Salt man mummy and salt man skeleton discovered in mine (tehrantimes.com)

"A miner working at the Hamzehlu salt mine near Zanjan in northwest Iran recently discovered the remains of a skeleton of a man buried in the salt.... The...skeleton was found 30 to 40 meters from the place where the first Salt Man was discovered. The first Salt Man, a miner whose body was preserved by the salt, lived over 1700 years ago. He was also a man between the ages of 35 and 40. His remains are currently being kept in a glass case at the National Museum of Iran in Tehran. The first Salt Man’s withered face stares into the distance. He has long white hair and a beard and was discovered wearing leather boots and with some tools and a walnut in his possession." 

Discovered? Remains of four of the many sons of Rameses II may have been located in KV5 (usatoday.com)

"Archaeologists believe they have found the remains of four of those sons during the excavation of a tomb called KV5, the largest in Egypt's famed pharaonic burial ground, the Valley of the Kings, outside Thebes. Forensic reconstructions of the sons' faces provided to USA TODAY show a strong family resemblance to the powerful pharaoh who ruled Egypt more than 3,200 years ago. Some scholars believe that the exodus of Hebrew slaves from Egypt described in the Bible took place during the reign of Rameses II...." 

Crypt of John Paul Jones, well-preserved naval hero, to be restored (boston.com)

"It is a burial place fit for a king -- an ornate marble sarcophagus, decked in bronze, sitting in the center of an underground tomb. But the crypt of John Paul Jones, beneath the Naval Academy chapel in Annapolis, has not always been given the royal treatment. Since 1913, when the Revolutionary War naval hero was laid in the crypt, thousands of tourists have walked its marble floors, dragging in dust. Curious schoolchildren have run their hands along its smooth marble walls, leaving behind dirt and wads of chewing gum. Uncontrolled humidity has corroded the bronze dolphins and sea plants decorating the sarcophagus, turning them the color of moss." 

Some 'almost-mummies' to be autopsied on new Discovery Channel showl (casperstartribune.net)

"The three nickels looked like they had been rubbed by 19th century thumbs, roughened by Wyoming winters, until their edges were worn down just a bit from mint condition. The coins were scattered around the skeleton of a tall man with a silver wedding band and a black rubber mourning ring on one finger of his left hand. Bullet holes in the skeleton indicated the man, probably about 35 years old, had been felled by a .44 or .45 caliber bullet and then dispatched with a shot to the head. These clues at a Plains Indian burial site unearthed in 1980 near Lingle led to the probable identification of the man as a white gunslinger named Cy Williams. The story of how it was done will be told in a forthcoming Discovery Channel television program highlighting the work of Wyoming researchers. The program, the concluding segment of a series called "Mummy Autopsies," will be broadcast early in 2005...." 

Something to be thankful for?: Six new plastinated mummies, including a nine-foot giant and skateboarding dude, added to Los Angeles' Body Worlds exhibit (yahoo.com)

"While scientists vaguely know what the Big Bang of the universe looked like, you can now view 'the anatomical big bang of the human body' at BODY WORLDS at the California Science Center. With all its muscles, bones and organs flying apart but caught still by 350 nylon strings this body, expanded to the size of a nine-foot giant, becomes virtually transparent. Along with the giant, five more bodies arrived, presented in unique and surprising poses, never before seen in any exhibit. A Yoga lady stars in an acrobatic 'bridge pose' and a youngster is caught midair doing a handstand with his skateboard. Each pose reveals different anatomical highlights. The walking giant allows a detailed view of our organ system. A leaping dancer who balances on his brain, while his organs are exposed from the back, was the favorite of the new arrivals among body donors who attended the unveiling ceremony." 

Mummified woolly mammoth arrives in Japan for exhibit (wtopnews.com)

"World fairs have typically focused on the wonders of the future, highlighting new technologies from glass and steel construction in the 19th century to satellites and computers today. But next year's fair is different. The Japanese organizers of the 2005 world's fair have shipped a 18,000-year-old frozen woolly mammoth from Siberia to become the centerpiece attraction. Naoki Suzuki, the Japanese scientist overseeing the Aichi Expo exhibit, said Friday the preserved head, tusks and front leg of the mammoth have arrived in Nagoya near the fair site, about 170 miles west of Tokyo." 

