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## Buried With a Riddle on His Stone
Kaspar Hauser is buried in the Stadtfriedhof Johannis in Ansbach. His tombstone carries an inscription in Latin and German that became, over time, one of the most quoted artifacts of the entire case:
*Hic jacet Casparus Hauser, aenigma sui temporis, ignota nativitas, occulta mors.* — “Here lies Kaspar Hauser, enigma of his time, his birth unknown, his death mysterious.”
The inscription was placed by the municipality and captures the ambiguity that existed from the first day of his arrival in Nuremberg. He appeared with a name but no history. He departed with a wound but no confirmed cause. Between those two bookends, he occupied a strange position in the culture of his era: a human enigma, a philosophical object, a projection screen for ideas about identity, innocence, nature, and social formation.
The Markgrafenmuseum in Ansbach maintains a substantial collection of artifacts associated with his life, including clothing from the period of his death and objects connected to his daily existence. The museum’s ground floor is largely devoted to his case. The bloodstained clothing that formed part of the DNA evidence in later studies was preserved there.
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## The First DNA Test: 1996
The modern scientific engagement with the Kaspar Hauser mystery began in 1996, when the German news magazine *Der Spiegel* commissioned a DNA test on a blood sample taken from clothing attributed to Hauser — specifically, from his underwear.
The 1996 test compared the mitochondrial DNA from that blood sample against DNA from known female-line descendants of the Baden royal family. The result was straightforward: the blood could not have come from someone belonging to the maternal line of the House of Baden. The mitotypes did not match.