"...The last person to be interred there was a small girl, aged only two, called Rosalia Lombardo, in 1920. She reputedly died of pneumonia and was embalmed by a doctor called Alfredo Salafia - the only person in Capuchin capable of doing the embalming. Her body survives almost entirely intact - from her dark blonde flowing hair to her delicate eyelashes. Dr Salafia took the secrets of his remarkable embalming process to the grave, but Rosalia Lombardo continues to fascinate the many tourists who visit her...."

".A pile of dinosaur dung 130 million years old sold at a New York auction Wednesday for nearly $1,000. The prehistoric deposit fetched $960, said a spokeswoman for Bonhams New York. Its pre-auction estimate was $450. The fossilized dung is from the Jurassic era, the auction house said. It looks like a rock on the outside and a colorful mineral inside. The buyer was Steve Tsengas of Fairport Harbor, Ohio. The 71-year-old owns OurPets, a company that sells products to treat dog and cat waste...."

"Since Oetzi’s sensational discovery, in 1991 and his extraction from the glacier in Alto Adige in Italy, Europe’s most famous mummy has been the subject of intensive scientific study. The initial research focused on dating the mummy, and with the aid of radiocarbon dating analyses it has been established that Oetzi dates back to around 3,000 BC. Oetzi the Neolithic man is assumed to have been a hunter or a high-ranking warrior and the cause of his death, according to the most accredited hypothesis was an arrow wound. Currently, Dr. Gianluca De Bellis of the CNR Institute of Biomedical Technology is taking part in new investigations promoted by Professor Franco Rollo of the University of Camerino. De Bellis is analyzing Oetzi´s mitochondrial DNA by means of ultrafast 454 sequencing. Previous studies that were conducted by means of traditional technologies have determined that Oetzi’s mitochondrial DNA does not resemble any sub-type found in any present existing ethnic group. In using the Genome Sequencer FLX System, it will now be possible to shed more light on the subject of Oetzi’s descendents, and establish his place in the genetic scenario of the present European race. Furthermore, 454 Sequencing data will enable researchers to trace Oetzi’s ancestors; and reconstruct an accurate phylogenetic family tree, obtaining an authentic global view of human evolution. In comparison to chromosomal DNA, which is protected within the cell nucleus, Mitochondrial DNA has far greater molecular variability; this is due to the influence of the external environment. Therefore, as apposed to its nuclear counterpart, mitochondrial DNA is far better suited for tracing evolutionary changes. “The Genome Sequencer FLX from Roche Diagnostics has made a significant contribution in the simplification and optimization of DNA testing. Compared to traditional methods, it has increased productivity 1,000-fold, considerably reducing time investment and costs. A vast number of nucleotide sequences, the “bricks” that make up the DNA, can now be analyzed simultaneously.” explains Dr. De Bellis. He expects to finish sequencing of the DNA in the first half of 2008. Following the mitochondrial analyses, De Bellis plans to study Oetzi’s eating habits. Tissue samples that have been extracted from the mummy’s colon will enable an analysis of his intestinal flora. The reason for this investigation will be to compare the genes between the embryonic digestive tube bacteria of Neolithic man with those of the present day modern man...."

"Scientists have found 17 living relatives of a centuries-old "iceman," whose remains were discovered in a melting glacier in northern British Columbia nine years ago. The remains of a young aboriginal man were found frozen inside a glacier in the Champagne-Aishihik territory in August 1999. Scientists gave the man the nickname Kwaday Dan Ts'inchi, which means "long-ago person found" in the southern Tutchone language. DNA testing has now connected the iceman to a number of people living in the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations in the North. The results were unveiled Friday at a science conference in Victoria, where all aspects of the discovery are being discussed. Scientists believe Kwaday Dan Ts'inchi was a hunter, who lived roughly 300 years ago — but possibly longer. He appeared to be in good health when he, for some reason, died an accidental death on the glacier.... Chief Diane Strand, of the Champagne and Ashihik First Nations, led a project to search for the young man's descendants. She said 241 native people from B.C., Yukon and Alaska gave DNA samples for testing and the results produced 17 positive matches. "All of those 17 people, and potentially their families, have the same common female ancestor as Kwaday himself," Strand said Friday.... "

