By Ainur Rohmah
TUBAN, Indonesia
An Indonesian man who had claimed to be the world’s oldest living human has died aged 146, his grandson told Anadolu Agency on Tuesday.
Sodimejo, who was known by friends as Gotho, died on Sunday after an illness, grandson Suryanto said.
According to his government-issued identity card, Gotho was born in December 1870, when most of Indonesia was a Dutch colony.
His age has never been independently verified but last month a medical team from the U.S. took DNA samples for testing. “They took a sample of blood, urine and teeth,” Suryanto said. “The test results will be sent in six weeks.”
Suryanto, 46, said Gotho returned to his village home in Sragen regency, Central Java, from hospital shortly before his death.
“After taking him home, he refused to eat and drink,” Suryanto said. “He had wanted to die long ago.”
Gotho was buried under a tombstone he had prepared for himself 25 years ago.
Gotho’s earliest memory was of the opening of a sugar factory in 1880, Suryanto said. “He still has memories of the inauguration of the factory, which has been an important signifier for the authorities to determine his age,” Suryanto told Anadolu Agency in September.
Although he remembered his grandfather as always being physically robust, he became weaker last year.
“He began to get a little weaker, especially his legs... He can’t watch TV due to a problem with his eyes but he is continually listening to the radio,” Suryanto said of the heavy smoker who outlived four wives and four children.
The oldest living recorded human was Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 aged 122.
The world’s oldest person still alive is 117-year-old Jamaican Violet Brown, according to the Gerontology Research Group.