Autopsy reveals that woman killed her husband and kept mummified body in freezer for 14 years (bostonherald.com)

"The medical examiner yesterday pulled a .38-caliber bullet from the ``mummified'' corpse of a former Somerville man as police found the gun used to kill him in his widow's house, capping a cross-country murder mystery. 'The body was in whole condition and essentially mummified,' Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley said at a press conference yesterday that identified John T. Kelley a day after his remains were pulled from a freezer. 'The skin had dried and the insides had deteriorated.' Through an autopsy, Kelley was tentatively identified by his 5-foot-6-inch frame and 135 pounds, as well as from three tattoos of a doll, panther and skull on his arms. His children...had believed their mother..., when she told them in 1991 or 1992 that their estranged, allegedly abusive father..., had been hit by a car in Las Vegas. But on her deathbed earlier this month, Geraldine Kelley, who had moved back to her hometown of Somerville in 1998, confessed... that she killed John Kelley, wrapped his body in blankets and plastic and stored him in a freezer, which she mailed from Ventura, Calif., to a Somerville storage unit."

Related story (bostonherald.com)

18th Century mummies discovered in crypt of Croatian cathedral (abc.net.au)

"Two mummified bodies dating from the 18th century were discovered in eastern Croatia during restoration works on the crypt of a Roman Catholic cathedral, officials said today.... National television broadcast images of the bodies in their coffins." 

Tutankhamun's body will be tested to determine cause of death (cnn.com)

"Egypt plans to X-ray the mummy of Tutankhamen to find out what killed the king who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago and died while only a teenager. Archaeologists will move Tutankhamen's body from its tomb, which was discovered packed with treasure in 1922, to Cairo for tests which should resolve the mystery over whether he died naturally or was murdered.... The mummy would be moved by the end of November and the CAT scan, which will produce a three-dimensional X-ray of his remains, completed by the end of the year...." 

Related story (ahram.org.eg)

Arafat's body will be mummified in hopes of future burial in Jerusalem  (zaman.com)

"Palestinians believe that their dream to bury their leader Yasser Arafat in Jerusalem, the city they hope will one day be the Palestinian capital, will surely come true one day. Arafat's body will be preserved in a stone tomb in Ramallah until it can be 'transferred to Masjid Al-Aqsa at the appropriate time.' In archeology, a tomb of marble or stone is called a stone sarcophagus. Arafat's stone sarcophagus will serve to mummify his body and allow it to be transported...." 

More on mummified corpses found in closed funeral home Unclaimed mummies finally buried (al.com)

"Fifteen people Thursday witnessed the end of Pap and Molly's long and storied journey to the grave. The mummies, discovered last month in a defunct Ensley funeral home a half century after they were attractions there, were laid to rest at noon at Lakeview Cemetery on Highway 269 in Edgewater. The identities of the mummies remain unknown, although the Jefferson County Coroner's office has retained some genetic material for possible future identification.... Jane Norman, who was born in the early 1940s, said her mother took her to see the mummies when she was a little girl. The man had a mustache and a cloth around his hips and a little bit of hair, she said. And the funeral director told them names: Richard Cloud and Molly Fleming.... Pap and Molly, rumored by some to have stabbed each other to death as long as 70 years ago, were buried in the same coffin." 

85 years later, infant victim of 'mummy abuse' receives memorial stone (seattletimes.com)

"Finally, 85 years after a stealthy September hurricane obliterated much of this coastal city, claiming as many as 1,000 lives, the infant of about 11 months known as "Snookems" was receiving her long overdue memorial, a last testament to one of the nation's worst disasters. The delay was strange, but her little-known story is far stranger. Her body, along with hundreds of others, had been left at a funeral home, where her mother supposedly promised to return to claim it but never did. Whether out of hope that the mother would return or carelessness or callousness, the child, who was black, remained unburied for 70 years, her preserved body laid out in a yellow pinafore in a crepe-lined casket at the Maxwell P. Dunne funeral home in Corpus Christi, seen by only a handful of people who learned the secret...." 

More on British TV channel looking for human volunteer to decompose on camera after death Testing the limits of reality TV: One person's reaction (scotsman.com)

"In a move calculated to blow the reality-TV competition out of the water, Channel 4 has announced that it intends to broadcast a documentary series charting the decomposition of a human body and that it is currently searching for a terminally ill volunteer to "star" in the series - a plum role, given that it could run for several months. The broadcaster insists that the volunteer’s family needs to be comfortable with the idea: after all, it’s one thing to lose a loved one, but to watch that loved one disintegrate into a blackened, gloopy mess, chewed on by insect larvae, is quite another. Billed as a 'unique scientific experiment', the series, whose working title is Dust to Dust, is the ultimate cinema verité - though, if you’re a cynic like me, it looks more like a metaphor for the direction television programming as a whole has recently taken. Only professional duty would induce me to peak in; but since I’ve never had much of a stomach for things gory, I don’t expect to last five minutes, much less to stand the series’ course...." 