"Detroit authorities made a gruesome discovery Wednesday north of Hamtramck. The partially mummified body of a woman was found lying on the kitchen floor about 9:30 p.m. in the 18000 block of Buffalo Street, Detroit Police said. The woman's sister was in the home, and police believe she has been living in the house with the body for one to three years, the approximate time it takes for a body to decompose to that extent. Officials said there was a strong odor when they entered the house. The woman's body had been at least partially covered with newspapers. Police say they believe a cat and dog living in the house had eaten some of the remains. The sister has been removed from the home and was being taken to a crisis center. She appears to have mental problems, police said. Both women were believed to be in their 80s...."

"A Sioux City woman faces charges after police said they found an "almost mummified" dead pit bull terrier chained inside a garage. Authorities found the dog's body Monday. They said it was chained with a logging chain in a garage. The dog's owner, Lupita-Guadalupe Gonzalez, 23, faces a criminal animal neglect charge along with several civil citations. Cindy Rarrat of the Sioux City Animal Control said it's believed the dog starved to death. Sgt. Mike Post said it appears the dog's body had been inside for some time. He said it was "almost mummified"...."

"The mummy has returned. And he has new tales to tell. One of the county's most beloved relics — the nearly 2,300-year-old corpse of the ancient priest Pahat — is back on view at the Berkshire Museum's recently reopened Ancient Civilizations gallery. But now, thanks to modern forensic science and technology, specialists have been able to put flesh to his bones, creating a three-dimensional reconstruction of Pahat's head. Further research has also revealed that Pahat had a son, who now rests less than two hours away.... Over the course of their research, the AMSC discovered that a mummy at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., was Pahat's son, Shep-(en)-min.... "

"The body of a monk who was made a saint in 2002 is expected to attract a million visitors when it goes on show. Padre Pio, who died in September 1968, was said to have stigmata - crucifixion marks in his hands and feet. He was exhumed last month to be prepared for display at a church near Foggia, southern Italy, as part of celebrations for the anniversary of his death. No stigmata are visible but bookings to view the body are running at 2,000 a day. A senior churchman present at the exhumation said: "The upper part of the skull was skeletal while the forehead was in perfect condition. The rest of the body is also well preserved." Critics in Italy have slammed "fetishism" and those who "judge spirituality from the state of conservation" of a corpse...."

More on Lindow Man

Scythian princess mummy pits scientists against locals (newsfromrussia.com) 

"In the Altai region an archeologist Natalya Polosmak found a mummy of a woman. She probably died at the age of 25 about 2500 years ago. The scientists have a unique opportunity to examine the clothes of the ancient representatives of so-called Puzirsk culture. Also, some tattoos are found on the woman’s body. Also, the tissue was very well preserved, which gave the scientists an opportunity to examine DNA and thus find a key to understanding the way Turkic race was originated. The body was found 15 years ago. Since that time the story was covered with countless rumors. Someone didn’t take attention to the scientists trying to find the truth about the origin of the mummy. Without any investigation, they declared the mummy their new idol. They called it “princess”, “goddess”, and “the mother of Turkic race”.... Then local “spiritual leaders” went further and started to earn political importance by accusing archeologists on “the princess’s revenge” that appeared in different social and ecological disasters – from the earthquake in 2003 to privilege monetization. Some administration representatives even proposed to bury the mummy again. That would mean that the possibility to hold a unique scientific investigation would be missed. But spiritual and political leaders of Altai didn’t care – they tried to unite people against “an enemy”. The enemy, they thought, were scientists."

