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Theo the Pipe Smoker (* around 1790; † around 1820 in Kleinbasel) is the fictitious name of a man whose skeleton was found in 1984 in a former cemetery for the poor near the Theodorskirche (Theodor Church) in Kleinbasel. He was named after the church in the cemetery of which he was found.

Kleinbasel around 1800
Although Kleinbasel had been part of the city of Basel since the Middle Ages, it remained independent in many respects due to its location on the right bank of the Rhine. It was home to middle class tradespeople with their families and domestic workers. The census of 1799 showed a population of just under 3000 people for the densely populated Kleinbasel, plus those not recorded, such as day labourers or persons passing through. When Theo was born, the Middle Bridge was the only link across the Rhine in the region, as the Wettstein Bridge (German: Wettsteinbrücke) was only built in 1879.

At the time, the lifeline of Kleinbasel was the “Pond”, a network of canals with water from the river Wiese for trade. It was used by sawmills, dye works and fulling mills, by tanners and millers, for gypsum mills, tobacco mills and others. In 1823, the Pond drove a total of 64 wheels, 34 of which were grain mills. The canals were heavily polluted by sewage and faecal matter. The Kleinbasel Pond was only filled in between 1907 and 1917. The “Teichgässlein” (“Pond Alley“) between Claragraben and Ochsengasse still reminds us of it today.

On the southern and eastern side of Kleinbasel, which was not traversed by watercourses, many of Kleinbasel’s inhabitants lived on agriculture, as winegrowers or sailors.

The Cemetery
The former vineyard area to the west of the Theodorskirche was purchased in 1779 by council member Remigius Merian. After the last grape harvest, it was prepared for the long-needed extension of the regular churchyard; the first funeral took place on 5 October 1779. The new cemetery was enclosed by a wall and was named “Merianscher Totenacker” (Merian Graveyard) after its former owner. Members of the lower social class were mainly buried here. However, as its capacity was quickly exhausted, two further new areas were used as cemeteries, the “Kleeacker” in 1805 and the “Mättelein” in 1831; these too did not prove sustainable. In 1832, a new cemetery was established outside the city near the Messeplatz for the rapidly growing population of Basel. The Merianscher Totenacker near the Theodorskirche was closed as of 1 May 1833.

In the 54 years since then, 4334 people died in Kleinbasel. They were buried there in the different cemeteries, most of them in the small Merianscher Totenacker. Inhabitants of Kleinbasel were buried there; craftsman, small tradesmen, carters, fishermen, and their families. All burials were recorded in the register of deaths of the parish of St. Theodor with first and last name, age, and often also with profession and origin. The Theodor schoolhouse, built in 1855/56, stands on the site of the former graveyard.

The Discovery
A heat pump was to be installed in this schoolhouse in 1984, which made the building of new pipes necessary. Since the discovery of graves in the area west of the Theodorskirche next to the schoolhouse was to be expected, the excavation work was accompanied by the Archäologischen Bodenforschung Basel-Stadt (English: Archaeological Soil Research of Basel City). In the winter of 1984, the workers came across the remains of 24 graves in the western area of the former Merianscher Totenacker.

Theo lay in the middle of a stack of six in grave 19 and was buried in a southwest-northeast orientation in a stretched dorsal position. There were hardly any traces left of a coffin. The skeleton was recovered completely, only the foot bones had to remain in the ground, since the pit wall could not be removed for static reasons. The neighbouring graves, 15, 17, and 22 were at a 90-degree angle, oriented northwest-southeast, and tended to be less deep. Theo’s grave was dated as later than these, but earlier than grave 20, oriented in the same direction at his feet. This means that Theo was buried before the final phase of the cemetery. The fact that these graves of the older phase were partly higher than the graves from the younger phase is possibly related to the fact that the “decree regarding the burial of corpses” of 25 February 1814 demanded that those who had died of “nervous fever” (epidemic typhus) should be buried in particularly deep graves, in order to prevent “toxic fumes” from rising. The archaeologists concluded that this change in burial methods was possibly connected with the great typhoid epidemic of 1814. The older graves were oriented northeast-southwest and rather shallow, whereas the graves of the younger phase were oriented southwest-northeast and tended to be placed deeper in the ground.

So, Theo had obviously neither been buried at the beginning of this younger burial phase of 1814 or the last one around 1833, but probably in the 1820s. A total of 24 skeletons were recovered, brought to the Natural History Museum of Basel and archived there in the collection.

