It was intended as a light-hearted article in the Christmas edition of one of Britain's leading medical journals. But a study seeking to confirm the identity of a decapitated French king has sparked an unlikely academic row and demands from some of its authors for the report to be retracted.
Four academics, including two who contributed to a report in the British Medical Journal which claimed a skull found in 1919 was the head of Henri IV, have challenged the research after DNA tests cast doubt on the authenticity of the remains.
In the original report, published in the journal in December 2010, France's pre-eminent forensic examiner, Dr Phillipe Charlier, and his team identified the partly preserved severed head as that of the monarch, who was assassinated in 1610 and is famous for ending the country's religious wars.
Dr Charlier spent nine months using computer models to recreate King Henri's face from the mummified skull discovered in Paris.
He compared it with contemporary portraits, identifying a small mole in the right nostril and a healed facial stab wound as features in common with those of the much-loved king.
