They were unable to extract DNA from the remains, meaning they could not identify the sex of the mummy or the cat.
"The embalming products appear to have prevented the conservation of the DNA, and they are too old, so it didn't work," Charlier said.
Even perfumers were called in as detectives. The researchers had them sniff the remains, using their exceptional olfactory senses "so they could identify the smells, the vegetable matter, in the embalming and guide our research," Charlier said.
The remains were supposedly recovered from Joan of Arc's pyre and conserved by an apothecary until 1867, before being turned over to the archdiocese of Tours.
Joan of Arc was tried for heresy and witchcraft and executed after leading the French to several victories over the English during the Hundred Years War, notably in Orleans, south of Paris.
The illiterate farm girl from Lorraine, in eastern France, disguised herself as a man in her war campaigns and said she heard voices from saints telling her to deliver France from the English.
The journal Nature was first to report that the team had concluded that the bone was from a mummy, not Joan of Arc.
