Columbus turns out to be Spanish
or Jewish. Will the American Indians then turn their venom and
vitriol related to Columbus away from the Italian
community, and on to the Spanish and/or Jewish community???
Maybe the best thing that could happen would be that
Columbus be found to be an Italian Jew, because knowing the Jewish community,
they would not stand for the Defamation of Columbus as a Jew, and the
Jewish community would marshal our considerable power and punish
those that would engage in that behavior, and not be as passive as the
Italian community in his defense!!!!!!
WAS COLUMBUS
REALLY ITALIAN?
A
DNA discovery could rewrite 500 years of history.
Martin
Dugard
May 15, 2006
Martin
Dugard,
is the author of "The Last Voyage of Columbus."
IN A SCENE straight out of the television show "CSI," Spanish forensic
scientists spent the first few months of this year taking DNA samples from
citizens of the Catalan region of Spain and southern France, seeking to answer one of
history's greatest unsolved mysteries: determining the true identity of
Christopher Columbus.
The investigation is being led by Dr. Jose Antonio Lorente,
a former instructor at the FBI academy whose work has been instrumental in
identifying victims of Spanish Civil War atrocities. Saturday — when Lorente is scheduled to present his findings — marks
the 500th anniversary of Columbus' death, adding a
ceremonial aspect to the inquiry.
Lorente exhumed Columbus' remains in 2003 to take
DNA samples of the explorer and then compare them to those of his brother Diego
and his illegitimate son, Fernando, to establish a common genetic map. The next
ste! p was gathering saliva
samples, looking for the matching mitochondrial evidence that will pinpoint Columbus' true ancestry.
It's commonly held that the explorer was an Italian who moved to Portugal and then Spain. But many experts suggest
he was instead a Catalan nobleman who hid his true identity, or the
illegitimate son of a Majorcan prince, or even a Jew who spent his life masking
his true identity. Birth records indicate he was born in Genoa sometime during the fall
of 1451. Skeptics, however, believe those records were fabricated by zealous
city fathers.
This much is sure: Columbus had red hair, a face covered in freckles and stood about 6 feet
tall, making him a giant in his day. He was a widower and the father of two
sons who sailed four times to the New World between 1492 and 1504,
charting and naming almost all of the Caribbean islands in the process.
He discovered South
America
in 1498; he did not set foot on the North American landmass until 1502. On ! his fourth voyage, a journey
of redemption that he called "El Alto Viaje"
(the High Voyage) because he successfully led his men through a biblical litany
of disasters, he finally gave up his dream of finding a westward aquatic
passage from Europe to Asia. Ironically, the spot
where he made that decision is now the eastern mouth of the Panama Canal, which links the Atlantic and Pacific.
Columbus traveled as much in death
as in life. His body originally was buried in Valladolid, Spain, the city where he died
and the same city where Lorente will release his DNA
findings.
Columbus' body was later moved to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, then Cuba, then back to Spain, to Seville. The Dominican Republic claims that Columbus' body never left that
island nation, and it has built a great lighthouse tomb to house his remains. Lorente's DNA samples are expected to prove where they
truly reside, though even then, both the Dominican Republic and Spain may be right: Colum! bus' bones could have been
divided into two boxes by some sentimental Dominican caretaker, ensuring that
at least part of the explorer would never leave the city that he founded,
governed and named for his father.
Of course, the fact remains that Columbus wasn't the first to step
on what became American soil. The Irish, Vikings and maybe even the Chinese got
here earlier. But his was the arrival that changed history because he came to
the New
World
and stayed, and he encouraged others to do the same. For five centuries, people
have done just that. Take a walk down the streets of New York or Los Angeles. Look at the sea of faces
from around the world and know that Columbus played a part in all
their lives — every single one.
World history is the saga of one civilization interacting with another, and a cataloging of the results. When Lorente releases his findings, we will know just a little
bit more about one of the Americas' greatest immigrants. Let
that be an oc! casion to
reflect on the life of a charismatic and passionate man who chose to live
boldly rather than settle for mediocrity — as well as those new explorers
who, via plywood rafts, tattered shoes slapping Arizona sands or dark freight
containers, follow in his footsteps.