: Beethoven's skull...... Beethoven's skull.....

So it turns out some guy in Danville's had fragments of Beethoven's skull sitting in a safe-deposit box, and he's turned them over to San Jose State, which apparently collects bits and pieces of Beethoven's body for their Center for Beethoven Studies. (The Center also has a lock of Beethoven's hair.) Is Beethoven like Lenin now or something?

The Center is hoping that by examining the bones, they can determine whether Beethoven was killed by lead poisoning, and possibly extract DNA to determine whether Beethoven's deafness had a genetic component. There's a press conference later today, and the results of the forensic study (.pdf) will be released in the latest issue of the Beethoven Journal. (Look for it right behind US Weekly on the newsstand!)

Says William Meredith, the director of the Beethoven Center, "I have no doubt that they are Beethoven's skull bones. Whenever I hold them or work with them, they strike me mute for the whole rest of the day. It's not a describable feeling.'' We'll go with the description, "ewwwwww." (but we're easily grossed out.)

Picture of reconstructed skull from the Merc News, courtesy of SJSU and the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies

To the tune of Beethoven's Fifth