Have Medieval Archeologists Found Joan of Arc's Lost Remains? | Myth Hunters | Chronicle

sh jonov AR is the most famous patron saint of France burned at the stake. It was said that his

remains

were

lost

when they were thrown into the River Sen until in 1867 his bones appeared out of nowhere. It's a bit like a crime scene investigation. You

have

the

remains

, who? Some thought it was a hoax, others were true. France's leading forensic pathologist, Dr. Philip Shaler, was fascinated by this mysterious and unsolved case. For me they are not just bones, they are patients. A detective story that tested Shaler's experience to the limit. The autopsy. From an international icon where science meets

myth

, it connects you to the past in a very unexpected way.

This is the story of Shaler's quest to find the truth behind the relics that could be Saint John of the Ark Paris France 2006 Dr. Philipe Shaler was a pathologist his patients were the city's dead who dissected their bodies for clues about why they died, but he was also France's most famous forensic detective, nicknamed the Indiana Jones of cemeteries. He could not resist the coldest cases; long-dead kings, queens and lovers, whose deaths were shrouded in mystery. First I am a doctor, not an archaeologist, an anthropologist, so for me they are not just bones, they are patients and I look at them if there was someone in the subway or on the streets, but dead, of course, their patient files include the English king.

Richard the lion and the French king Henry IV, but all the remains, no matter how small, keep secrets of the past, even a small bone for me is a patient, all these bodies are patients for me and when I look at their bones I simply see myself As in a patient file as in a history book, Shaler was destined to become a

myth

buster and it all began on a trip to the Italian city of Pompeii when he was only 7 years old a volcano had erupted in the year 79 AD burying buildings in boiling ashes people were frozen in time I remember in a woman's Cav and this was very important for me because I was not in front of a skeleton but rather the three-dimensional form of a dead individual and I wanted this individual to speak to me Shaler, 10 years old.

He had

found

a human skull from someone who died about 13,300 years earlier. He wanted the dead to tell his story to speak to him through his remains, so he forged a career in medicine as a forensic pathologist. He knew that he could seek the truth. behind the most famous deaths in history in 2006 Shalia had just closed his last case. He was returning the

medieval

remains of a king's mistress to a provincial museum in Shino, central France, when he happened to see his next patient. 50 cm from these remains were the relics of The so-called Jone of AR Shalia had discovered a long-forgotten box of bones, but they were no ordinary remains.

Legends said they belonged to the French pain of Saint Jonah AR, but how did they find their way to Shinon? Shaler discovered the bones. He dates back to Paris in 1867. The capital's SES were being torn down by one of the most ambitious Urban Transformations ever attempted. Dr. Charlier wanted to know where they came from and discovered that in 1867 the attic of the pharmacy had been cleared and these remains were

found

near the plast. DEA Republic a pharmacist was cleaning out the attic of his store before demolition when he claimed to

have

made an extraordinary discovery jars filled with bones a fragment of tissue and a lid with a message inscribed the remains of Jonah Arc the Catholic Church was immediately interested the Roman Catholic church had The remains were examined to see if they could tell if they were Jon of ARS.

They sort of accepted that they were, but it wasn't a definitive conclusion. The clergy took the remains to Shino for safekeeping, where they eventually landed in the local museum. These relics were left on a shelf for almost 150 years until they were rediscovered by the charier. Shaler had little evidence to work with a broken piece of human rib, a fragment of vertebra from a spinal column, the end of a cat's femur, a curious piece of cloth. and what seemed like lumps of coal faced one of his most difficult investigations and he would need a team of experts if he wanted to solve the case.

It's a bit like CSI crime scene investigation, using a wide range of different experts and many different analysis methods. To determine if in this case the relics belong to Joan of Arc, yes, it was interesting to study these bones that were absolutely black and could have been Burt. The blackened bones instantly reminded Shaler of the history lesson that every French child learned in the jar. from school is a peasant girl girl and she emerges from nowhere really in almost total darkness and bursts onto the historical scene in the most unexpected way. She begins to hear voices and these voices are those of the saints.

