![]() ![]() Much of what we know about Joan of Arc comes from the transcript of her 1431 trial for heresy-an inquisition that resulted not only in her execution but also assured her immortality as a French heroine and Catholic martyr. But though this tantalizing fragment of Joan of Arc has been proven a fake, her legend carries on. ![]() The Church, which in 1909 had recognized the relics as likely genuine, accepted the 2007 study's findings. ![]() The scheme may have been effective, since shortly afterward, in 1869, the Catholic Church took the first step toward Joan's 1920 canonization as a saint. ![]() They concluded that the relics were taken from an Egyptian mummy, a component, in powdered form, of some medieval pharmaceuticals.įound in the attic of a Paris apothecary in 1867, the manufactured relics date to a time when history was rediscovering Joan of Arc, and they were probably created to add to the mystique of the French martyr. Using carbon-14 analysis, the researchers dated the fragments to between the third and sixth centuries B.C. The remains, which included a human rib, were never burned, and instead show evidence of embalming. This past April, forensic scientists at Raymond Poincaré Hospital in Garches, France, announced in the journal Nature that relics supposedly found beneath her pyre are a forgery. Nearly 600 years after she was burned at the stake, Joan of Arc is still making headlines. ![]()
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