The remains preserved in Seville are truly those of Columbus. The mystery about nationality remains (for a little while longer).

Scientists in Spain say they have solved the two persistent mysteries surrounding Christopher Columbus more than five centuries after the explorer’s death: are the remains buried in Seville Cathedral really his? And was the navigator who changed the course of world history really Genoese, as history has long claimed, or was he actually Basque, Catalan, Galician, Greek, Jewish or Portuguese? The answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the second is… wait until Saturday, writes the Guardian, when the work will be broadcast on Spanish TV RTVE.

Although Columbus died in the Spanish city of Valladolid in 1506, he wanted to be buried on the island of Hispaniola, which today is divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. His remains were brought there in 1542, transferred to Cuba in 1795, and then taken to Seville in 1898 when Spain lost control of Cuba after the Spanish-American War. Yesterday, after two decades of DNA tests and research, forensic medicine expert Josè Antonio Lorente stated that the incomplete remains preserved in the Seville cathedral actually belong to Columbus. “Today, thanks to new technologies, the previous partial theory that the remains of Seville are those of Christopher Columbus has been definitively confirmed,” said the expert, who led the study at the University of Granada. The conclusion came after comparing the DNA samples from the tomb with others taken from one of Colombo’s brothers, Diego, and his son Fernando.

The thorniest question about the explorer’s precise origins will be revealed in “Columbus DNA: His True Origin”, a special television program broadcast tomorrow, Saturday 12 October, the day on which Spain celebrates its national holiday and commemorates the arrival of Columbus in the New World. While countless claims have been made about where the navigator came from (theories include Italy, Sweden, Norway, Portugal, France, Greece, Scotland and a handful of Spanish regions), the program’s authors insist they now have the answer. “Twenty-five possible origins and eight finalists, but there can only be one,” Spanish public broadcaster RTVE said in a statement.

Lorente, who described the investigation as “very complicated,” remained tight-lipped about his conclusions. “There are some really important findings, findings that will help us in multiple studies and analyzes that should be evaluated by historians.” If, as the program and the hype that accompanies it suggest, the fascination with Columbus remains unabated, the same is increasingly true of the controversy over his legacy. In 2015, Ada Colau, then mayor of Barcelona, ​​joined many on the Spanish left in condemning the October 12 celebrations. “It is a shame that a nation celebrates a genocide and, what’s more, with a military parade that costs 800,000 euros.” Josè Maria Gonzalez Santos, the then mayor of Cadiz, agreed. “We never discovered America, we massacred and suppressed a continent and its cultures in the name of God,” he said. “Nothing to celebrate.”