Her voices tell her that she is the Virgin she will save. France and that her mission is to ensure that the true king of France, Doan Charles, is crowned. It was 1422. France was in the grips of a power struggle with England that lasted so long it became known as the 100 Years' War. The French king Charles I 6th had just died, the English were determined to prevent his son, Doan Charles, from taking the crown in 1429. Joan rode to the doan's court at Shino Fortress and told the French prince of her quest to defeat the English. the throne and restore peace we don't know exactly what she told the DOA in secret what was the sign she gave that convinced him and many of them that she was the true virgin who was going to save France, everything she said it worked Joan became his military advisor she was only 16 years old she seems to be quite willing to take on the role of a warrior and this is very unusual she is someone who seems to be capable of assuming military command she carries a banner a banner that is Her emblem and symbol thwarted the English armies in battle and saw Doan crowned King Charles I Seventh of France, but a year later in 1430, in the middle of a battle, Joan was captured by pro-English French troops and then betrayed by their king, who refused. to pay him the ransom Charles Iith knew that he had become a dangerous liaison the church was convinced that the voices he heard were not the saints but the devil who was no longer worth supporting should not seem to have owed him anything much less her kingdom or her crown to someone accused of being a heretic Joan was imprisoned she refused to renounce the voices she heard certain that they were the word of God the church was not impressed she confuses and um and baffles her interrogators she treats them in what they consider an extremely disrespectful way of telling them that they cannot have an answer now that they have to wait for a fortnite because by then their voices will have spoken and then he will be able to communicate God's message to them, which if the clergy is not part of that communication with God is heretical A show trial found her guilty of heresy and there was no leniency in the sentence.

The normal punishment for the heretic who is obstinate and refuses to recant or abjure his heresy, which is the terrible punishment of burning at the stake on May 30. In 1431, Joan was tied to a stake on top of a wooden pole in the market square of Rouen. It is said that a large crowd gathered to watch the spectacle at which the P was lit. It took three attempts to burn her body to ashes. what was left of the poor girl uh was deposited as ashes in the river s it was very important that there were no relics left 575 years later Shaler looked at a jar labeled that said remains found under the wrath of jonov AR Virgin of oon could her body have survived the fire for Philip Shaler this was the opportunity of a lifetime to examine relics rumored to be France's most famous daughter as a pathologist who had analyzed anonymous human body parts found by police Shalia new diagnostic test Reigns Supreme DNA analysis has been described as the silver bullet to all questions, particularly in the past, the double helix of DNA was Shaler's best chance to show that the bones were jonov Ark, a molecule found in all animal cells and vegetables.

DNA is encoded with vital genetic information that is passed from generation to generation. another, if Charier could actually obtain DNA preserved from human remains, it would be possible to determine the sex of the person depicted and two compare the DNA profile with living descendants. It was known that DNA could last in human remains for hundreds or even thousands of years. years, so he sent bone samples to forensic genetics experts; if the remains were female, he planned to obtain DNA from her relatives alive today to identify a genetic link to the relic bones. DNA analysis has actually only been around for about 25 years to look at archaeological skeletons. 1989 was the first time DNA was extracted from a bone.

History Hit is an award-winning streaming platform created by history fans for history fans. Enjoy our rich library of documentaries covering key events and locations from the

medieval

period. The story reaches into medieval times and features notable historians like Dan. Jones Elena Yanega and Cat Jman Not only that, but we have a rich library of audio documentaries covering every period in History through our podcast network. Sign up now for a free trial and Chronicle fans will get 50% off your first three months, just be sure to use the code Chronicle at checkout Shaler waited for the results if the bones were male, she had Mark, the end sudden of their search would have been a man, we would have concluded that these women were not at all these from jonu, then Shaler got the call, it was bad news news scientists had not been able to extract DNA their plan to test their relatives for a match genetics was now in tatters the reason why there was no DNA was a mystery but it was possible that intense heat like that of a burning P could have destroyed it so that the There are two reasons why the DNA would not have survived and they would be that it did not it survived period or it was destroyed.

It is very unlikely that preserved DNA can be obtained from bone that has been packaged. Shaler suspected that high-tech science might not give her the breakthroughs she would need to solve this cold case and unravel the mystery of the AR Jonov relics. She knew she would have to think outside the box. She had a radical idea, something that had never been tried before and would need one of her highly trained noses. I am a perfumer. I create perfumes. I smell so many things in life and I am passionate about pleasant smells like flowers, fruits, spices, woods, etc., and suddenly someone calls you and says: "Hello, Jean Michelle.

