The Morthouse

This story is no longer news, but still fascinating.

Check out this slideshow on Discovery News about the pyramid-shaped pile of bodies—nearly 300 total, about 100 of them naturally mummified—found in a church crypt in the mountain town of Roccapelago, Italy. 

The History Blog also has an article about it:

The unusual preservation was due to a confluence of the consistently cold temperature and two slots in the church wall that kept the air constantly circulating. The vaulted crypt — used as an armory when the church was a fortress in the Middle Ages — was first used for traditional inhumation under ground, but the practice later changed to corpses being dropped from a trap door in the church.

Image: Photograph by Paolo Terzi/SBAER, via the History Blog.

Korean Mummies!

Did you know there are mummies in Korea? I didn’t, until I found this article from 2007 on National Geographic. (Apparently, archaeologists didn’t, either, until the bodies started showing up, as old cemeteries were moved to make way for new houses in the recent construction boom.)

This person lived about 500 years ago and was found in South Korea. According to National Geographic, the mummification is perhaps the result of a burial practice that evolved in 14th-century Korea:

“The people believed the body should dissolve in a natural manner, without external factors such as worms,” said Mark Spigelman of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who is known for his pioneering studies of ancient diseases found on mummified bodies around the world.

“This is why they developed a special burial custom.”

The method involves laying a body on ice for 3 to 30 days during mourning, placing the corpse inside an inner and an outer pine coffin surrounded by the deceased’s clothes, and covering the coffin in a lime soil mixture.

“In some cases, this inadvertently resulted in extremely good natural mummification,” Spigelman added. “They didn’t expect mummification and, in fact, that’s the one thing they wouldn’t want.”

This method—unlike the artificial (and brittle-making) mummification processes used in ancient Egypt—resulted in mummies that are relatively pliable, with better preserved DNA. Researchers were even able to take samples from one mummy of the virus that causes hepatitis B, which could pave the way for research that might help modern-day sufferers of the disease.

A more recent discovery—featured in the Daily Mail—is this lady, who is also believed to be about 500 years old:

She was found in Osan, in South Korea’s Gyeonggi Province, with her purse.

The Beauty of Xiaohe, ca 1800-1500 BCE by Penn Museum on Flickr.

“The Beauty of Xiaohe,” female mummy, ca 1800-1500 BCE. Excavated from Xiaohe (Little River) Cemetery 5, Charqilik (Ruoqiang) County, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. © Wang Da-Gang.

The Beauty of Xiaohe by Penn Museum on Flickr.

“The Beauty of Xiaohe,” female mummy, ca 1800-1500 BCE. Excavated from Xiaohe (Little River) Cemetery 5, Charqilik (Ruoqiang) County, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. © Wang Da-Gang.

This mummy has been preserved extremely well, with the entire body covered in an even layer of thick, milky white substance. The “beauty” has thick, flaxen hair that has grown long down to the chest. Except for the head, calves, and feet, the entire body was wrapped in a wide, white wool cloak. She was buried with three small pouches that contain broken pieces of ephedra, a kind of evergreen shrub with medicinal properties, and a wooden phallus was placed on her chest.

This is Yingpan Man. Or, more specifically: These are the clothes he was buried in. He’s another of the Tarim Basin mummies, though he’s much younger, historically speaking, than Cherchen Man. He lived sometime in the fourth or fifth centuries A.D.

Heather Pringle’s post from a few years back on Archaeology’s blog offers some background on the mummy and his clothes, which were featured in the recent traveling exhibit Secrets of the Silk Road. She consults Sinologist (and Tarim Basin mummy expert) Victor Mair. 

The magnificent trappings of Yingpan Man are the first things that visitors lay eyes on in the exhibit. The Chinese government did not send the remains of the European-looking 6-footer who wore his brown hair in a topknot. But as Mair pointed out, Yingpan Man’s “sartorial shell” alone speaks volumes. Dating to the 4th or early 5th century AD, the attire of this ancient traveler clearly embodies all the wealth and splendor that flowed through the Tarim Basin after the Silk Road opened and linked China to the Mediterranean world. […]

Who was Yingpan Man? Mair has some ideas. He died in his early to mid-thirties, and he had clearly amassed a fortune by that point, most likely through trade. The town of Yingpan, after all, was an crucial trade node on the Silk Road. During this period, Mair pointed out, the richest traders along the route were Sogdians, an Iranian-speaking people whose homeland lay near Samarkand in what is now Uzbekistan. So Mair believes that Yingpan man was likely a Sogdian merchant who died relatively young in a place far from home.

