Was world's oldest ever woman, France's Jeanne Calment, a fraud?

Jeanne Calment from France died at the age of 122 years and 164 days in 1997. Photo / Getty Images

The world's oldest woman, who died at the age of 122, may have been a fraud according to Russian scientists.

Jeanne Calment, from Arles, France, died in 1997, at the age of 122 years and 164 days, making her the oldest officially recognised person in history.

However, Russian researchers claim she was in fact Yvonne Calment, Jeanne's daughter - and had assumed her mother's identity to avoid paying inheritance tax.

Mathematician Nikolai Zak and gerontologist Valeri Novosselov studied biographies, interviews and contemporary photos, and claim their circumstantial evidence supports their theory.

"The analysis of all these documents led me to the conclusion that the daughter of Jeanne Calment, Yvonne, took the identity of her mother," said Zak.

Yvonne Calment died of pleurisy - a lung infection - in 1934, according to official records.

Zak claims that this was a lie, and that it was Jeanne Calment who died, at the age of 59, and that Yvonne lived to the still-impressive age of 99.

Among his 'evidence' is a copy of the identity card of Jeanne Calment dating from the 1930s where the color of her eyes, her height and the shape of her forehead do not correspond with her appearance of her in later life.

"As a doctor, I have always had doubts about her age, the condition of her muscles was different from that of the others of her age, she was sitting without support, she had no signs of dementia," said Novoselov, who heads the Gerontological Section of the Moscow Society of Naturalists.

Zak also claims that the fact that some of Calment's photo archives were burned is proof that she was in fact Yvonne Calment.

However, French demographer and gerontologist Jean-Marie Robine, who participated in Calment's age validation by the Guinness Book of World Records in the 1990s, said she "never had any doubt about the authenticity of the documents" of the 122-year-old.

The mayor of Arles at the time of Calment's death, Michel Vauzelle, says Zak's theory is "completely impossible and improbable".

Members of the Calment family did not respond to AFP's requests for interviews.

Should Jeanne Calment's record be made invalid, the official oldest living person would be American Sarah Knauss, who died at the age of 119 in 1999.