Fact or fiction?: New documentary purports to show French tomb with mummified corpse under Knights Templar shroud (newsblaze.com) 

"An underground tomb found in the Languedoc region of southwest France has been discovered, which may help substantiate the existence of a Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene bloodline, according to the new documentary BLOODLINE, premiering May 9 in New York and May 16 in Los Angeles. The rare find will be further examined at a Monday, May 5 news conference at the Jewish Museum in New York City. The chamber contains a mummified corpse on a rose-colored plinth under a shroud bearing the distinctive red cross of the Knights Templar, and is surrounded by wooden chests, revealing a cache of gold chalices and coins. The discovery has been reported to the French Government agency, Direction Regionale des Affaires Culturelles Languedoc-Roussillon (DRAC-LR), and plans are underway for a full scale survey. "After the Crusades, it was rumored that the Templars had discovered treasure underneath the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem that could debunk the Catholic Church's doctrine," said BLOODLINE director Bruce Burgess , of the unprecedented discovery of what appears to be an intact Knights Templar tomb. "This treasure was believed to be priceless relics -- documents, the Holy Grail, even the embalmed remains of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene -- which was then brought to southern France, and hidden." The subterranean chamber was discovered by an English adventurer, Ben Hammott, using a hidden code in the decor of the church at Rennes-le-Chateau left behind by the 19th century priest, Berenger Sauniere . The film team was able to gain access into the tomb by using a remote camera inserted through a small air shaft at the top of the chamber...." 

"Yale University is holding 40,000 artifacts from the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, a Peruvian government official told state news agency Andina on Sunday. Yale agreed last year to return 4,000 pieces including mummies, ceramics and bones taken when Yale scholar Hiram Bingham rediscovered Machu Picchu in 1911. There were no indications of whether Peruvian officials previously knew about the additional 36,000 artifacts, reported after an inventory by Peruvian archaeologists, and no details of their historical significance. Peru demanded the return of the collection in 2006...." 

Baby mammoth pictures? Scientists see her prehistoric internal organs for first time (msnbc.msn.com) 

"Russian scientists say they have obtained the most detailed pictures so far of the insides of a prehistoric animal, with the help of a baby mammoth called Lyuba found immaculately preserved in the Russian Arctic. The mammoth is named after the wife of the hunter who found her last year. The body was shipped back to Russia in February from Japan, where it was studied using computer tomography in a process similar to one doctors use to scan patients. "We could see for the first time how internal organs are located inside a mammoth. It is pretty important from a scientific point of view," said Alexei Tikhonov, deputy director of the Russian Academy of Science's Zoological Institute, who has been leading the project. "Her internal organs were well preserved — the heart was seen distinctly with all its ventricles and atria, as well as the liver and its veins," Tikhonov told Reuters. "This is the best preserved specimen not only of the mammoth but of any prehistoric animal." The mammoth species has been extinct since the Ice Age. Tests on Lyuba showed she was fed on milk and was three to four months old when she died 37,000 years ago in what is now the Yamalo-Nenetsk region in Russia's Arctic."

"It was, at first blush, a situation worthy of Mel Brooks: a 2,200-year-old man was getting a CT scan at a local radiology lab. What, hadn't he heard of cling peaches? You could almost hear the rim shots echoing off in the distant Catskills. The guy's name was Shep. He's a mummy from ancient Egypt and, boy, was he quiet — all wrapped up in himself. Down beneath those linen sheets — nothing but skin and bone. An Egyptologist was going to send him through a CT scanner to see what he could see. Call it CSI: Egypt. Budda boom, said the hills. Though he had nothing directly to say about his strange predicament, Shep-en-Min, priest of the fertility god Min, who's resided for a sliver of his existence in a wooden coffin at Vassar College, held the rapt attention of a roomful of reporters, academics and medical staff — modern supplicants — eager to see and hear the evidence of his life, as filtered through 21st century technology. In a perfect mixture of modern and ancient ways, Egyptologist Jonathan Elias used a Somaton Sensation 4 CT scanner to read the bones of the ancient body. Elias is the director of the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium. Akhmim was once one of Egypt's great cities...."

