The mystery surrounding the death of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in Prague in 1601 may now finally be solved.

The Czech authorities have given their permission for a group of Danish and Czech experts to open Brahe’s grave at the Church of Our Lady in front of Týn in Prague and carry out analyses of his bones, hair and clothes. It is hoped that the analyses will determine whether Brahe died, as has generally been thought, of uremia or whether he died as a result of mercury poisoning in a murder plot.

Murder suspicions were raised when a Swedish professor found a diary some years ago in which a distant relation to Tycho Brahe suggested the astronomer had been poisoned.

“I am delighted that we’ve got so far now that we can schedule our work,” says archaeologist Jens Vellev who is to lead the Danish team and who has been involved in the complicated process to get permission to open the grave.

“Opening the grave will be very special. But afterwards archaeologists, anthropologists, textile experts, chemical specialists and other scientists will have as interesting a job in analysing and coordinating the findings,” Vellev tells Politiken.

Tycho Brahe was an astronomist and alchemist and is credited with the most accurate astronomical observations of his time.