Bloody souvenir not from decapitated French king：DNA
Two centuries after the French people beheaded King Louis XVI and dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood， DNA analysis has thrown new doubt on the authenticity of one such rag kept as a morbid souvenir.
The contents of an ornately-decorated gourd alleged to hold traces of the king’s dried blood has long been the subject of scientific disagreement， with tests throwing up contradictory results.
On Thursday， a team from Europe and the United States said they had sequenced the full genome of the DNA， and found it was unlikely to be from someone tall or blue-eyed -- both features ascribed to the 18th century monarch.
"The results of these analyses do not support the royal identity of the genome，" the authors concluded in a study in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.
「這些分析結果不能支持該基因組的王室身分，」作者群在發表於「自然科學報導」期刊的研究結論說。
Researchers have been trying for years to verify a claim imprinted on the calabash that："On January 21， Maximilien Bourdaloue dipped his handkerchief in the blood of Louis XVI after his decapitation" in Paris in 1793.
He is then said to have placed the fabric in the dried， hollow gourd and had it embellished with portraits of revolutionary heroes.
之後據說他將這織品放進乾燥的空葫蘆內，並將葫蘆以革命英雄的畫像加以美化。
In 2010， a study said DNA analysis of blood traces found inside the ornate vegetable revealed a match for someone of Louis’ description， including his blue eyes.
One of the authors of that paper， Carles Lalueza-Fox of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona， also participated in the latest study， which contradicts the blue-eyed finding. He told AFP the latest DNA analysis was much more complete："we have now the whole genome of the person（in）the gourd."（AFP）