The head was apparently lost after revolutionaries
desecrated the graves of French kings in the royal basilica of St. Denis near
Paris in 1793. Few remains of those bodies have ever been found and positively
identified since. But a team of experts using advanced scientific techniques
say they have conclusively identified the head, passed down over the centuries
by private collectors, as that of the monarch.
The multi-disciplinary team, led
by forensic pathologist Philippe Charlier, announced the discovery in the
British Medical Journal. Charlier said features consistent with those of the
king's face were found including "a dark mushroom-like lesion" near
the right nostril, a healed facial stab wound and a pierced right earlobe.
The
king is known to have sported an earring, along with others from the Valois
court. Head hairs and remnants of a mustache and beard, colored red and white,
on the mummified head fit with the known characteristics of the king's hair at
the time of his death. Many features matched those in portraits of the king,
the team said.
Charlier said three
"cutting wounds" were also visible, corresponding to the separation
of the head from the body by a revolutionary in 1793.