"Working in secret, federal archaeologists have dug up the remains of dozens of soldiers and children near a Civil War-era fort after an informant tipped them off about widespread grave-looting. The exhumations, conducted from August to October, removed 67 skeletons from the parched desert soil around Fort Craig — 39 men, two women and 26 infants and children, according to two federal archaeologists who helped with the dig. They also found scores of empty graves and determined 20 had been looted. The government kept its exhumation of the unmarked cemetery near the historic New Mexico fort out of the public's eye for months to prevent more thefts. The investigation began with a tip about an amateur historian who had displayed the mummified remains of a black soldier, draped in a Civil War-era uniform, in his house. Investigators say the historian, Dee Brecheisen, may have been a prolific looter who spotted historical sites from his plane. Brecheisen died in 2004 and although it was not clear whether the looting continued after his death, authorities exhumed the unprotected site to prevent future thefts.... Federal officials learned of the looting in November 2004, when Don Alberts, a retired historian for Kirtland Air Force Base, tipped them off about a macabre possession he'd seen at Brecheisen's home about 30 years earlier. Alberts described seeing the mummified remains of a black soldier with patches of brown flesh clinging to facial bones and curly hair on top of its skull. Alberts said the body had come from Fort Craig...."

"A group of armed men on Wednesday stole the body of one of Myanmar's most revered Buddhist monks, whose corpse has been preserved in a glass coffin since he died more than four years ago. Officials said the coffin containing the body of Sayadaw Bhaddanta Vinaya, better known as Thamanya Sayadaw, was stolen from the monastery in eastern Myanmar where he had preached. The officials, who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to release information, said at least nine armed men wearing camouflage clothing carried out the theft. They said they had no idea who they were or why they took the body. Thamanya Sayadaw — the abbot of Thamanya mountain — was a highly revered monk who attracted thousands of followers to his temple daily before he died in November 2003 at the age of 93. Among those who journeyed to pay homage to him at his mountain retreat 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of Yangon was pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. She, like most people in Myanmar, is Buddhist...."

"On May 18, 1827, Maria Marten, the 26-year-old daughter of a mole catcher, left her father's cottage at Polstead to meet boyfriend William Corder in the Red Barn. She never returned. It's said that Thomas Marten's wife later had a dream. It prompted her to urged her husband to search the Red Barn. He discovered a shallow grave and the body of Maria. Corder was arrested in London. In August, 1828, he was found guilty of murder at a trial in Bury St Edmunds. Corder was hanged at the county gaol in Bury, with thousands of people ignoring heavy rain to watch. The body was taken to the Shire Hall, where it was cut open and laid out on show. Thousands of people filed past to view it before it was removed for dissection at West Suffolk Hospital. The scalp and some skin was preserved, with the right ear attached, and surgeon George Creed later had an account of the trial bound in Corder's skin! “Unfortunately,” says Gill, “you've come when Norwich Castle have just borrowed his scalp and his ear for an exhibition they're holding . . . and the book bound in his skin!” Moyse's Hall does, however, have a copy of William Corder's death bust. It was kept for many years at the old West Suffolk Hospital. Offered to the museum, it was rejected by the then curator as “too macabre” and thrown away. A passer-by rescued it from a rubbish tip and offered it to a later, less squeamish, curator, who accepted...."

"A partially mummified body has been discovered in a cave west of Glenwood Springs, Colo. According to a newspaper report, the body is believed to be that of a transient. The body was found by hikers inside Cave of the Clouds, near No Name, on Saturday afternoon. The deputy coroner of Garfield County told the Glenwood Springs Independent that the hands of the corpse were starting to mummify, indicating that death had occurred weeks before a group of cavers made the grisly discovery. Thomas Walton was conducting an autopsy to determine and cause and time of death for the unidentified man. For years, cavers trying to visit Cave of the Clouds have been confronted by a wild-eyed transient who sometimes threw rocks at them as they climbed the walls of Glenwood Canyon to access the cave. The man told cavers that he considered the cave his home and he stayed there year round. A spokeswoman for the Garfield County Sheriff's Office said the man found dead had been living in the cave. ..."

