A Halloween tale from Switzerland: The severed, mummified hand of Gruyeres Castle (swissinfo.org)

"A grisly relic on show at the medieval Gruyères Castle in western Switzerland is expected to be a star attraction this Halloween. A severed hand in its own display cabinet has been helping to draw record numbers of daytrippers to the picturesque hilltop castle village. For more than 100 years, mystery has shrouded the ancient shrunken limb. It took one of Switzerland’s most eminent anthropologists to uncover the truth, in a research project started in 2003...."

Plastinated mummies coming to Cleveland: The battle of two museums to land the bodies (cleveland.com)

"It would have been the blockbuster exhibit needed to put Cleveland's health museum, HealthSpace, on the map and save its bottom line. But now the upcoming Body Worlds exhibit of plastinated cadavers stands ready to be the Great Lakes Science Center's next blockbuster exhibit." 

At least some Egyptian mummies were tarred! (eurekalert.org)

"Some Texas A&M University researchers examining ancient Egyptian mummies may have unwrapped – literally – some of the mysteries that embalmers used to preserve bodies more than 3,000 years ago. [They]..., along with colleagues from the University of Alexandria, have discovered that tar originating from natural oil seeps in the Middle East area was used in the preservation and mummification process by Egyptians thousands of years ago." 

More on Ötzi's missing finder Body of Helmut Simon found in Austrian Alps (guardian.co.uk)

"For 13 years, mountaineer Helmut Simon had basked in the glory of his unique encounter with history. In 1991, the 67-year-old German discovered Otzi the Iceman, the perfectly preserved body of a Neolithic hunter, emerging from the Similaun glacier, 3,200m (10,500ft) up the Austrian Alps. Wherever he went in his beloved Alps, Simon wore a badge identifying himself as 'Discoverer of Otzi'. But yesterday, Simon's body was found in a stream in these same mountains." 

Additional story at BBC.

Man lived with mother's partially mummified body for five months (marinij.com)

"A Terra Linda man whose 87-year-old mother died last spring spent the past five months living with the woman's deteriorating corpse, investigators said yesterday. Authorities found the partially mummified body of Vilma Saul in her bed after neighbors, curious as to her whereabouts, called police to her home...." 

More on Ötzi's missing finder Search continues for "Father of Ötzi" (agi.it)

"A rescue squad comprising one helicopter, more than 80 soldiers from the Austrian army and 15 rescuers from the Alpine Gendarmerie has intensified its operations since the early hours of this morning in a bid to recover the body of Helmut Simon, the 67-year-old world-famous German hiker, who with his wife Erika discovered in 1991 a 3,500-year-old mummy called Oetzi on the glaciers of Alto Adige.... Rescue operations were initially made difficult by the thick layer of snow that had fallen on the mountains in the hours following the alert launched by Mr Simon's wife. Rescuers had to delve through a 50cm-thick layer of iced snow. After many delays, with rescuers fearing they would have to put off operations until the spring of 2005, a temperature rise - hitting 10 above zero - allowed rescuers to carry on with their work.... Unconfirmed rumours claim that an eye-witness saw Helmut Simon wander around hours before the sunset."

More on mummified corpses found in closed funeral home 'Mom and Pop' mummies found in Birmingham may be murder victims from the 1930s (al.com)

"Two corpses found in an abandoned Ensley mortuary are widely believed in the neighborhood to be murder victims from the 1930s. No one knows for sure, but the mummified skeletons, found one on top of the other in a coffin by a passerby Wednesday, have probably been at the funeral parlor for 70 years or longer. Simply known as Pap and Molly, according to neighborhood lore, the husband and wife lived in the area and supposedly stabbed each other to death during a drunken fight in the 1930s. No one ever claimed their bodies for burial, and they've remained at Shortridge Funeral Home since." 

Fossil-mummies of ancient sea spiders found in 425-million-year-old volcanic ash in Herefordshire (innovations-report.com)

"Volcanic ash that encased and preserved sea life in the Silurian age 425 million years ago near Herefordshire, UK has yielded fossils of an ancient sea spider, or pycnogonid, one of the most unusual types of arthropod in the seas today.... 'This is the earliest adult fossil example, and it is preserved in extraordinary detail,' said author Derek Briggs, professor of geology and geophysics, and Director of the Yale Institute of Biospheric Studies. 'Volcanic ash that trapped ancient sea life in this location rapidly encased the creatures making a concrete-like cast of the bodies. The cavity later filled in with carbonate solids so we have a fossil record to study now.' " (with photo)

Mummified corpses found in shuttered Birmingham funeral home (al.com)

"A passerby Wednesday found two decayed corpses in a closed, fire-gutted Ensley funeral home, and police said there may be more. The corpses were in a coffin near a side door of the Shortridge Funeral Home. Melvin Jackson, a 22-year-old Virginia College culinary student, said he noticed something odd as he was walking by the building through the alley on his way to catch the bus around 5:30 p.m. Jackson went inside to investigate and found a cloth-covered coffin, lid on the floor, with brown paper covering the opening. He lifted the paper and saw bones.... Then he said he saw a pelvis, rotted flesh and hands tied together, he said. Police later described the bodies as "mummified" and said the people were probably dead a long time."