I am a Doctor, I work in the hospital and I am investigating the supposed relics of Joon Noar, can you help me? I wanted to use perfumers' noses that are professional noses and quite artistic as well to smell these remains and know if they have burnt or not to smell the relics to see if there is evidence of burned. I think it's wonderful to use any test you can. The sense of smell is really about detecting molecules, volatile molecules, rules that are here in the air, sometimes a few molecules are enough to They can be detected, they enter your nose. and your nose captures them and sends active information to your brain like Samia's palette for the complex Taste of Wine.

Jean Michelle Dürer's senses were finely tuned to smell odors with a precision that he would be the first to put. the smell of the relics under scrutiny met Shier in the hospital laboratory some of the bottles had not been opened for at least 30 years Shaler hoped the aroma would be concentrated enough to get a result we were, you know, putting our noses in the bottle Very carefully, as if you also knew that this dead person would still be alive and we don't want to bother him too much, so excuse me, ma'am, but can I smell his burning bones?

That was a little strange. D sniffed the 10cm long blackened rib fragment. Knowing Jon Noak's story, I expected to maybe smell a burning smell and I was surprised because I didn't smell anything burning, there were no traces of fire smell, but the duer detected a faint but dense aroma, evident, but the relics were old. Aroma is made of molecules called notes that have different weights. The top notes give off the strongest scent, but are so light that they evaporate in minutes. The bottom notes are the heavier aromatic molecules that linger for hours, perhaps even centuries. What we call top notes are the volatile ones. the uh notes completely disappeared, so what I was driving was more towards what we call drydown or very heavy and soft Noe type base note and the base note smelled curiously like vanilla.

I'm smelling a kind of vanilla note, it's possible. So any possibility that a burnt bone might smell like vanilla was an important clue, is related to the sweet smell of bodies as they decompose. Valine is directly related to decomposition and compaction, so these remains are stillThey continued their process of decomposition and compaction, but the smell of decomposition did not rule out that the body had been burned in wood. P the relics could still be Jon from Ark. The fact that it smelled like vanilla does not necessarily mean that the body was not cremated because cremated bone can degrade after cremation.

Shaler needed to check whether the bones had been burned to look for direct evidence of exposure to the intense heat of the fire, but to To see it would require X-ray vision. He called radiologists to run the relics through his CT scan. Scanner typically used to analyze living bodies, organs, and tumors. It is an x-ray technique that produces slices that are images through the object or body and then those images are reconstructed into a 3D image. Shaler wanted to scan the bone fragments from different angles to generate a 3D model of the bones that revealed the internal and external surfaces in painstaking detail and had a clever idea of ​​how to identify any evidence of burns on the relics.

Dr. Charlier had control samples, particularly from burn victims, for comparison. What he saw in the relics with modern victims: the body was raised in public places or in a car in a private place much closer to Jon's death process of AR. Shaler would check both relics and modern bones for cracks in their structure created when the bones are exposed to temperatures above 70° C and the collagen in the bone begins to disintegrate. We wanted to know if these women had been burned by identifying small fractures. or trauma, 3D models were generated on the screen and Shaler had his answer and we saw that there was absolutely no sign of cremation on the screen the results suggested that the relics had not been burned but Sher wondered if the Jovar legend could explain why It takes half a ton of wood and 5 hours to cremate a body and the history book said it took three attempts to burn it.

Jonov AR's corpse died in the first fire probably from carbon monoxide poisoning, but the flames had not destroyed his body, the body was quite intact, only the tips of the fingers in pairs were chroma, so the English authorities wanted to burn it a second time. When the second P was lit, Joan's arms, head and legs were burned, but not her torso which contained the wettest organs, her lungs, heart, liver and intestines. It is possible that after the second burning, only her torso was left, perhaps because she has the most moisture. and therefore a third burn was necessary to dispose of the rest of the body.

The relic bone would have come out of his torso. Shaler wondered if they could have been saved from the third fire that finally incinerated his body. We had possible explanations for the preservation of Jon's small rics. Arch, the first one that like the P was not on the ground but above, it is possible that some bones passed from the support to the ground, could the fallen bones have been saved by the jostling crowd or had Jonov's corpse AR reacted to fire much like Hindu funerals and modern cremations. If the torso exploded, the other possibility was a possible explosion of Jon of Ark's body.