The Project
Identified historical skeletons are mostly from persons of the social upper class. Their graves are often in churches and the circumstances of their burial are well documented. The project to identify Theo is therefore an exception in that it intended to identify a nameless person, a “nobody” from the lower class.

The research on Theo’s skeleton and his person was also the beginning of the extensive Citizen Science Basel (BBS; BBS stands for Bürgerforschung Basel-Stadt), in which today (2019) around 70 volunteer researchers transcribe historical sources and process data. A further project of the Citizen Science was, for example, the research on Anna Catharina Bischoff.

The numerous written and pictorial documents in the Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt (State Archives of Basel City) from the 18th and 19th centuries greatly facilitated research. Natural sciences and humanities work together and complement each other, with genealogical research playing a key role. The project is headed by the anthropologist Gerhard Hotz, curator of the Natural History Museum Basel.

First Investigations
As part of an exercise conducted by the Institute for Integrative Prehistory and Archaeological Science IPAS of the University of Basel, two students, the anthropologist Simon Kramis and the historian Fabian Link, examined the skeleton from tomb 19 in 2004 and noticed two oval, almost circular gaps in the young man’s dentures, which aroused the young researchers’ curiosity and led to further investigations of the skeleton. These revealed that the deceased was a man who had died between the age of 28 and 32.

Where Theo was born is not known. A strontium Isotope analysis of three of his molars showed that he had most probably lived in the Basel area until the age of 13. Investigations of dental cement and bone showed that as a young man he had suffered at least two phases of stress and signs of incipient osteoarthritis. He was rather small at 1,60 metres and had a balanced diet even during his growth. This suggests that he was not among the poorest. As analyses of the arm and clavicle bones showed, Theo was most likely a right-handed craftsman.

Theo died too young; the life expectancy of a thirty-year-old in the 19th century was 49 years. In the years before his death he was healthy and well-fed: His skeleton showed no serious illness or malnutrition. The cause of death could possibly have been an injury to the soft tissue caused by violence, or an infectious disease with a rapid course that left no traces on the skeleton.

Teeth
Theo’s teeth were badly affected by caries or had died off. Apart from that, the already mentioned oval gaps on the left side of the dentition are remarkable, which almost form a circular cross-section when the jaw is slightly opened. Examinations with the Scanning electron microscope showed fine scratch marks on the tooth surface, indicating a wear process caused by the ceramic mouthpiece of a clay pipe and the fine quartz grains contained therein. Such abrasions occurred almost worldwide from the 17th to the 19th century, clay pipes were widespread at the time. Excavations in graveyards with well-documented information about the deceased show that excessive smoking of clay pipes, which could also be smoked while working without the help of the hands, was more common in socially weak and hardworking classes. Since the clay mouthpiece was harder than the enamel, it ground into the surrounding teeth over time. This exposed the softer dentin and intensified the wear process. Pipe holes develop after five to ten years of intensive smoking. Consequently, Theo must have been a long-time smoker who belonged to the artisan population.

Who was Theo?
On the small Merianschen Totenacker, which was in use from 5 October 1779 to 1 May 1833, there were no gravestones, no memorial plaques and no map of the area, nothing to remember the dead who had been buried here. In the Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt, on the other hand, there was the death register of the parish of St. Theodor, which listed the names, professions, age at death, and places of birth of all those who died in Kleinbasel. Information on the burial place, however, was missing; it was not specified whether a deceased person found their final resting place in the Theodorskirche, in the Merianschen Totenacker, or in another one of Kleinbasel’s cemeteries.

Of the 4334 persons who died in Kleinbasel between 5 October 1779 and 1 May 1833, 2069 were male. One of them had to be Theo. Since Theo’s age could be determined to be around 30 years, all candidates who were younger than 26 and older than 34 were eliminated, reducing the number of eligible candidates to 134. For another 16 men, a special register, the Stone Book, contained the information that they were buried in the Theodorskirche. According to this, these 16 came from the upper social class, as only they could afford a better burial place. 118 names remained. Since Theo had belonged to the younger burial phase and the archaeologists brought this in connection with the great typhoid epidemic of 1814, all men who died before 1814 were struck off the list. 25 men remained. However, the connection with the typhoid epidemic remains unproven until today. Should this assumption prove to be incorrect, the search would have to focus on those who died before 1814.

