An initial DNA test to try to establish if a skeleton found under a church in Maastricht is that of the “fourth musketeer” d’Artagnan has failed, local paper De Limburger said on Friday.
Two teeth from the skeleton had been sent to Munich for analysis but did not provide enough material for a clear result, the paper said. Experts are now trying to decide if part of the skull could be used as well.
The skeleton is currently in Deventer where it is being examined by researchers at the Saxion HBO college. One team is looking at the possible age of the skeleton and another at the cause of death and whether it is male or female.
Archaeologists recovered a musket ball from the skeleton, close to where the kidneys would have been, which would match an eyewitness report of his death in 1673, De Limburger said. Other reports suggest he was shot in the throat.
Charles de Batz de Castelmore, as d’Artagnan was formally known, was the leader of King Louis XIV’s elite corps of gentlemen and died in battle in 1673 during the French siege of Maastricht.
The find may prove a theory put forward by French historian Odile Bordaz in 2008, that d’Artagnan could have been buried “quickly as was usual in times of war” in the church adjacent to the French military camp in Wolder, a village next to Maastricht.
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