We got a large amount of gas that grew inside the trunk and the pressure grows, grows. and then, of course, it explodes because the lungs and ribs cannot withstand such high pressure. It is a known phenomenon that bodies explode during the burning process, so his second explanation might be true, but Chara's theory of why the bones were not burned does not. This does not explain the radiologist's second discovery: the bones were impregnated with a mysterious dark substance that had once been too hot to infiltrate bone; The substantia nigra would have needed to be liquefied, suggesting that there was a high temperature involved somewhere that Dr.

Charer had to look under a microscope to find out what was actually in it. Charer took samples of the black coating of the relics if the bones had been exposed to fire. The fish thought that he could see carbon particles under the microscope. They found many things, including red blood cells. vegetable fibers, dog hair and various other things, but no charcoal. Shaler's analysis revealed that the substance was a resin. We saw that it was a mixture of organic material and also a large amount of pollen grains and fungal spores which later gave the result that it was actually a pine resin Shalia knew that pine sap resin had been used for millennia to preserve the bodies if the remains were jonov AR had someone soak the relics in resin to prevent decomposition Shalia wanted to know if all the relics were coated in the same resin did it contain any secrets about where or when the bones had been preserved, So he called a former collaborator at the Lar Boisier hospital in Paris, toxicologist Dr.

Joel Pon. I have known Philip Sher for over 10 years and when he wants something, he will have it and that is why he is very persuasive and you cannot resist. In fact, for him everything is possible. Unlike Shaler Poon's patients, who are usually alive, he looks for chemical traces of poisoning or certain diseases in their bodies, but he can find elements in archaeological remains also helped solve some of Shaler's most complex cases, but an alleged holy impregnated beef was the first in which all the relics, the bones were covered with a layer of very dark dark brown substance and, uh, it was very intriguing, so we wanted to know if the substance was the same for all the samples And what exactly was Poon's experiment would reveal the exact chemical composition of the resin covering each of the relics if they were all coated with the same substance.

They also placed two batches of control samples, one of which was two bones from modern cremations and the other was a piece of dried skin. Shalia demanded absolute secrecy about the case. Pon was not supposed to say a word. He didn't know who was working on it, so we're not supposed to talk about it. Put it in the Pres or in the media to identify the elements in the resin. Pon had to dissolve the samples in acid heated to 5,000 DE, so you put the sample with the acid in the microwave and everything dissolves, not exactly the same use. in your kitchen, but the principle is the same, so Poon ran the liquid through his mass spectrometer, which he would identify and count the atoms in the sample.

Shalia wanted the results right away. You know that Philip Shal is very impatient and especially for these kinds of important things. Study, he wants to know the result quickly, so he called me and Joel. What are the results? I need it tomorrow. The result was clear. Poon showed that all the relics were coated with the same resin, but this group apparently included the anonymous skin from fragment 2. There were two different groups according to his analysis, one was the modern cremations and the second group was the relics and the skin sample. The relics and the skin sample were loaded with the metals iron and phosphorus, further proof that the bones had decomposed from not having been cremated at the high level.

The levels of phosphorus and iron in the relics and skin indicate the decomposition process occurring in the muscles and skin. Modern bones had a different chemical composition. There was no link to the resin of the relic. Now Shaler revealed the source of the skin fragment. So what Charlier told Pon was that actually that skin sample was from an Egyptian mummy. Shaler had sent the skin sample to test a secret idea that the relics were coated with a resin recipe invented by the ancient Egyptians. He was right, it was a breakthrough. In the event that the blackish mixture was, of course, prohibited and a kind of balm deposited during the packaging process, these results confirmed to us that we had some kind of unity.

The cut was exactly the same for all samples. Shaler was determined to discover if the relics could Jon of Arc know a test that could help him look back into the past. Scientists at the Ion Beam Physics Laboratory in Zurich, Switzerland, were world experts in dating human remains by analyzing a radioactive carbon-14 molecule, in the same way that we are radioactive with just nature, our atmosphere, our planet. It is exposed to cosmic radiation and these high energy cosmic particles eventually end up in all living organisms and also in our body. Carbon 14 is found in every cell in our body and as soon as we die, it works like a clock.