The fact that I’m just seeing clothes here—and no mummy—kind of creeps me out a little. The same way this did.

Image source: Yingpan Man by Penn Museum on Flickr:

“Yingpan Man,” front view of clothed body of male mummy, ca 3rd-4th century AD. Excavated from Yingpan, Yuli (Lopnur) County, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China, © Xinjiang Institute of Archaeology.

ghendel:

Egyptians used hair gel. The researchers studied hair from 18 mummies (15 mummified in a desert cemetery called the Dakhleh Oasis and three from museums). Using chemical analysis, they found a fat-based hair gel coating the hairs of 9 of the mummies. They are all from about 300 BC.

Here are two corpses hanging from chains. Oh yeah, and some bones and skulls hanging out behind them.

They’re at the Capela dos Ossos (Chapel of Bones), in Évora, Portugal. It’s a small interior chapel built in the 16th century. From Wikipedia:

Its walls and eight pillars are decorated in carefully arranged bones and skulls held together by cement. The ceiling is made of white painted brick and is painted with death motifs. The number of skeletons of monks was calculated to be about 5000, coming from the cemeteries that were situated inside several dozen churches. Some of these skulls have been scribbled with graffiti. Two desiccated corpses, one of which is a child, dangle from a chain.

You can view a 360-degree panorama of the chapel here. Despite the picture above, the place is really quite beautiful, especially the ceiling.

This is Dr. Pedro Ara, Argentinian pathologist, standing over his handiwork: the mummified body of Eva Perón. Ara set to work on her body within hours of her death in 1952.

From Cristen Conger’s article on HowStuffWorks:

While Ara prepared the body for lying in state, Eva’s hairstylist dyed her hair blond one last time, and her personal manicurist painted her fingernails with clear polish. Unlike most embalmed corpses, Ara left Eva’s internal organs intact.

Perón lay in state for 13 days. After that, Ara began the task of fully mummifying her with alcohol, glycerin, and preservatives. He even gave her skin a topcoat: a plasticlike film. The whole process took a year.

The adventures didn’t end there, however. Check out the HowStuffWorks article to find out why her corpse disappeared, and why it took 24 years for her to finally be buried.

Image Source: Wikipedia.

Check out this page. Loads of images and an account of a trip to the Capuchin catacombs of Palermo, Sicily.

Dressed for Eternity is a short slideshow of images of the mummies in the Capuchin catacombs of Palermo by photographer Paolo Ventura. Here’s one:

Most of the images focus on the mummies’ outfits. Check it out.

This is the “New Corridor” of the Capuchin catacombs of Palermo, Sicily. As with the other corridors, mummies and skeletons (most of them dressed up) line the walls.  

I’m not sure what makes these mummies “new,” exactly. Were they more recent additions to the catacombs?

Image source: Wikipedia.

These are some monks.

How do I know they’re monks? Because they’re in the “Monks’ Corridor” of the Capuchin catacombs in Palermo, Sicily; that’s how. (Or at least that’s what Wikipedia says.) There are about 8000 (dressed-up) mummies lining the walls of the catacombs, and the halls are categorized: Men, Women, Virgins, Children, Priests, Monks, and Professionals. More posts and images to come in the next few days.

Image Source: Wikipedia.

This is the “Women’s Corridor” of the Capuchin catacombs in Palermo, Sicily.

I’ve been meaning to post about this place for months. There are so many mummies in these catacombs, and pictures of them (and their finery) on the internet, that I must admit I’m a bit overwhelmed. I’ll be posting more images and links in the coming days via my queue. 

In the meantime, here’s a little more background on the catacombs from Wikipedia:

Originally the catacombs were intended only for the dead friars. However, in the following centuries it became a status symbol to be entombed into the Capuchin catacombs. In their wills, local luminaries would ask to be preserved in certain clothes, or even to have their clothes changed at regular intervals. Priests wore their clerical vestments, others were clothed according to the contemporary fashion. Relatives would visit to pray for the deceased and also to maintain the body in presentable condition. The catacombs were maintained through the donations of the relatives of the deceased. Each new body was placed in a temporary niche and later placed into a more permanent place. As long as the contributions continued, the body remained in its proper place but when the relatives did not send money any more, the body was put aside on a shelf until they continued to pay.

Image Source: Wikipedia.