Mummified woman found in her apartment 13 years after her death (newsfromrussia.com)

"A University of Louisville research team recently helped the Louisville Science Center learn more about an old friend — a 2,600-year-old friend. Actually, the friend, a mummy called Then-Hotep, is more like a family member, having been one of the most popular attractions at the science center and its forerunner, the Natural History Museum, since the early part of the last century. But throughout all of those years, it kept one big secret: Nobody knew its gender. Until now. Under the leadership of professor Aly Farag, director of the Computer Vision and Imaging Process lab at J.B. Speed School of Engineering, the UofL team applied technological and forensic expertise to verify that Then-Hotep is a female. The human skull holds many clues to gender, so the team focused on making a faithful reproduction of the mummy’s head, Farag said. Here’s how the team did it...." 

"When a coroner daydreams, it isn’t pretty. Mike Murphy has a regular morning routine: He spends an hour eating a breakfast sandwich and reading the paper in his pajamas before he changes into one of his sharp suits, drives to work in his black beast of a county car, parks in his special spot, and walks through a back door of a low building and into the lively world of Vegas’ dead. When the coroner catches a few minutes, he’ll go eat an omelette at a nearby cafe (he always brings a muffin back for his secretary), or dust the photographs on his desk, most of which feature the bald man and his blushing bride. And when he’s really alone with his thoughts, when he’s snapping on the 10,000th pair of latex gloves, or on hold waiting for someone important to pick up, the coroner might spend a few seconds thinking about bodies rotting in the Clark County desert. Dozens of them, laid out bare, or locked in cars, or buried in refrigerators 6 feet underground, slowly decomposing or bleaching into bone. When a coroner daydreams, it’s of body farms...." 

"A tomb to house the remains of a woman found after being preserved in ice for 2,500 years will be built in Siberia's Altai Republic, the director of a local museum said on Thursday. The well-preserved remains of the woman dubbed the Altai Princess were discovered in the region by a team led by a Novosibirsk archeologist in 1993 near the Mongolian border, and have been studied at the Archaeology and Ethnography Institute in Novosibirsk. Residents of Altai, where shamanism is still widespread, had repeatedly called for the body's return to its homeland, and blamed the removal for earth tremors and other natural disasters. However, Novosibirsk scientists had been reluctant to return the body, saying local museums did not have the necessary facilities to preserve it. "A decision has been taken to build a sloping building for the mummy, resembling a burial mound. This will be an extension to the main building of the national museum" in Gorno-Altaysk, the museum director said. The body will now be housed in a state-of-the-art glass temperature-controlled case. Construction work should be finished by the end of this year...."

"Yards and yards of clear plastic sheeting line the cellar floor, dwarfing the corpse: headless, frail, supine. The young bony arms — covered in fine black powder from centuries of immobility in the frozen tundra — are crossed at rest, reminiscent of a ceremonial burial. Camera flashes illuminate the scene. Several dozen scientists stand around the body, murmuring in Russian and English about the find of the day. How long do you think it was buried? Do you think it’s male or female? How did they get it back to camp? And the pervasive thought: I don’t think we should touch it. He could have died of smallpox. Smallpox was a vicious disease before its eradication in the 1970s, but the virus is hardy and can survive long-term storage. One such storage unit is the tundra of the high northern latitudes that preserves an unknown number of bodies that could have died from smallpox. Global warming is now rapidly thawing this freezer, increasing the chance that someone could come into contact with a smallpox-infested body, thereby reintroducing the disease. Smallpox rivals malaria as the most deadly infectious disease ever to affect humans. Throughout history, people looked for ways to combat the disease, priming their immune systems with remedies such as sniffing ground-up scabs or smearing pus into open wounds. The first true vaccine — developed in 1796 by Edward Jenner — was for smallpox...."

More on Dakota

"Two years after police in Concord confiscated an 18-inch mummified baby boy from a man’s apartment, the city was expected to bury it Tuesday, no closer to resolving who he was. A Merrimack County Probate Court judge ordered the remains of "Baby John" buried after DNA tests failed to prove the boy was related to Charles Peavey. Peavey’s family had the mummy for 80 to 90 years when the Concord police learned about it in April 2006. Peavey, like his relatives before him, considered the mummy a family heirloom and believed it was possibly the stillborn son of a great-great-uncle. DNA samples taken from the mummy, however, were too degraded to yield answers. In January, the state attorney general’s office asked the probate court to order the remains buried...."