Because radioactive carbon-14 decays at a known rate, scientists counted the number of molecules left in the Relic's bones to tell them when the person had died. We wanted to know, of course, the number of molecules that we wanted to know if he had died. exactly the same period as Jon from AR, as soon as we die we can no longer replace the c14 atoms and at that moment the clock starts ticking and from this we can directly calculate the age of the clean sample material in which we burn it first. The carbon dioxide purifies the gas and then we reduce it back to graphite and this little graphite powder is pressed into these bullets.

The bullet-shaped capsules were loaded into the accelerator. Shaler wanted to know if the relics were medieval or not, but so did he. To know its geographical origin, he called textile historian Kristoff Mulera to analyze the fabric found in the jar. Philips called me to say, Kristoff, I have a fragment of Jandar's relics and he wants to extract as much information as possible from everything in it. 'Being one of the most baffling cases Mulh has ever faced. Analyzing the textile was really important, it can potentially show you when it was actually made, where it was made, what the actual fabric was.

He only had a small piece of cloth to analyze which was coated. on one side with the embalming resin found in the bones, the textile was a fragile piece of fabric 10 cm long, blackish and brownish in color, and black formations embedded in a part of the Dex Mula wanted to know what material it was made of, then it is the number of threads to see if it combined with the medieval fabrics, so when I did the tread, I found it lined, but the metal was very thin and also of very good quality when I did the number of threads, I found 24 cm, the fabric was linen. linen with 24 threads per square cm, a fine fabric widespread in Europe during the last thousand years, but while looking under the microscope something strange caught the attention of the expert M, he learned that since the 7th century the European thread was twisted in one direction zed, but the Reliquia yarn had an opposite twist like an S, the tread I used to use on the textile was always in that direction and on the textile it is in the opposite direction, so I said very strange, I was expecting a zed twist on the thread and found an S-turn, so he had to start.

When thinking about where that textile could have come from, there was no match to fabric made in Europe, but mul had seen this twist before. All the textile from the Middle East, all the material is in s. Could the cloth have been exported to France from the Middle East in Shaler had heard that in the late Middle Ages some people believed that the devil could transform into a c. They were said to be associated with witchcraft and rumored to have cast heresies. in ESP when witches were burned at least 12,000 heretics died at the stake in Europe and America between 1300 and 1800 AD, but up to 100,000 could have been murdered.

The death of jonov var was the best documented of all, but there was no mention of a cat when we saw the fur first of all we were not sure it was a cat and we wanted to show it to a specialist zoologist from Archos Maran Patu matis measured the femur bat matis I was looking at a fragment of this cat's bones, people who study human remains have an easy job because there's only one species there, so if you want to know what species it is, you want to know what bone it is, you might be able to determine the age that it is. had the animal when it died and she was able to determine the total length if it had had the entire femur by analyzing it and decided that, based on that, this FEMA did not come from a European domestic cat and may have come from somewhere like Egypt, the dating by carbon took four weeks. team to complete their testing and analyze the data Shalia had a clear result for this specific object.

You know, we measured the radiocarbon age to be 20,355 years. This dates back to ancient times. You know it was from the 7th century to the 3rd century. BC, the bones were between a and 600 years older than the date Jonov AR died the question mark hovering over the relics led to an answer they were fake these women are not these from Jon de AR Jon de AR existed but Her remains are not in the glass jar, so now we have the final results of the analysis of these relics that do not belong to Jon of Arc, but who do they belong to?

The FEMA cat was of a large breed found in Egypt and the The cloth was linked to the MiddleEast, the bones had been embalmed with a resin such as the recipe used to embalm the ancient Egyptians and the carbon date showed that the person lived in late antiquity, the time of the last pharaohs, all the evidence suggested that the patient de Shaler was an Egyptian. mummy, if these RS are other good ones, it is much more interesting to know when it was created from what artifact, what was the way to make this fake for Shaler, his research was far from over, he was determined to get to the bottom of why This an elaborate forgery had been carried out.

