"Joan d'Arc ashes" are ... from a mummy

Charred relics are not Joan of Arc's, says expert

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 05 April 2007

The relics of Joan of Arc - the Catholic saint who was burnt at the stake in 1431 - are a forgery and are probably derived from a much-older Egyptian mummy, a study has found.

A forensic scientist has shown that the bones and linen fragments discovered in the attic of a Paris pharmacy in 1867 were not those of a woman who had died in the 15th century.

Instead, it appears that the bones belong to a person who had died some time between the 6th and 3rd centuries BC, and had been embalmed in the manner of ancient Egypt.

After the "relics" came to light in the 19th century they were recognised as genuine by the Catholic Church and have since been held in a museum in the Loire town of Chinon.

Philippe Charlier of the Raymond Poincaré Hospital in Garches near Paris, who was given permission to study the remains, is quoted in the journal Nature saying that they belong to an Egyptian mummy who had lived many hundreds of years before Joan of Arc.

"I'd never have thought that it could be from a mummy," Dr Charlier said.

The relics comprise a charred human rib, chunks of what seem to be carbonised wood, a 15cm fragment of linen and a femur from a cat. An inscription found with the material said: "Remains found under the stake of Joan of Arc, Maid of Orleans."

The charred appearance of the bones, wood and linen were consistent with the idea that they belonged to someone who had been burnt at the stake. The cat's bone supported the notion that a black cat had been thrown on the pyre - a tradition when women were burnt as witches.

However, high-powered microscopes showed that the black crust on the bones was not carbonised as a result of being burnt, but impregnated deposits of mineral and vegetable material. "I see burnt remains all the time in my job. It was obviously not burnt tissue," Dr Charlier said.

Instead, the black material appears to be the result of an embalming mix of wood resins, bitumen and chemicals such as malachite. Dr Charlier also found pine pollen - pine trees did not grow in Normandy at the time Joan of Arc was killed, but pine resin was widely used for embalming in ancient Egypt.

Two further lines of evidence point to a link with ancient Egypt. Carbon dating of the remains suggest they belong to the period between the 6th and 3rd centuries BC. And spectroscopic profiles of the rib, femur and wood chips match those of Egyptian mummies from the same period. Joan of Arc, who was canonised in 1920, was a peasant girl from eastern France who heard the voices of saints and rose to become the inspiration for the French armies to defeat the invading English. She was captured and burnt at the stake at the age of 19, with her body being burned three times to make sure there was little left to worship.

Dr Charlier says the Catholic Church is ready to accept his study's results.

Relics were big business in the middle ages.

always thought saving and displaying bodily parts was more than a bit ghastly.