Forensic scientists in debate over head of King Henry IV of France

Doubt haunts a murky corner of forensic science as researchers squabble over an unearthed packet of mummified remains thought to have belonged to King Henry IV of France.

The mystery has produced a frightful case of regret by two researchers who were part of the first team to investigate the purportedly royal head.

Last week, French pathologist Geoffroy Lorin de la Grandmaison and Leslie Eisenberg, an American forensic anthropologist, wrote to the British Medical Journal, urging the retraction of the 2010 study that first identified the disembodied head as belonging to Henry.

At the centre of the macabre drama is an embalmed head with several vertebrae still attached. The remains were found in 1919 in the Royal Basilica of St Denis outside Paris and reportedly secreted away by a civil servant.

Reappearing almost a century later, the specimen still had soft tissue and organs intact, right down to the open mouth and partially closed eyes.

On the basis of computer tomography (CT) imaging and digital facial reconstruction, French medical examiner and forensic osteo-archaeologist Philippe Charlier and a multi-disciplinary team, including Eisenberg and Lorin de la Grandmaison, in 2010 identified the head as that of the charming and reputedly rakish monarch known variously as "the Green Gallant" and "Good King Henry".

Even a mushroom-like growth on his nose and evidence of a pierced right ear seemed to point to Henry IV. Although beloved by most of his people, the Bourbon monarch was assassinated in 1610 after 21 years on the throne.