Joan of Arc Relics Proved a Forgery

The journal Nature reports that the relics of St Joan of Arc are not the remains of the fifteenth-century French heroine after all, according to Philippe Charlier, a forensic scientist at Raymond Poincaré Hospital in Garches, near Paris, who analysed the sacred scraps. Instead, the relics are a forgery, made from the remains of an Egyptian mummy.

Joan asserted that she had visions from God which told her to recover her homeland from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War. She was burned at the stake in 1431 in Rouen, Normandy. The relics were discovered in 1867 in a jar in the attic of a Paris pharmacy, with the inscription "Remains found under the stake of Joan of Arc, virgin of Orleans". They were recognized by the Church, and are now housed in a museum in Chinon that belongs to the Archdiocese of Tours. Posted by Casey Kazan.

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[MaidOfHeaven]

This comes as no real surprise since the history of Joan of Arc is very well documented and says she was burned and all that was left afterwards was thrown in the river.