Spanish scientists delved into a bronze tomb thought to contain the remains of Christopher Columbus yesterday, hoping to solve the mystery of where the explorer's remains really lie.
The Dominican Republic and Spain both claim to have the remains, and last year a Spanish team proposed that they should submit both sets for DNA tests, along with the remains of Columbus's son.
Scientists have until Friday to extract the Spanish specimens for the tests, when the remains must be returned to Seville cathedral. The Dominican Republic is still considering whether to allow DNA tests on its remains.
"[We'll take] pieces the size of a chick pea," said Jose Antonio Lorente Acosta, a forensic scientist at Granada University's legal medicine department. He said the frailty of the remains meant that testing would take at least six months.
Columbus, who died in 1506, requested that he be buried on the Caribbean island that is today shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The bones were later ordered to be moved at least twice because of political upheavals - first to Cuba in 1795 and then to Seville in 1898.
But 12 years ago, workers at a cathedral in the Dominican Republic's capital, Santo Domingo, discovered an urn inscribed with his name.