From September 2007:Judge order burial of Concord's baby mummy (concordmonitor.com)

"They'll be no more holidays or show-and-tells for "Baby John," the mummified baby displayed on Charles Peavey's bureau until the police confiscated it last year. A probate court judge yesterday said state officials can bury the infant's decades-old remains because Peavey hasn't proven his claim that he and the mummy are kin. Peavey, 42, of Concord, has 30 days to appeal that decision, but he said yesterday he won't. "I'm just washing my hands of it," said Peavey, who said he skipped the court hearing because he can't afford the DNA tests needed to prove kinship. "I'm disappointed it came to this." Lack of DNA wasn't the only concern raised by attorney Richard Head of the state attorney general's office. Equally troubling, Head told Judge Richard Hampe, is Peavey's MySpace page, a campy collection of haunted houses, skeletons and references to Baby John. The online site opens with The Addams Family's," familiar theme song: "They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky . . . " Next is The Munster's theme song. The page also includes sayings like, "Children shouldn't play with dead things." The website, Head told the judge, raises "questions about whether the remains are being treated with the appropriate respect." Hampe looked at printed-out images from the site but limited his comments to DNA. He said without proof of kinship, state law requires that he insure that the infant's remains were released to a funeral director for burial. And so apparently ends the long and unlikely tale that began in April 200..."

"An Egyptian mummy kept on display in a provincial museum for nearly 80 years has been identified as a son of the powerful pharaoh Ramesses II. The 3,000-year-old relic was thought to have been a female temple dancer, but a hospital CT scan showed features so reminiscent of the Egyptian royal family that experts are 90 per cent sure it is one of the 110 children Ramesses is thought to have fathered. Tests showed that the mummy had a pronounced over-bite and misaligned eyes, akin to members of the 19th Dynasty, and his facial measurements were found to be almost identical to those of Ramesses himself. Experts believe that the mummified man died in his thirties between 1295 and 1186 BC of a wasting disease, likely to be cancer. Chemical analysis also showed that the body had been embalmed using expensive materials, including pistachio resin and thyme, the preserve of priests and royalty. The story of the royal mummy was uncovered by a team from York University who were filmed carrying out the tests for History Channel series Mummy Forensics....."

"Egyptian police confiscated four ancient mummies on Wednesday and arrested three antiquities smugglers who had stolen them from an ancient graveyard, a security official said. Wrapped in layers of linen and decorated with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, the mummies were found in the southern province of Minya, 135 miles south of Cairo, the official said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press. The three smugglers also were found with 10 small ancient statues. They confessed that they had planned to sell the objects to antiquities brokers, the official said. The mummies are of a child and three men, but no further details were available, the official said. Archeologists were summoned to check the mummies, he added. Egypt has drastically stepped up efforts in recent years to stop the trafficking of its antiquities. It has warned foreign museums that it will not help them mount exhibitions on ancient Egypt unless they return smuggled artifacts...."

"Three times in less than a year, right feet inside running shoes have been found near separate islands in the Strait of Georgia. Police don't know if there are any links between them. Speculation in the region is rife, including that the feet were from slaying victims or they were the remains from drownings. Police haven't reached any conclusions. "It is very unusual," Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Annie Linteau said Tuesday. Linteau said two of the feet were size 12, but the size of the third was not released. The first right foot was found by beachcombers on Jedidiah Island in August. A few days later, a foot was found inside a man's Reebok sneaker on Gabriola Island. The third was found on the east side of Valdez Island on Feb 8. The shoe brand was announced only for the second foot.... She said the coroner's office was doing DNA testing. British Columbia's corner's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a former professor of oceanography at the University of Washington who studies floating objects, said the feet could have drifted as far as 1,000 miles. He speculated the feet floated away in the buoyant shoes after breaking from decomposing bodies, possibly of people who drowned in boating accidents. Others said they could be from four men whose bodies weren't recovered after their small plane crashed in the area about a year ago...."