Tests Planned to Check I.D. of Body Found on Everest

Climbers who discovered the body of George Mallory on Mt. Everest have sent a tissue sample for testing to prove the remains were those of the British explorer lost in 1924, an expedition official said Tuesday.

Erin Copland, a spokeswoman for the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition in Ashford, Wash., also said that other artifacts were taken from the body, including “written materials” and a broken rope that strongly suggests Mallory plunged to his death in the ill-fated summit attempt.

The expedition stunned the climbing world over the weekend with news it had found Mallory’s body at 27,000 feet, about 2,000 vertical feet below the summit.

The discovery instantly renewed debate over whether Mallory--and possibly his younger, less experienced climbing partner, Andrew Irvine, who also died on the mountain--might have been the first to reach the summit.

If one or both did, the feat came nearly 30 years before Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay accomplished it.

Hillary, now 79 and living in New Zealand, saluted Mallory on Tuesday as “a pretty heroic figure” and said, “I don’t think it would worry me too much if it was discovered [he] had been there before me.”

Hillary added: “Of course, he didn’t get down again, so he didn’t quite complete the job fully.”

Leaders of the current expedition, which has retreated to a base camp at 17,000 feet, plan to make another ascent searching for Irvine’s body and a pocket camera that could rewrite history.

Copland said the tissue sample was taken with the permission of Mallory’s family and was already on its way to Britain for DNA testing, although she said there was no doubt the body was Mallory’s, based on its position on the mountain, the type of jacket on it and labels sewn into the clothing.

“We feel that the tissue sample will only provide better proof of facts that the team feels are so conclusive as to be beyond any doubt,” she said.

The existence of written materials raised the tantalizing possibility that Mallory left a record of his journey. But Copland cautioned that if the pair made the summit, they probably would have been focused on survival and not had the capacity to make a journal entry.