Relic Detective

Christendom is sown with the bones of saints--chips and splinters, shins and fingers, skulls and full skeletons--encased in rich reliquaries and venerated by the faithful. The delicate question of authenticity often rests only on pious tradition; one bone looks much like another, and who can say for sure?

If anyone can, it is Swedish Anthropologist Carl-Hermann HjortsjOe. At Sweden's Lund University last week, he was getting ready to publish a paper that explained how he had used his anthropological know-how to make himself a relic detective. He began by identifying several sets of doubtful remains by correlating tradition with such data as ossification of skullcap seams, length of limb and condition of teeth. Then for Swedish saints Anthropologist HjortsjOe used a new technique. Knowing that medieval Swedes

ANTHROPOLOGIST HjortsjOe White are the bones of saints.

dug up their saints after burial and boiled the bones before transferring them to reliquaries, he exposed dubious bones to ultraviolet light. Under this light ordinary bones have a mauve hue, cooked bones show up white.

Armed with his expertise, Lutheran Hjortsjo got permission to investigate the country's holy treasure: a reliquary said to contain the bones of St. Bridget of Sweden, a 14th century mother of eight, noted for her moral example and mysticism.* Among the 25 bits and pieces in the crumbling reliquary in Vadstena Abbey, HjortsjOe hit a hagiological jackpot: parts of no less than seven men and six women, including St. Bridget's daughter St. Catherine, St. Bridget's confessor Peter of Alvastra, St. Sigfrid, and--without much doubt--St. Bridget herself.

* Not to be confused with four other St. Bridgets and Brigids.

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