As Theo must have had the pipe in his mouth all the time during his work and smoking was forbidden during activities in the wood and textile trades, the probability that he pursued such a profession must have been rather low. Theo’s profession was rather in those areas, where fine motor skills were in demand, such as a rope maker, baker, or tailor.

All information about Theo and his everyday life was collected in a database. This database took into account all candidates who could be considered to be Theo and assigned them each a certain probability to be Theo based on information about Theo’s profile. In 2008, the database still listed twelve so-called top candidates, who had a probability of 96 percent of being identical to Theo.

2008/2009 the first attempt to isolate Theo’s DNA from the skeleton. It was possible to remove uncontaminated dentin from a molar and isolate fragments of mitochondrial DNA from it. Mitochondrial DNA is inherited from mother to children, but only daughters can pass it on to their children. In order to find out whether one of the twelve top candidates was Theo, descendants had to be found on the female line in order to compare their DNA with Theo’s. Genealogical research on descendants on the female line is demanding and time-consuming, because every time women married, they took their husband’s name.

The search for descendants
From the list of twelve, genealogical research was able to determine the names of fifteen possible descendants of the top candidates. They were announced to the press together with the list of the twelve candidates on 10 March 2010, in the hope that descendants still living would recognise relatives. Television, radio, and print media also reported on the search. For reasons of protection of the descendants, care was taken to ensure than only names of potential descendants who had already been dead for a hundred years were published; protection of descendants takes effect upon the death of a person for a period of 100 years.

Indeed, twenty people came forward, most of whom were also descendants of Theo candidates. However, since they were descendants on the male line, they were not carriers of the mitochondrial DNA and no DNA comparison could be made. Therefore, the genealogical procedure was adapted: Now, based on the list of twelve, through extensive genealogical family research descendants of the potential Theo candidates were to be found. In the case of several candidates the family lines broke off and it was not possible to find living descendants. With one exception: Johannes Bieler. But the DNA comparison showed a negative result and Bieler could be removed from the list of 12 candidates. Eleven candidates were left:

Sometimes, tragic fates hide behind these names. The following information on the life circumstances and family situation of the first two candidates, who could have been Theo, is based on the one hand on the research of the genealogists of the Citizen Science Basel (BBS) Marina Zulauf, Ursula Fink, Diana Gysin, and Beat Stadler, who searched the various archives, and on the other hand on genealogical and job-specific research. All results come from documents directly related to the two men.

Theo’s real name was most likely Christian Friedrich Bender or Achilles Itin. Since no descendants of either of them could be found through the female line, a reliable identification has not yet been possible. What the men have in common is that they both had a “migrant background”, i.e. their families came to Basel from outside the city in the hope of a better economic future. Only Bender managed to establish a professional existence. Two of the ten candidates ended their lives through suicide.

Christian Friedrich Bender (1783–1816)


Christian Friedrich Bender was born on 23 December 1783 in Bouxwiller in Lower Alsace. In October 1808 he was accepted into the “Zunft zum Himmel“ (“Guild to the Sky“) in Basel as a glazier on the basis of a settlement and trade permit. When and why he came to Basel is unknown. On 30 September 1806 he married Sara Bauler, the daughter of a well-off master tailor. The Benders lived in a narrow two-story house at Rheingasse 21. At the time of Bender’s death, five of the couple’s nine children were still alive.

On 16 November 1816, Bender took his own life at six in the morning by cutting his throat with a razor. The cut was made with great force and went down to the cervical vertebrae. His wife Sara stated that “she wanted to help him; alone he pushed her away with force, where he immediately made a second cut”. “Trial cuts”, as they are often made in such suicides, did not take place.

On the same day, three official investigations took place, whose detailed descriptions in the records offer much information about an average family in the 19th century. According to Bender’s wife, the reason for his deed “was a mental illness”, which she attributed to religious doubts and fears. It is also conceivable, however, that the wife put forward a disease so that her husband would receive an honest grave inside the churchyard and not be buried outside cemetery walls, as was customary for suicides at the time.

Today, however, there are several doubts regarding the circumstances of his death, and there is some evidence of external influence. As can be seen from the records, the scene of the crime was changed considerably after the crime. Why was the assistant surgeon on duty so quickly in the early morning? Why was the dead man moved from the floor of the bedroom to the bed in the adjacent room with his help? Bender supposedly killed himself standing up – why were the sheets of the bed in the bedroom full of blood? Many questions remain unanswered. Due to the fact that the neck muscles on the right side were completely severed but remained almost intact on the left side, it can be concluded that Bender made the cut from the top right to the bottom left, so he must have been left-handed. Should it now turn out that Theo is identical with Christian Friedrich Bender, this could indicate that Bender was killed – Theo was right-handed.

