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From Pépin le Bref and Charlemagne to Gustave Flaubert: Hair, witness to our History and source of technological advance in modern forensics

In March 2016, Doctor Philippe Charlier, Sophie Jacqueline and Julie Arteta, from the Medical and Forensic Anthropology group of Versailles Saint Quentin University, came to DiffAbs beamline to study a large set of historical hair samples, with multiple objectives and expected results.

Solenn Reguer (SOLEIL), Philippe Charlier and Sophie Jacqueline are supervising data acquisition on DiffAbs.

These samples were extracted from Merovingian and Carolingian royal wax seals, kept by the Archives Nationales (Paris), in which several hairs were introduced at the moment of sealing. The hairs can therefore be attributed to the different suzerains, and were removed when they were alive, at different periods of their reign.

The quantitative chemical and structural analysis of the samples will be performed thanks to simultaneous micro-imaging in X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and diffraction, two techniques available on DiffAbs, with a special focus on heavy metals, such as lead, mercury and arsenic.

The comparative analysis of several hairs from different wax seals will be used, at first, to formally identify the individual to whom they belong, and make sure that various secretaries did not introduce these hairs in the seals.

The chemical and structural studies will give an insight on the nutrition habits, the metabolic data of the King at different periods of his life, and also on his genetic background. These indications will then be compared to historical and biographical data, such as diseases, drugs, travels, …, and, possibly, cause of death.

The potential bias due to the specific conservation of the samples, in wax, will be assessed by comparison with other historical samples, more recent, but whose origin is perfectly known (for instance, a Gustave Flaubert's-very famous French writer- hair from a collection in Normandy).

A few precious samples.

Thus, during two days, hairs of Clovis III, Pépin le Bref, Carloman, Charlemagne, Louis le Pieux, Charles le Chauve (the Bald!) and Charles le Simple, from several of their supposed wax seals, were scrutinized in the X-ray microscope of DiffAbs. Those of Flaubert and several other XIXth century historic figures, used as control samples, were also observed on DiffAbs in the same conditions, since their historical data are well known and more reliable than the Merovingians' and Carolingians' ones.

In addition to the historical insight, Doctor's Charlier's team will exploit the results of this study to develop, improve and validate new methods to be used in the future for forensics, for personal identification and retrospective diagnosis. Coming soon, "CSI – Synchrotron SOLEIL" …