Mary Magdalene's Skull at Saint-Maximin: Where It Is and What Science Says

The story at Saint-Maximin starts with digging. The basilica states that in 1279, excavations beneath the oratory of Saint Maximin uncovered a body that was identified as Mary Magdalene's, and that the relics received official recognition in 1281 (Basilica of Saint-Maximin). Saint Maximin, in the Provençal tradition, was one of the companions who came with her to France, so the place of his oratory mattered.

A find of that importance needed a church to match. Construction of the present basilica and its adjoining convent began in 1295 under Charles II of Anjou, and the result is a large Gothic pilgrimage church. The basilica keeps its own history and archive; its named archivist, Marie-Christine Trouillet, presents the Provençal tradition and the historical record on the parish website (Basilica of Saint-Maximin, history and tradition).

Below the church is the crypt. The basilica describes it as holding sarcophagi and the skull that, according to tradition, belongs to Mary Magdalene (Basilica crypt). This is where pilgrims, and visitors who saw the reliquary in a photo, go to see it.

Historians have their own way of telling this part. Victor Saxer, a historian of the medieval traditions about Mary Magdalene, places the Provençal claim within a wider medieval contest over where she was buried and who held her relics (Victor Saxer, Persée). That contest comes up again below, with Vézelay.

The tradition that ties Mary Magdalene to Provence is one of the best-loved stories in the region. As it is told, she left the Holy Land and landed near Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer together with Lazarus, Martha, Maximin, Mary Jacobé and Mary Salomé. She preached in Provence and then withdrew to the Sainte-Baume cave, where she lived as a hermit for 30 years. When she was near death, the tradition says, she received communion from Maximin, and she was buried at the place now called Saint-Maximin (Sanctuary of Sainte-Baume; Catholic Church in France).

Today the cave is the Sanctuary of Sainte-Baume, which keeps its own programme of Masses and processions. For the people who keep this tradition, the cave and the basilica are two ends of one life: where she prayed and where she rests.

Historians describe the same story in different terms. It is a medieval, devotional tradition, not something the Gospels record. Victor Saxer notes that medieval accounts placed her death and burial in Provence, while other traditions placed them at Ephesus (Victor Saxer, Persée). Both things are true at once: the Provençal tradition is centuries old and deeply held, and historians treat it as tradition rather than documented biography.

The head reliquary is the image most people have seen. The basilica says the present one, in gilded bronze and enamel, was made in 1860 by Didron, based on an earlier reliquary design (Basilica of Saint-Maximin).

The reliquary holds a second, much smaller relic. A little crystal tube contains what is called the "Noli me tangere," a small fragment that tradition associates with the place where Christ touched Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection.

Relics of saints are kept and honoured across Christianity, and our story on skulls in Christianity follows that practice more widely. The Saint Valentine skull and the catacomb saints are other relics that people come to see, some for devotion and some from curiosity.

The reconstructed face is the other image people bring to this story. It was made by Philippe Charlier, Philippe Froesch and their colleagues, and presented at the 7th International Congress of Pathography in 2017. Their peer-reviewed study was published online in 2019 (Charlier et al., 2019).

The team studied the skull through photogrammetry (building a 3D model from many photographs), magnified imaging, scanning electron microscopy and elemental analysis of the skull and hair, and then built a computer-aided reconstruction of the face. National Geographic reported their estimate: a woman of about 50, of Mediterranean ancestry, with dark brown hair, inferred from the examination of the hair (National Geographic).

What the reconstruction did not do is identify her. Charlier told National Geographic that the researchers were "absolutely not sure" the skull was Mary Magdalene's. The published study reports imaging and material analysis; it does not report a DNA result, a radiocarbon date or an identification. National Geographic also reported that radiocarbon dating would require removing material from the skull, and that the Church had not permitted it.

That leaves the question most readers arrive with: is it really her skull? The basilica venerates it as Mary Magdalene's relic, and that is the church's position. Historically and scientifically, the skull's identity is unproven; the reconstruction shows a plausible face for the woman whose skull this is, not a confirmation of her name. If you want to know how a face is built from a skull, our story on facial reconstruction explains the process.

The skull is not only kept; it is carried. Mary Magdalene's feast day is 22 July, and the basilica says its reliquary is taken out once a year during the Mary Magdalene celebrations, shown in the choir of the basilica and carried in procession for public veneration (Basilica of Saint-Maximin).

Up at the cave, the Sanctuary of Sainte-Baume's programme lists a procession of relics from the Hostellerie to the cave and a solemn Mass on 22 July (Sanctuary of Sainte-Baume programme). In the town, the exact schedule changes from year to year. In 2026, the municipal programme set the reliquary's public appearance for 23 July and a procession through the town for 26 July (Saint-Maximin municipal programme). Those dates have now passed, so if you hope to see the procession, check the town's and the basilica's programme for the coming year. The Catholic Church in France also writes about the feast and the pilgrimage at Saint-Maximin.

Saint-Maximin is not the only place that has claimed Mary Magdalene's remains. The best-known rival is Vézelay, in Burgundy, which claimed her body from the eleventh century. Victor Saxer dates the earliest recorded Vézelay claim he discusses to about 1024 to 1025, and in 1050 Pope Leo IX made Mary Magdalene patron of the abbey there (Victor Saxer, Persée).

Vézelay's account explained how her body had come to Burgundy: a medieval story told of its transfer from Provence to Vézelay. Saxer points out chronological problems in that account (Victor Saxer, "Le dossier vézelien," Persée). When the excavation at Saint-Maximin in 1279 produced a body identified as hers, it created a competing Provençal claim.

Further afield, other traditions place relics attributed to Mary Magdalene in Constantinople, Rome, Greece and other churches. These are best understood as separate local traditions of possession and veneration, each with its own history, rather than pieces of one body scattered across Europe. The same pattern runs through the relics of many early saints, including the heads claimed for John the Baptist, told in our story on John the Baptist's head relics.

The skull is in the crypt of the Basilica of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, in the Var department of Provence. The basilica is a working church and a place of pilgrimage, and the crypt is a place of prayer, so visitors share it with people who have come to venerate the relic. Opening times, photography rules and access to the crypt can change, so confirm current access details with the Basilica of Saint-Maximin before you visit. If you plan to go for the feast in July, the town's yearly programme is the place to check the dates of the reliquary's public appearance and the procession.

These are the questions people ask most often, answered briefly.

At Saint-Maximin, one skull is seen in two ways at once. For the Catholic community that keeps it, it is the relic of a saint who, by their tradition, crossed the sea, prayed for 30 years in a mountain cave and was buried in their town, and every July they carry her through the streets. For historians and scientists, it is the skull of a real woman of about 50, studied with care and given a face, whose name the evidence cannot confirm. Neither view cancels the other. If the gilded reliquary or the reconstructed face brought you here, both belong to her story, and the place to see the first is the crypt, with the respect owed to someone's remains and to the people who pray before them. For another skull with a famous place name attached, see our story on Golgotha, the place of the skull.

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