GARCHES, France – A team of scientists hopes to crack one of the layers of mystery surrounding 15th-century French heroine Joan of Arc: Could a rib and other fragments recovered after she was burned at the stake be hers?
Eighteen experts plan a battery of tests to determine whether the few remains reportedly recovered from the pyre where the 19-year-old was burned alive in 1431 for heresy really could have belonged to her.
The tests, which will take six months, will not be able to say with certainty that the remains are Joan of Arc’s, because there is no known DNA sample from her to compare them with, said Dr. Philippe Charlier of the Raymond-Poincare Hospital in Garches.
But the analyses will determine with “absolute certitude” if the remains could not be hers, Charlier said.
Joan of Arc was tried for heresy and witchcraft and burned at the stake after leading the French to several victories over the English during the Hundred Years’ War.
The illiterate farm girl from Lorraine in eastern France said she heard voices from a trio of saints telling her to deliver France from the English. Joan of Arc was beatified in 1909 and made a saint in 1920.
The supposed remains were gathered by an unidentified person and conserved by an apothecary until 1867, when they were turned over to the archdiocese of Tours.
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