[Artemisia] the princes in the tower

[Michael the Loud]

> During the current reign, there have been requests
> to open the grave at the Abbey for new forensic
> investigation and these have been turned down by
> Queen Elizabeth II.

Having worked on DNA projects before there are a few
points that need to be brought up.

1) The condition of the skeletons would make it
   difficult to get any usable DNA.  There is a wide
   variety of reasons for this.  One is moisture
   destroys DNA and another is GAMA radiation which
   was to destroy bacteria on Egyptian mummies.

2) Before puberty it is almost impossible to
   distinquish between male and female bones unless
   you have an entire well preserved skeleton.  Even
   then it can be difficult.

3) If DNA does exist you have do extensive work to get
   it.  On the Egyptian mummies they had to remove
   teeth or even more invasive procedures to try to
   extract usable DNA.  Who wants to possibly destroy
   a skeleton of a possible relative.

4) Unless you have DNA profiles of other relatives you
   may only discover a close relation.  Research done
   on chromosome 19 for example is being used in
   research connected to genealogy but it is not an
   exact science and much of what I've read is still
   highly speculative.

I don't know if I would give permission because you
have Pandora's box.  Once you start the process every
royal grave will want to be examined and there will be
a flood of requests.

Michael

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