Identification of the remains found in 2007: Alexei and Marie (Coble, 2009)

[AGRBear]

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...ruppMaples.jpg

Nicholas II #4
Trupp #9.

So, where are the arm bones of Nicholas II's?

AGRBear

[Anna was Franziska]

Thanks, bear, those are macabre but interesting.

About Nicholas's arms, I think I read somewhere that he had partially fused with Trupp over the years and it would never be fully known which bones belonged to each man unless each bone was individually DNA tested which is unlikely.

The Tsar and his footman, one in death. Perhaps that is the ironic symbol of the revolution.

[Anna was Franziska]

Originally Posted by ferrymansdaughter

I have never read anything about Anastasia's head being missing - or indeed anyone's head being missing at the time of burial etc. Can you give us more information about this report?

I found it, the quote I already posted, about the bayonet thrust to the face, was from page 232 of "The End of the Romanovs" by Victor Alexandrov. I just drove back to the library and found the same old ragged copy I had checked out back in the mid 70's when my fascination began. Sure enough, this was the source of the bayonet/missing head story.

page 233: (words of Piotr Voikov)

..before the bodies had been thrown on the pyre and sulphuric acid poured on them, Yurovsky wanted to satisfy himself that everything was done properly. He approached the macabre heap of human remains- heads, arms, legs, trunks, and rummaged for a quarter of an hour. Then he said "I think something is wrong." I was on edge. "Come on, let's finish." I said, and he gave the orders for the bodies to be thrown on the fire. The next day I asked Yurovsky what he meant by what he had said, and he replied that he had failed to locate the head with the bayonet thrust, the head of the youngest Grand Duchess.

So, now this has me wondering (not about claimants or escapees), was this just the remains of Alexei and Anastasia, because we now know there were only two bodies chopped up and burned, not all of them. Again, Anastasia is mentioned by name here, added to Ermakov's naming 'the youngest daughter Anastasia' being burned along with Alexei, making the case even stronger it was she who was burned (and missing until last year) and not Maria. However, Ermakov made no mention of a head being missing. So was it missing or not? (I'd believe the head was missing before the entire body) Can anyone clear this up?

[Russophile]

I'd take anything Ermakov said with a grain of salt. He was drunk that night and then told several different stories and supposedly "the truth" on his death bed. (King and Wilson's FOTR)
May be macabre, AWF, but we're on a fact finding mission not unlike CSI so everything must be looked at carefully and studied in the same manner.

[Anna was Franziska]

The head story was from Piotr Voikov. While everything may not be totally accurate, where there's smoke, there's fire (sorry for the pun) and it does look like we see several accounts of Anastasia being burned to none for Marie. A friend on another forum who's fluent in Russian is busy translating the original Yurovsky notes and she said he never mentions which woman was burned by name, just Alexei and another body. There is nothing about him mentioning Demidova. He probably didn't know one girl from the next, especially in the condition they were in.

[AGRBear]

There are plenty of testimonies where Yurovsky does mention that they had burned Demindova instead of Alexandra.

For the life of me, I can't understand how any these men could make a mistake and tell us they burned either Demindova or Alexandra, two middled aged women who's figures would inform these men they were not youthful, which evidently the body was, if it was either Anastasia or Maria.

I believe the original note, also, tells us that Yourovsky claimed he burned just one body, not two.

By the way, Yurovsky notes have already been translated by several people.

AGRBear

[AGRBear]

Originally Posted by AGRBear

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g139/AGRBear3/ArmBonesNicTruppMaples.jpg

Nicholas II #4
Trupp #9.

So, where are the arm bones of Nicholas II's? AGRBear

Originally Posted by Anna was Franziska

Thanks, bear, those are macabre but interesting.

About Nicholas's arms, I think I read somewhere that he had partially fused with Trupp over the years and it would never be fully known which bones belonged to each man unless each bone was individually DNA tested which is unlikely.

The Tsar and his footman, one in death. Perhaps that is the ironic symbol of the revolution.

AWF,

You can see the bones in the photo. Are they fused with other bones?

Since Trupp was a tall man and Nicholas II was shorter, Maples realized the arm bones just didn't belong to Nicholas II.

