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Fake pisstake? Scientists re-examine Belgium's celebrated Manneken Pis | Fake pisstake? Scientists re-examine Belgium's celebrated Manneken Pis |
(about 1 hour later) | |
To Belgians, the celebrated Manneken Pis - the “peeing boy” in Dutch - is a symbol of Brussels’ capacity for self-mockery. The ability of the city’s inhabitants to laugh at themselves is now being put to the test as scientists attempt to discover whether the famous bronze statue is, in fact, a fake. | |
City officials make no secret of the fact that the 61cm (24in) Mannekin Pis seen by tourists urinating into a city fountain is a copy of the original, commissioned from the sculptor Jérôme Dulquesnoy the Elder and installed in 1619, which now resides in the nearby city museum. | |
However, scientists say they are not 100% sure even this is the real statue and are subjecting it to a barrage of tests to find out. | However, scientists say they are not 100% sure even this is the real statue and are subjecting it to a barrage of tests to find out. |
The Manneken Pis has a long and colourful history. One legend suggests it was inspired in 1142 when troops loyal to two-year-old Duke Godfrey III of Leuven put him in a basket in a tree, from where he urinated on enemy soldiers. | |
Another 14th-century story says inspiration for the statue came after a local boy relieved himself on a burning fuse set by enemies besieging the city to blow up its walls. | |
Another tale tells of a visitor who on discovering his missing son answering a call of nature in someone’s garden, offered the statue as a thank-you to locals who helped him search for the child. | |
Damaged by Louis XV’s soldiers in 1747, then stolen, the original reportedly disappeared in the following century and only surfaced when discovered broken in two pieces in a city canal in 1966. It has been pinched, rediscovered and replicated so many times that historians say they have lost track of the original. | |
A few months ago the statue was x-rayed for the presence of nickel, which would indicate the statute is more likely to be a 19th-century copy. The results were inconclusive. | |
Now, minute stone samples are to be scraped from the surface and inside the statue. When compared with others from the same period they will – scientists hope – reveal whether the Manneken Pis is original or not. | |
Géraldine Patigny, a historian at the Brussels Free University is part of the team trying to establish fact from fantasy. “It has a troubled history and there are holes in the story,” Patigny told local journalists. “The only sources we have are local publications based on folklore. There are no proper archives.” | Géraldine Patigny, a historian at the Brussels Free University is part of the team trying to establish fact from fantasy. “It has a troubled history and there are holes in the story,” Patigny told local journalists. “The only sources we have are local publications based on folklore. There are no proper archives.” |