The relics of Saint Perpète (Dinant, Belgium), bishop of Tongeren-Maastricht between the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 7th century, in the light of anthropobiologival, archaeological and written data

Perpète, whose relics are kept today in the collegiate church of Sainte-Marie-et-Saint-Perpète in Dinant, is mentioned as bishop of Maastricht between the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 7th century by the medieval episcopal chronicles, starting with the Gesta episcoporum Tungrensium et Traiectensium around 980. It was however excluded from the recent critical list of the bishops of Tongeren-Maastricht-Liège. As part of his doctoral research on the Christianization in the Meuse basin between the 4th and 9th centuries, Guillaume Wymmersch had the reliquary bust of Perpète opened on the 30th September 2019. His relics were then the subject of a radiocarbon analysis, by the carbon-14 dating laboratory of the Royal Institute of Artistic Heritage, and of an anthropological study by Caroline Polet.