AGRBear

[ferrymansdaughter]

Originally Posted by Anna was Franziska

I found it, the quote I already posted, about the bayonet thrust to the face, was from page 232 of "The End of the Romanovs" by Victor Alexandrov. ..... However, Ermakov made no mention of a head being missing. So was it missing or not? (I'd believe the head was missing before the entire body) Can anyone clear this up?

Thanks - I've never read this book. I note that Sarah Miller's review of it at the AP says there are a number of errors, photos are mislabeled and it isn't very unreliable. If his is the only account to mention the head missing, I'd take it with a pinch of salt. The problem is that every account seems to be different.

Yurovsky's "Memoirs from 1922 (taken from K&W site) states that

"I ordered that we begin the burning with Alexei. We laid his body down and soaked it with gasoline and quickly set it on fire, just to see if it would work, since no one knew how to go about this. {then a bit about digging the grave]....It was already morning. It was not possible for us to burn any more of the bodies, for the farmers and workers were beginning to be about, and therefore, we had to bury the remaining bodies in the grave. "

However, his 1934 account posted on the AP refers to burning Alexei and Demidova.

What really bothers me about this whole thing is where's the rest of the body or bodies? More than one experiment has shown that it is simply impossible to burn a human body down to anything but a big, still recognisably human, mess in the time they had. Even if they had chopped up the bodies (sorry to be so graphic) they could hardly have scattered limbs, heads, torsos around without fear of discovery so they would have to have buried them all.

If I get time, I will have a look at Massie & FOTR tonight as well.

[AGRBear]

Has anyone provided us with the information on the DNA/mtDNA which shows us there are four grand duchesses with four different markers?

The short answer is no. The actual details of the testing have yet to be released and are not now expected until the publication of that still much-anticipated final report... whenever that may be.

[Russophile]

Why hasn't anybody be able to take the skulls of the remains and reconstruct them like forensic experts do on this site?
http://www.ckolsensculptor.com/pages...nstruction.htm

[AnastasiaEvidence]

Does anyone have all the photographs and information on each of skulls and sets of bones? please post it here.

[J Kendrick]

Originally Posted by Russophile

Why hasn't anybody be able to take the skulls of the remains and reconstruct them like forensic experts do on this site?
http://www.ckolsensculptor.com/pages...nstruction.htm

There were only two small fragments of a single skull at this second burial site.

They cannot reconstruct skulls that they do not have.

JK

[Russophile]

No, I mean of the original remains. Then maybe they can reconstruct the daughters and finally find out who's missing!!

[J Kendrick]

It is on just such a reconstruction of skulls done back in 1992/93 that the Russians now base their opinion that the missing daughter is Marie.

JK

[Russophile]

Are there pictures that we can look at of them?

[AnastasiaEvidence]

Here's some photos of the Romanov bones
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/7876/romano97ag2.jpg

[Michael HR]

I still think the easy way would be to take all the four DNA codes recovered from the daughters and compare their codes. Each daughter would have a similar DNA match but not quite the same to each other. Therefore if there is four different but very similar matches this would show there are four individuals who were daughters of the Tsar and therefore all accounted for. If one is missing then there would be a problem.

[Anna was Franziska]

I would also like to see four nuclear profiles, but I don't think it would ever stop the conspiracy theorists. Look at what they're saying now. Three girls were found in one grave, one in the other. The Bolshies tell us one was burned first, the other three thrown in the hole. This means the only way the burned hip bone recently tested could belong to one of the other three is if one of them took it out of the hole, which was the second grave (burned pit being the first), burned it to match, and reburied it in the burn hole! Sorry but that is preposertous! (in a long line of preposterous theories) < ed sort-of-personal comment: Warren >

[Russophile]

Originally Posted by AnastasiaEvidence

Here's some photos of the Romanov bones
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/7876/romano97ag2.jpg

Thanks for the skulls. But I would dearly love to see some clay/flesh on them to see what's what, or who's who!

[AnastasiaEvidence]

http://www.romanov-memorial.com/Fina...of%20skeletons
There is information about the romanov bones on this website.