More on Ötzi's missing finder Some newspapers wonder: Did Helmut Simon fall victim to the Ötzi curse? (telegraph.co.uk)

"The German man who discovered the frozen corpse of a prehistoric iceman in the Alps 13 years ago is thought to have suffered a similar fate to his famous find after he disappeared in the same mountain range at the weekend.... Yesterday German and Austrian newspapers were speculating whether Mr Simon had fallen foul of the 'Otzi curse', suggesting that his likely death was punishment for having disturbed the resting place where the iceman had lain in a deep, frozen slumber for thousands of years."

Grave robber who stole and vandalized mummies of two children charged with trying to arrange murders (guardian.co.uk)

"Former insurance agent Jack Harelson maintained he did nothing wrong when he excavated an ancient American Indian gravesite in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. Now he faces charges he paid $10,000 in opals in an attempt to have the judge, chief investigator and an informant in the case murdered.... When the couple discovered two funeral baskets containing the mummified remains of a boy and a girl, they took them home so 'we could get the goodies,' [his ex-wife] said.... During the murder-for-hire investigation, police recovered two skulls they think belong to the ancient children's remains, and have filed two new counts of abuse of a corpse. Harelson's 1996 convictions on similar counts were overturned by the Oregon Appeals Court on grounds the abuse ended when Harelson reburied the headless remains and the statute of limitations ran out."

Japan's Expo 2005 to exhibit frozen mammoth mummy (tallahassee.com)

"Shuttle buses without drivers, trains floating on magnetic fields and other visions of the future will be on display at Japan's world fair next year. But Expo 2005's centerpiece will be rooted deep in the past - the frozen remains of a woolly mammoth. The beast's nearly intact head, tusks and a front leg were excavated from the Siberian tundra in June, and Expo organizers plan to put them on display in a laboratory with a gallery so visitors can watch as scientists conduct tests."

Ötzi's finder missing in Alps, presumed dead (reuters.com)

"The man who 13 years ago found the frozen remains of a prehistoric iceman in an Alpine glacier has disappeared in the snow-covered Alps with little hope of being found. A member of the mountain rescue team at Bad Hofgastein in Austria told Reuters on Monday that Helmut Simon, the German man who found the 5,300-year-old mummified body while hiking on the border of Austria and Italy in 1991 has been missing for three days."

Fossil-mummy of sleeping dinosaur found in China (people.com.cn)

"Chinese and American scientists published a report on Nature magazine on October 14, saying that they have found a new type of dinosaurs' fossil in China, which unveiled before people a dinosaur in sleeping posture for the first time. In the report, Xu Xing, a scientist with the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Mark Norell, a scientist with the New York Museum of Nature and History in New York, said they found this well-preserved fossil in Beipiao City, in northeast China's Liaoning Province. It is a kind of dinosaur that lived 140 million years ago." (with photo)

Will the corpses of the Perons ever be reunited? (duluthsuperior.com)

"Strongman Juan Peron and his glamorous wife Eva were inseparable in life, but uniting them in death is proving difficult. Fifty years after their rule in Argentina, construction of a mausoleum for the two is being delayed by fund-raising problems and resistance from at least one of Eva Peron's elderly sisters. The bodies of both Perons, who died decades apart, were unearthed during military rule and their corpses subjected to treatment that sounds like a horror movie...Juan Peron had one of the world's top embalmers preserve her body and keep it in life-like condition while he tried to build a monument."

Four 2,5000-year-old pomegranates found at archaeological site in ancient Corinth (local6.com)

"A scientific dig has uncovered four pomegranates believed to be 2,500 years old preserved inside a woven basket nestled in a bronze vessel, a Greek archaeologist said Friday. The fruits were found at an archaeological dig in the area of Ancient Corinth, about 63 miles west of Athens."

CSI Allegheny County: Coroner seeks identity of partially mummified crime victim (post-gazette.com)

"For nearly a year, authorities have been unable to identify a slight woman whose body was pulled from the Allegheny River near Fox Chapel Yacht Club. The woman's badly decomposed body was found Oct. 24, wrapped in a blue blanket bound with duct tape and with a plastic grocery bag over her head. She was wearing a long-sleeved white blouse, blue jeans, white socks, white underwear and black slippers. Dr. Cyril Wecht, the Allegheny County coroner, said yesterday that the woman died of a drug overdose, probably a heroin overdose, and that she also had phenobarbital, a sedative, in her system."

Identity of mummified infant will remain secret, as family members refuse DNA testing (pjstar.com)

"The mystery and identity of a mummified baby discovered in a foot locker three years ago will remain a mystery.... No new clues have surfaced since the mummified newborn, dubbed 'Baby Jane Doe,' was found Aug. 21, 2001, in a locked trunk after an estate sale of the 84-year-old William Searle of Kickapoo.... The remains were found by two men who purchased an old foot locker at the sale. To their shock, the brothers found the mummified remains of a newborn white girl with reddish-blond hair and the umbilical cord still attached. Her body was hidden in a suitcase inside the trunk."