Bender’s height was measured during the investigation of his death. It was about 1,60 metres – exactly the height calculated for Theo. Unfortunately, Theo’s cervical spine did not survive, otherwise possible cut marks could have been detected.

The enterprising Sara Bender continued her husband’s glazier business thanks to a special permit. In August 1818 she married the master glazier Adam Uehlinger, had two more children, died on 26 June 1839 at the age of 55 and left behind a considerable fortune of almost 20'000 Swiss francs.

Achilles Itin (1786–1816)


Achilles Itin was born in Basel as the third of seven children. On 2 March 1786, the professor of theology Jakob Meyer and the master dyer and Grand Councillor Achilles Miville were entered into the baptism register of the Theodorskirch as godparents – perhaps a sign of charity towards the suffering family.

The family probably lived in poor conditions in two or three subletted rooms in the district of the parish of St. Theodor in Kleinbasel. The father was a town soldier and had to feed the family of nine with a monthly wage of ten francs. His brother Hans Jakob Itin worked as a carter servant for the city. It is unknown whether they were supported by the city.

Achilles, as the unmarried son, probably also lived with the family, together with his unmarried sisters. The oldest sister married the widower and silk weaver Isaac Roth in 1811. Of her seven children, the three youngest died as infants, the second son, Jacob Conrad Roth, drowned in the Rhine at age thirteen. Two of Achilles’ sisters each bore an illegitimate daughter. One of the girls was born deaf and mute. She later gave birth to two illegitimate children who both died shortly after birth. Three of the sisters who remained unmarried died like their father in the hospital for the poor in Liestal.

Achilles Itin remained unmarried and died at age 30 on 14 November 1816, a few months after his mother. Nothing is known about his professional activity and the cause of his death.



Facial reconstruction
In the year 2001, historian Fabian Link created a facial reconstruction of Theo under the guidance of anthropologist and sculptor Gyula Skultéty. Link portrayed him as a 40-year-old man with wrinkles and a face marked by years of hard work. Later, more detailed investigations into the age at which Theo died revealed that Theo died at the age of 30. With the new information, Gyula Skultéty portrayed Theo as a younger man. The reconstruction thus shows a plausible variant of Theo’s appearance at the time of his death.

New genetic and genealogical research
Using newly developed methods, Forensic Genetics in Berlin in 2015 managed to isolate fragments of Theo’s nuclear DNA from a bone sample. Here, the search for descendants had to take place on the male line. Thus, a descendant of another man in question, pan mender Peter Kestenholz, could be tracked down in Liestal. But the analysis of his DNA showed that there was no relationship. Another candidate was removed from the list with certain reservations; ten candidates remain.

When researching the male line, there is the possibility of so-called cuckoo children who interrupt the paternal line with foreign DNA. A genetic comparison of descendants is then no longer possible. Therefore, if there is no proof of kinship in a potential descendant of Theo, the candidate cannot be removed from the candidate list with one hundred percent certainty. A second trail to the top candidate Achilles Itin led to the USA. Here, the contact is still pending; a first attempt failed.

In order to improve the possibilities of finding Theo’s descendants, a whole genome sequencing of Theo was carried out by the University of Potsdam (Institute of Biochemistry and Biology; Evolutionary Adaptive Genomics), YSEQ, and the Forensic Genetics Berlin. The data obtained are being uploaded into DNA databases such as GEDmatch, which compare about 1 million DNA autosomal markers instead of maternal and paternal lines. The most important statement so far has been that Theo belongs to the exact mitochondrial haplogroup U-3546A, as well as the Y-chromosomal haplogroup R1b-S22194 with the further private mutations BY47236 T and BY126769 G.

If matches are now found between existing gene markers and those of Theo, the persons concerned would be contacted. If these people can be shown to have ancestors from Basel, this could lead to the determination of Theo’s identity. So it is probably only a matter of time until the mystery of Theo can be solved.

Further applications of the procedure
Such methods are already successfully applied in so-called cold case investigations. Without prior knowledge, in the case of serious crimes, samples of the murderer’s DNA can lead to their identification. A sequencing of the genome from the cell nucleus DNA was also carried out on Ötzi.