Mummified body of missing patient found under clinic floor (mosnews.com) with photo

"Workers at a clinic for drug addicts and alcoholics in the Russian town of Lipetsk were amazed to find the body of a missing patient under the floor. The body had been there so long that it resembled a mummy. The flooring was removed in an attempt to trace an unpleasant smell, the local prosecution official told Interfax. After revealing the unusual find, the ward’s workers called the police. The nurses identified the body as that of a 58-year-old man who had been a frequent patient at the clinic, undergoing treatment for alcoholism. He disappeared from the ward in October and was placed on police records as missing...."

Xinjiang mummies and other Silk Road treasures on display in Hong Kong until March 2006 (xinhuanet.com)

"'The Silk Road: Treasures from Xinjiang' exhibition started its public display at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum Wednesday. On show are 115 treasures of ancient Xinjiang including rarely seen gold ornaments, bronze ware, textile products, relics of Manichaeism and Buddhism, which dated back to the prehistoric period until the 14th century. Other highlights are well-preserved Xinjiang mummies, a wooden model of a corpse and other burial objects, giving visitors a glimpse of the region's ancient burial practices...."

Scientists recreate portion of woolly mammoth's genome using DNA from mammoth mummy (theglobeandmail.com) 

"Scientists have sequenced part of the genome of a woolly mammoth that died 28,000 years ago, a discovery that raises the possibility of bringing the extinct ice age mammals back from the dead. Hendrik Poinar, a molecular evolutionary geneticist at McMaster University in Hamilton, says ancient DNA obtained from the jawbone of a long-dead Siberian woolly mammoth could be used create a modern version of the animal. He and his U.S. colleagues won't be able to clone the female that was found frozen in the permafrost because the DNA they obtained was fractured into so many tiny fragments. But they could create a hybrid of the woolly mammoth and its closest living relative, the Indian elephant. Once researchers have made male and female hybrids, they could breed the animals to obtain as pure a woolly mammoth as possible...." 

'Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs' moves to Ft. Lauderdale (news-press.com)

"For the first time in 26 years, the treasures of the most 'phamous' of pharaohs — King Tutankhamun — are touring the United States. This week, the exhibit, called 'Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs,' opened in Florida for a four-month stay at the Museum of Art — Fort Lauderdale, a two-hour drive from Fort Myers.... From golden headdresses and shimmering daggers to bejeweled coffins and gilded statues, King Tut, as he's affectionately called, took treasures with him into the afterlife that boggle the mind. Here's a peek inside the glories of Tut..... "

Comparing the mummies of Von Hagens to those of Fragonard (qcknightnews.com) 

"...The two exhibitions are based on very similar ideas, but are aesthetically different. Honoré Fragonard was an eccentric veterinarian who took great pleasure in anatomy and after being ousted of the veterinary school where he taught and locked up in a mad house, left behind many flayed and preserved bodies, of both animals and humans alike such as the Horseman of the Apocalypse and the Dancing Fetuses. The Fragonard Museum also contains a number of deformed animals and things barely recognizable in dusty jars. I assumed Body Worlds would be very similar. I expected the grotesque. What I saw was clinical. The result of plastination, invented 10 years ago by Gunther von Hagens, is very different from the still mysterious methods used by Fragonard during the eighteenth century. The bodies on display were more alike to the models in anatomy classes instead of the walking dead in horror flicks. What remained the same was the motivation behind the exhibition which is both didactic and artistic...." 

You can visit the Fragonard Museum online here. 

CT-scans reveal 20th C mistakes on Egyptian mummy: Four feet, chicken wire and foam (uwnews.org) 

"Archaeologists at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture had no idea what they would learn when they sent Nellie, the museum's Egyptian mummy, to the University of Washington Medical Center to undergo a CT scan three years ago as the first step in a conservation process. As it turns out, they learned a lot. For one thing, Nellie, who dates back to the Ptolemaic period between 305 and 34 B.C., has four feet. The pair that had been displayed with Nellie for years did not belong to her, according to Peter Lape, the Burke's curator of archaeology and a UW acting assistant professor of anthropology, and Laura Phillips, the Burke's archaeology collections manager. They also found that most of the bones from the mummy's body, including her original feet had been removed sometime in the 20th century, and her chest cavity had been filled with chicken wire and polyurethane foam. Scans of the skull also revealed Nellie's lips faintly curled, enigmatically, like some Egyptian Mona Lisa. Nellie has been undergoing conservation and stabilization since the scanning and will return to public display...."

Peru tells Yale University to return relics excavated by Hiram Bingham between 1911-1914 (cnn.com)

"Peru has formally warned Yale University that it will be sued if relics taken from Machu Picchu by famed U.S. explorer Hiram Bingham nearly a century ago are not returned, the Foreign Ministry said Friday.... The threat was delivered to Yale in a letter written by Peru's ambassador to the United States, Eduardo Ferrero, according to the statement. The letter's date was not specified.... Luis Guillermo Lumbreras, chief of Peru's National Institute of Culture, told AP in an interview Wednesday that Peru was preparing for a court battle to retrieve nearly 5,000 artifacts, including mummies, ceramics and human bones, excavated by Bingham during three expeditions in 1911, 1912 and 1914.... "

Startled worker finds mummified cat found in school basement; school changes mascot to 'Mummy Cats' (kutv.com) with photo

"People find the oddest things in their basement, but what about a mummified animal? That's what one school in Logan found. A maintenance worker going into the basement to fix some pipes found a mummified cat. For this worker you could say it was definitely a startling sight. Down the stairs, through the door, up a ladder, and into the school’s crawl space, Chris Weber made a startling discovery – a mummified cat.... The cat came complete with ears, whiskers, tail, paws, teeth and skin, perfectly mummified...."