Shaler had been drawn into the mystery by the handwritten label proclaiming the relics where Jonah Fark could give the text and the glass vials the final clues he needed to close the case. Antiques expert Robert Monu took a look at the cover. it is still intact with an inscription it is a kind of parchment with a handmade inscription the text read remains found under the P of Jon de AR Virgin of oo the Virgin was a name that Joan had used for herself in the 15th century but the mon had been revived by the French poet Voler in his 1755 poem mocking its Purity there was another clue in the glass itself the flasks were hand-blown and cut at the base designed in the 18th century for scientists perhaps not out of place in a pharmacy the glass bottle uh was broken very recently almost 40 or 30 years ago not before but the bottle was not by Jon de Arco but rather it was from the 18th century and the inscription was very recent but with an archaic style that the forger had tried Antiquated writing but it did not fool the expert it was certainly not medieval or 18th century but a hand from the 19th century instead of finding the relics Shaler wondered if the pharmacist had made the forgery in 1867 by putting some mummy remains in glass jars and pass them off as Jon of Arc, but why go to all that effort?

The relics had appeared when French society was in the midst of a radical transformation in 1456. Jan's reputation had been restored when a new trial acquitted her of heresy by the In the 1860s she had become a symbol used by three groups that were hijacking his reputation to gain power. We must remember the extreme ferocity of the controversies that divided France at the end of the 19th century over the separation of Church and State and Jonov became a symbol in that conflict, on the one hand, the Republicans and the Socialist Party, which They claim that Joe Nar is a figure of the people who tries to triumph over the oppressive authority of the church, at the other extreme are the Catholic monarchists who see her as a figure who enshrines the notion of a more Catholic Christian royalty in France after Juana's death had developed a cult in her memory and in the mid-19th century it was called they were making for her sainthood then her remains appeared out of nowhere a small pharmacist perhaps makes a kind of fake rice and presents this to the beatification process in Aron saying look what I found in my house look these are the women of jonova the church stated that the remains could be real and they were sent to Sho for safekeeping in 1920 almost 500 years after her death Joan was canonized she later became the patron saint of France a revered heroine for Shaler the motivation for making the forgery made sense but to close the case, he still had to unravel the last part of the mystery of how an Egyptian mummy had ended up in the attic of a Parisian pharmacy.

Mummies have been used for therapeutic activities since medieval times in medieval medicine, parts of mummies were used to treat various ailments particularly associated with bleeding, an example is the treatment of hemorrhoids or piles. Mummy medicine had

lost

its appeal before the 19th century, but the building was said to have been an apothecary for centuries. Could a mummy have been left in the attic since medieval times or if she had the body arrived there much more recently. I think there are probably very strong arguments to say that these Egyptian relics arrived in France in the course of the 19th century as a result of the Napoleonic campaigns.

The Napoleonic Wars produced the um. looting and plundering of all types of mummified sites. In fact, the corpses of Egyptians were arriving in France in quite considerable quantities. There are many good reasons why, given the status of the cat in Egyptian religion, mummified cats should be found among these mummified collections. not medieval relics Shaler's search was complete, he had identified his patient, an ancient Egyptian, the team had carried out their analysis in secret, but a year later, it was time to let the cat and the mummy out of the back at the end of the study.

When the results were presented to the press and media, there was a lot of noise in France and all the people in the press and magazines were talking about it. He really hoped that Dr. Charier would discover that these relics were genuine. We had televisions. We had magazines, we had interviews, etc. and all of a sudden it became like, yeah, you know, important information. Shaler's extraordinary discovery made headlines and the mummy's remains were sent back to Shino Fortress for public display. The bones were not Joan's but Shaler's. and his equipment did not matter, we have seen in this study that such detailed information can be obtained from the smallest of fragments.

I think it showed how science can help unravel the mysteries of the past. Some people were disappointed by the outcome of this investigation. On the other hand, I think just remembering her is probably enough. The memory of Jones will live on for a long time. The qualities of human courage, fortitude and endurance, that's really what made her reputation. She is an absolutely exceptional and remarkable figure. The relics are very far away. less important than the life story it changes nothing to the person of Jon of AR who is unique that is beautiful that is exceptional these are false relics it does not change anything the character of Jon of Shaler Shaler's investigation had not found Joan but there was debunked one of France's most intriguing myths.