Mystery solved?: Skeletal and preserved human remains at Roopkund Lake suggest hailstones killed 200 people in 9th century (telegraph.co.uk)

"For 60 years the skeletal remains of more than 200 people, discovered in 1942 close to the glacial Roopkund Lake in the remote Himalayan Gahrwal region, have puzzled historians, scientists and archaeologists. Were they soldiers killed in battle, royal pilgrims who lost their way and succumbed to hypothermia, or Tibetan traders who died of a mysterious illness? Now, the first forensic investigation of one of the area's most enduring mysteries has concluded that hundreds of nomads - whose frozen corpses are being disgorged from ice high in the mountain - were killed by one of the most lethal hailstorms in history. Scientists commissioned by the National Geographic television channel to examine the corpses have discovered that they date from the 9th century - and believe that they died from sharp blows to their skulls, almost certainly by giant hailstones...." 

British TV channel is looking for an 'anti-mummy': Do you want to decompose on camera? (timesonline.co.uk)

"Channel 4 [one of the main British TV networks] is seeking a volunteer to allow the decomposition of his or her dead body to be filmed for a television special. The broadcaster, which last year screened the first televised autopsy, will break another television taboo by conducting a detailed examination of human decomposition. The experiment would take place in a 'secure and secret location', would last for several months and would need full consent of the donor and the donor’s family. But developments would not be shown live...." 

Well-preserved face cream dating from Roman times discovered in London archaeological site (abc.net.au)

"When it comes to cosmetics, the ancient Romans knew what they were doing. U.K. scientists have unearthed a small tin canister dating back to the middle of the 2nd century AD in an excavated Roman temple precinct in London that contains a sophisticated white cream that could rival today's top cosmetics.... It was discovered in a waterlogged ditch preserved under wooden planks in thick layers of mud." with photo

Investigation into 1955 murder of Emmett Till may get assistance from his well-preserved remains (clarionledger.com)

"Those pushing for prosecution in the 1955 killing of Emmett Till say it's time to exhume the teenager's body. An all-white jury acquitted Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam in the Aug. 28, 1955, killing of Till, and the jury foreman said afterward that jurors believed the state failed to prove it was Till's body. Defense attorneys suggested to jurors a sinister group had planted the body, and the sheriff said publicly Till was still alive. Several months later, Bryant and Milam confessed to Look magazine they had indeed beaten and shot Till because the 14-year-old visiting from Chicago had wolf-whistled at Bryant's wife....  With a state-federal investigation now under way, any possible prosecution would have to prove the body was Till's.... Although Till's body has been buried for nearly 50 years, there is some hope information could be retrieved from the body. That's because the funeral home 'immersed his whole body in formaldehyde,' said Tallahatchie County native Steve Whitaker, who interviewed many of those involved in the Till case and in 1963 wrote a 205-page master's thesis on the Till case." 

Mummified remains solve eight-year-old mystery (news24.com)

"The mummified remains of a businessman, who disappeared eight years ago, was found in a shallow grave in the backyard of a Brixton semi-detached house on Wednesday. The mystery surrounding the disappearance of Alec Steenkamp, then 34, was unravelled within a month by East London private detective Christian Botha's brilliant investigating." with photo

More on mummified corpses found in closed funeral home Meet Hazel Farris: One of Alabama's most notorious mummies (al.com)

"The Shortridge Funeral Home mummies are not the first to grace the Birmingham area, according to historians. A passerby uncovered two mummified corpses last month in an Ensley funeral home; they had apparently been there since at least the 1930s. But before the discovery, Bessemer was host to one of the most notorious mummies of the 20th century. Her name was Hazel Farris. She was from Tennessee, and she was not your mommy's mummy...."

More on man who lived with mother's partially mummified body for five months How life of hardship led to tragic end (marinij.com)

"For Vilma Saul, death was much like life - a story of private, protracted misfortune. Saul, the 87-year-old Terra Linda woman whose death escaped public notice for five months, has yet to have a funeral because she has no family who can arrange it. Her 57-year-old son - who lived with her partially mummified body all summer because, police said, he lacked the mental capacity to report the death - has been institutionalized. The circumstances of Vilma Saul's death have brought her the kind of attention missing throughout much of her life...."