Overview
- Saxony-Anhalt’s heritage authorities announced the identification with very high certainty following a coordinated program of anthropology, CT imaging, isotopes and genetics.
- Researchers at the Max Planck Institute matched the Magdeburg DNA to bones attributed to Heinrich II, placing both men on the same paternal line and making a later substitution highly unlikely.
- The individual was an older man, roughly 55–65 years old and about 1.80 meters tall, with an elite diet and pronounced rider’s musculature consistent with Otto I’s biography.
- CT and osteological exams recorded healed fractures, three missing upper incisors and advanced osteoarthritis, and they noted an enlarged carotid canal that could fit a vascular cause such as stroke, which remains unproven.
- Textiles, a 13th‑century Moritzpfennig, window glass and eggshells indicate the tomb was reopened in later centuries, while conservation continues in Magdeburg with reinterment set for 1 September in a newly designed coffin.