When we recall about mummies , I ’m willing to bet the first images that descend to mind bear on toAncient Egypt . However , mumification necrosis has been practiced by many cultures across the creation , and as you may imagine , each has originate their own embalming methods for this purpose . But not all of these various method acting receive the same attention , and some are vulgar and more inventive than you ’d expect .
An incredible good example of this is the little - lie with font of a mummy turn up in the church crypt of St Thomas am Blasenstein , in a small village in Austria . This mammy is outstandingly well - keep up , but no one has known how it has survived so well for so long .
“ The unusually well - preserve mummy in the church crypt of St Thomas am Blasenstein is the cadaver of a local parish vicar , Franz Xaver Sidler von Rosenegg , who died in 1746 , ” DrAndreas Nerlich , a diagnostician at Ludwig - Maximilians - Universität explicate in astatement .
The external appearance of the mummy reveals the astonishing level of preservation.Image credit: Andreas Nerlich
Nerlich and colleague examined the body using an array of technique , including CT scanning , focal post-mortem examination , and carbon 14 dating . They constitute that the mummy ’s upper body full inviolate but its lower portion and head showed greater degrees of post - mortem disintegration .
This is the first font of a mummified body that has been identified to have been ' embalmed ' by stuff the abdominal and pelvic dental caries with various substances through the anal retentive canal .
Interestingly , during their probe they also found a mixed bag of alien materials englut into the abdominal and pelvic cavity . When they opened the body , they place this material as wood chips from true fir and spruce trees , piece of branches , and textile like linen , hemp and flax . These cloth would have been easily approachable to people at the clip , and appear to have been used as a basic method of dry the otherwise soggy portion of the body before long after death .
“ intelligibly , the Mrs. Henry Wood chips , twigs , and dry material soak up much of the fluid inside the abdominal cavity , ” Nerlich add .
Thisembalmingmethod is pretty unlike to other bang pattern where the eubstance is open and prepared . Instead , whoever embalm this vicar did so by overindulge the textile up the cadaver ’s rectum , much like a dud is prepare at Christmas .
“ This is the first case of a mummified body that has been identified to have been ' embalmed ' by stuffing the abdominal and pelvic cavity with various substances through the anal duct , ” Nerlich differentiate IFLScience .
“ This dressing was undertaken so as to absorb fluid from the Interior Department of the body and this has go to an first-class saving of the thorax and abdominal cavity . If this body would have been eat up in a usual soil burial , the abdominal bulwark would have disappear after some clock time and any possible researcher would only have mention some wooden chips and textile which might have also come from the body airfoil . ”
During their examination , the researchers also determine a small glass sphere , like a bead , with kettle of fish on either terminal . It is potential this add-on was part of some of the fabric in the body , but as it is only a single piece , it may also have been lost during the eubstance ’s preparation ( like the old caper about a surgeon losing his picket in a person during an operation ) .
This research not only explain the methods used to keep this body , it also helped identify the person themselves . For a tenacious fourth dimension , the body was only simulate to have belong to Sidler and was merely referred to as the “ air - dry chaplain ” in past inquiry composition . However , this latest work has now confirm it to have go to Sidler .
The depth psychology revealed that the soul died between the age of 35 and 45 and most in all likelihood lived between 1734 and 1780 . This touch the appointment for Sidler ’s biography . The team also found that this person had a high - caliber lifestyle , with a diet based on fundamental European metric grain , animals products , and fish , while also show very few signs of physical activity . This latter decimal point would certainly suggest the lifestyle of a non-Christian priest . There was also evidence of a farsighted - terminal figure smoking use and lung TB towards the remainder of their life .
According to Nerlich , there is evidence that cadavers were “ prepared ” for tape transport or elongate laying - out of the dead , but these written report all lack precise descriptions . As such , it is possible the vicar was planned for transportation to his home abbey , but may not have been sent there for some unknown reason .
For Nerlich and his workfellow , the case is an significant for several reasonableness . Not only is it the first recorded exercise of this type of embalming process , but their overall analysis of the body stresses the need for succeeding researchers to let in specific technique in their body of work .
In 2000 , the body was analyzed by Austrian pharmaceutical chemist Bernhard X. Mayer from the University of Vienna who conducted a elaborate outside examination and an ecstasy - ray with a portable decade - shaft of light machine . During his review , the X - beam of light picked up the astragal in Sidler ’s abdomen but nothing else , leading to the conclusion that the priest may have been poisoned . The rumors of which still persist even now . But through Nerlich ’s assessment , we now screw that this bead , although strange , was added to the eubstance mail - mortem .
“ The investigation of a well preserved mummy should always – if possible – let in a CT scan investigation , since the hug drug - ray psychoanalysis of [ the ] mummy in 2000 did not detect the dressing , ” Nerlich told IFLScience .
It seems any future research into crypt burials need to take a deeper look at the bodies they may contain , as unusualpreservation practicescan narrate us a lot about how people lived and died in their several sentence , as well as how others attempted to keep them from waste .
The study is published in the journalFrontiers in Medicine .
