Joan of Arc's Bone? No, an Even Odder Tale Published: April 5,
2007 A rib bone supposedly found at the site where the French
heroine Joan of Arc was burned at the stake is actually that of
an Egyptian mummy, say researchers who used high-tech science to
expose the fake. The bone, a piece of cloth and what turned out
to be a cat femur were said to have been recovered after the
19-year-old Joan was burned in 1431 in the town of Rouen. In
1909 -- the year Joan of Arc was beatified -- scientists
declared it ''highly probable'' that the relics were hers. But
starting last year, 20 researchers from France, Switzerland and
Benin took another look. Even they were surprised to find that
the rib bone came from an Egyptian mummy. Their best guess is
that the fake was put forth in the 19th century, perhaps to
support the process of Joan of Arc's beatification. She was
canonized as a saint in 1920. The team's assumption is that a
19th-century apothecary transformed ''these remains of an
Egyptian mummy into a fake relic, o