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Schiller relatives exhumed to identify poet's skull

Anthropologists have exhumed the graves of Friedrich Schiller's family in an attempt to positively identify the skull of the German dramatist and poet and end a 180-year-old debate.

"The remains of the bodies were in good enough condition for a DNA examination," said Egon Moehler, a spokesman for the German city of Stuttgart, where the bodies of three relatives who died in the 19th century were unearthed.

To obtain DNA samples for testing, the city has opened the final resting place of the dramatist's eldest son, Carl, his grandson Friedrich as well as the wife of his grandson.

The tests aim to show which of two skulls belonged to Schiller, one of Germany's most celebrated men of letters.
Read entire article at Reuters