Bloody Rag May Not Have Touched Louis XVI's Severed Head

sciencehabit writes "It seemed like the perfect forensic tale. Earlier this year, a geneticist concluded that the remains of a blood-soaked cloth stored for centuries in an 18th century gourd likely belonged to the severed head of the last French king, Louis XVI — a conclusion supported by the fact that the DNA matched that taken from a mummified head belonging to his direct ancestor, King Henry IV. So confident were some people about the findings that a company now offers a blood test for anyone who wants to see if they, too, are descendants of this royal family. But new research released today calls into question the identities of both the blood and the head, arguing that the DNA in those samples does not match the DNA in living relatives of these kings."

Comments

Obvious solution.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your great great great great great great great grandmommy was a whore.

Re:Obvious solution.

[MightyYar]

I know it is a first post, and I know it is an AC using crude language. But his point stands. It is an entirely plausible explanation.

Re:Obvious solution.

[girlintraining]

What I find interesting is that the AC gave a plausible number of "greats" to match Louis XVI's generation.

What I find interesting is the massively huge assumption staring everyone in the face but nobody sees it: The idea that the living relatives might be an invented fairy tale. It wouldn't be the first time a royal lineage met its end and the "secret sauce" was switched and records altered to maintain the appearance of an unbroken line.

This 'forensic evidence' is based on records that are hundreds of years old; Altering birth and death records was a time-honored tradition back then. It was the Photoshop of the Dark Ages, and churches had just as much reason to perpetuate a fraud as anyone -- their power was often derived from royal mandate. You don't think, at a time when chopping heads off and torturing people was called 'Tuesday', that a little re-inking of a few geneology documents would be beyond the morality of these people, do you?

So What?

[DexterIsADog]

This isn't a story about the science, it's about the provenance of some old rag, and a reminder that the chain of evidence matters.

The only people who should care are the posers and jerkoffs who like to trade on some accidental genetic connection to a dead king from an obsolete form of government. Isn't France on a republic or two beyond that one by now?

Re:So What?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You're fooling yourself! They're living in a dictatorship! A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--

Working classes? In France? Preposterous! They'd never allow that.