the most obscure historical question ever asked

Can't have "French" fries, now can we!

Cav, I really hate to ask this, but...

Whose breasts inspired the flutes?

She must have been old at the time

Equus, When I was traveling down the Amazon, I stayed for a while in Leticia, Columbia. I went swimming in a canal tributary. Natives coming by in canoes seemed severe looking and unfriendly. I found out later that these canals contain 300volt eels that can kill you with a bump. The natives weren't unfriendly. They just thought we were crazy.

Probably a few piranha also.

Ha ha! The flutes were not inspired by anyone's breasts, as far as I know, but theories could be fun

I should think that another sexual organ inspired the flute, although, clearly, not that of Louis XVI . . .

cafancier, thanks for asking. My dog, Boggs, is doing well. Gets along with all the horses, cows, barn cats, and people. He's a good friend, always the first to greet me when I come home.

He can really run far and fast even on his gimpy leg.

He minds very well, except his curiosity got the better of him and he did run across the street to check out the sheep and horses and dogs on a neighbor's property. When he found he couldn't get on the property due to their goat fence, he just waited for us.

He's inspired us to put up a dog run.

Actually, Setanta, that thought did occur to me.

Bloody typical A2K!! Can't get 3 pages into a topic before some-one's already mentioning the 'rude bits'. You people are obsessed!!

Back to the question. Lime is apparently a good preservative. It may have been an fairly easy (but disgusting) task of recognising the bodies by their clothing.

That would have worked for Louis, but Marie was in a plain shift and mob cap . . . the poster who opined that there is no one in the monument probably has the best grip on this question . . .

Lime would actually hasten the process of the bodies' deterioration. Lime heats up the soil literally and the tissues would break down faster. I don't think it have a different result on cloth, but I don't know.

The only sure way would be to find any male descendants of Louis, exhume the body in St. Denis and do the DNA tests.

Dov, you might find some answers about the official burial sites here on this page and the following one. http://nicksimon2.tripod.com/34-3.html

Joe, Lime actually turns the body into an Ammonia factory and by jacking up the pH the bacteria can break down the more simple organics till nothing is left.The ammonia is derived from the protein material and heat is a by-product, not the cause. Its like a compost heap really. The cloth would be broken down fairly quickly in a humid high pH, warm environment. Having enough DNA left may present a problem. When they tried to do a DNA on George Custer from his grave at West Point, They actually found little useable DNA, what they did find , from dentin in a tooth , and from physical features of Custer and the bones that were actually in the grave, they discovered that there are actually 3 non-coms from Custers Brigade buried in his grave. Most of that forensic evidence was from the physical features of the bones and not DNA (eg, femur was too short for Custer and there was evidence of previous break at the knee,and Custer had no known broken bones. AAlso the teeth in the skull were worn from smoking a pipe, a practice Custer didnt engage in)
The AMerican Academy of Forensic SCience kkeps up a "last word society" in which member MEs and other ghouls report on historical autopsies that theyve been engaged in.Webpage Title

you can visit the resources section and find information about celebrity autopsies, just in case, they may have some information from the international society about this

Thanks for the chem lesson Farmerman, all I really knew was that I used to throw a little lime in my compost pit to "heat it up" and it seems every other murder mystery has the culprits throwing lime onto the victim's body before filling in the shallow grave.

Excuse me, I have to go eat breakfast

fuhgeddaboudid joe

yum.

Upon consideration of all your words I think now there were ardent royalists even near the end of the life of the Queen that must have known of her fresh grave and shortly thereafter removed the body for a concealed internment for perhaps a few years. After The Terror which was near the end of the Queens life, perhaps even Napoleon in his formative years may have had an interest in the recovery of the bodies for political reasons. He obviously was as not as repulsed by the idea of an absolute monarch which he himself adopted not long after; even more so than Louis XVI ever did or wanted. I have to admit this explanation is not too remotely distant from the story of the end of Jesus' life, of course without the religious associations. Back to the first point; no matter what happens and what is the current government policy, no one could be absolutely indifferent to the unceremoniously created grave. Even if it was a stop to direct their contempt. Of course DNA could now settle this question once and for all.

Not so, bodies interred in lime-impregnated soil can undergo a process of saponification where the fats in the tissue are actually converted a hard soap. This is called Apidocere or grave wax, mortuary fat or saponified tissue.

Stillwater, formation of adipocere, requires very special conditions. admittedly one of those conditions is a high pH, but the overall controlling condition is that the body be located in a humic rich, wet interment area so that the saturation of fats and fatty acids occurs followed by saponification. Not all bodies become incorruptable from lime. there are relatively few examples of adipocere formation when compared to the overall number of corpses buried. In Kosovo, hu dreds of bodies were buried in mass graves and , although these were limed by the killers , very few bodies were not decomposed , in mostcases only a few bones remaiined. One of my colleagues was in an international forensic team and I had seen some of the in situ photos of their work in identifying and cataloging remains.
I dont know the overall special conditions needed but they include, moist soils or "bog" conditions, aenarobic conditions for facultative bacteria to aid in the reaction of conversion to saturated fats, relatively high pH (something just over 7 , even limestone soils ), and a corpse that shows higher fat content, and a warmer soil so that the reaction of soap formation can occur before the NH3 is dissipated.
As A geologist involved , many times in forensics,Ive been associated with enough forensic teams and Ive seen only 1 true adipocere formation case , and that was in a seminar, and it was presented as an oddity of conditions, not a routine occurence.
Hope I didnt blow anybodies breakfast.