DATING OF MUMMY NO. 8 OF THE CANARY MUSEUM
In 2011 we began a collaboration with the project of genetic identification of ovicápridos and pigs promoted, among others, by researchers from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (CSIC-UPF) of Barcelona and the Canary Institute of Agricultural Research (ICIA). The participation of the museum in this project has allowed the identification, through DNA, of the animal species used by Aboriginal people to make the skin shroud that surrounds the mummies. For this reason, radio-carbon dating has been carried out of a number of mummies, in order to locate them in time.
Among them, the one obtained for the mummy inventoried with the number 8 is of particular interest. Traditionally this individual had been identified, without any scientific basis, with a character of the moment of the Grancanaria conquest, referenced in various chronicles and accounts of this war such as Artemis or Artamy. However, the dating made on the second metatarsal of the right foot of this mummy by the carbon method 14 indicates that we are facing a man who died on some date located between the years 415 and 560 BC, chronology evidently far removed from the moment of the Grancanaria conquest and who discards any identification of this mummy with an indigenous character of the fifteenth century.
Two documents are attached below: one illustrating the process of extracting the bone sample for chronological analysis, and another with the results of the dating carried out by the Beta Analytic laboratory in Miami, Florida. With regard to this latest information, please note that a BP date is offered, that is, before present or before the present, which is then calibrated obtaining the date we have offered in the previous paragraph and that in the report is listed as Cal. AD 415-560, being Cal: calibrated, and A D: anno Domini or in the year of the Lord, that is, after Christ.
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Extract images shows mummy No. 8 (
PDF document 142 Kb)
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C14 Dating Report (PD
F Document 849 Kb)
For more information on the chronologies of the island's Prehistory and the carbon dating processes 14, you can consult the project of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria "A journey in time", available at the following address: http://dataciones.grancanariapatrimonio.com/