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archeologist explore for the corpse of Leonardo da Vinci ’s Mona Lisa have uncovered a skeleton in the closet that may go to the secret fair sex .
The skeleton was unearth in a Florence convent where researchers are explore for theremains of Lisa Gherardini Del Giocondo , the woman consider to be the model for da Vinci ’s famous painting . base on an early look at the braincase and pelvis , the skeleton seem to be female , Bologna University anthropologist Giorgio Gruppioni toldnews agenciesFriday ( May 27 ) .
This is a retouched picture of the Mona Lisa, a painting by Leonardo DaVinci, currently housed at the Louvre museum in Paris, France. It has been digitally altered from it’s original version by modifying its colors.
However , more study is needed to determine if the skeleton in the closet is , in fact , female , much less whether she live and died around the same meter as Del Giocondo . The researchers were led to the Christian church by historic records , include Gherardini ’s death security see a few old age ago . She reportedly drop her last two years ( until her death in 1542 ) at St. Ursula in Florence after her married man ’s death . The document observe that there is a crypt beneath the church story where Gherardini would have been sink . [ Weird Ways We Deal with the Dead ]
Researchers plan to continue the excavation of the skeleton . If the bone do belong to to a woman and are from the right time catamenia , the archaeologist will attempt to extract deoxyribonucleic acid from the skeleton to compare it with the clay of two of Del Giocondo ’s children , bury in a freestanding necropolis . They also hope to reconstruct her face to equate it with that ofthe Mona Lisapainting .
But some outside researcher are sceptical about the validity of the labor . Writing for the archeology website Past Horizons , University of North Carolina , Chapel Hill anthropologist Kristina Killgrove betoken out that facial reconstruction is an unreliable art . Many attempts at facial Reconstruction Period have been done on famous specimens , fromKing Tutto the paleo - Indian Kennewick Man to a bog woman constitute Moora , Killgrove write .
" In nastiness of what the investigator who commissioned the reconstructive memory say , " Killgrove wrote , " the substitute look of each of these three long - beat citizenry bear only a passing similarity to one another , even though they were found on the same relatively complete skull . "
Monty Dobson , an archaeologist at Drury University in Missouri , articulate the unearthed skeleton " is in jolly rough shape , by the aspect of it , " which would make a true facial reconstructive memory difficult .
It would n’t be surprising if the skeleton turns out to be someone with Del Giocondo DNA , Dobson said , given that historical records suggest that the researchers are digging in the family ’s crypt . Even so , he said , the connection to the Mona Lisa are thin .
" It ’s kind of a rotary argument there , " Dobson told LiveScience . " You ’ve identified this person , okay , that ’s howling , but they ’re still grasping to make links between this individual and the Mona Lisa . "
