Mummified body of Lady Dai is becoming decalcified for unknown reasons (xinhuanet.com) 

"The well-known ancient female mummy excavated from Mawangdui Tombs in central China more than 30 years ago is sustaining decalcification, a Chinese researcher said. Luo Xuegang, head of the human anatomy research center with Xiangya Medical Sciences C ollege, said the decalcification was found in the bone tissue of the female mummy of Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-24 AD) through a recent X-ray observation...." 

Preserved racehorse is Melbourne Museum's most popular exhibit (app.com)

"It was the tragedy that broke a depressed nation's heart. But some believe it was fortunate that Phar Lap died in San Francisco in 1932. If he hadn't, his body wouldn't have been taken to New York, and it's unlikely we would still have him standing alongside us today.... The results are so lifelike that, on the eve of the 75th anniversary of his sole Melbourne Cup win, Phar Lap remains the museum's most popular exhibit. His rope veins bulge as authentically as they must have done as he thundered over the line to win the 1930 Melbourne Cup — one of 37 wins from 51 starts.... "

Mummified dwarf recovered from illegal excavation in Iran (irna.ir) with photo

"Kerman province Police Chief, Brigadier Hamid Gorizan, on October 29, 2005, exposed to reporters the corpse of dwarf unearthed in Shahdad area in the southeastern Kerman province. Speaking to reporters on Saturday, he said that the dwarf, whose corpse was discovered recently, is estimated to be 12-16 years old and dates back to 1,000 years ago...."

Bog mummy exhibit intrigues visitors in Pittsburgh (app.com)(app.com)

"The seven mummies on display at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Natural History are nowhere near as famous as King Tut, but they're just as intriguing. Take the 2,000-year-old body of a teenager, found in the Netherlands. Who was she? Who killed her and why? The remains of a cord used to strangle "Yde Girl" are still visible around her neck a century after she was found in a peat bog. Was the killing punishment or ritual? ...In fact, part of the exhibit allows visitors to investigate four hypothetical bog bodies. Visitors can examine bones, skull and teeth (don't worry, they're fake) to determine the gender and likely age, the manner of death, the era in which the person lived — even if the victim was a hunter-gatherer or a farmer, through examination of the stomach contents...."

Guanajuato mummies get spruced up (eluniversal.com.mx)

"...high atop a hill at the north end of town, gone would be the Museo de la Momias the Mummy Museum. For many, and surely for the 124 shriveled, grotesque individuals on display inside, Guanajuato and the Mummy Museum are synonymous. As a Mexican attraction, only the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City draws more visitors. During special holiday weekends, as many as 4,000 living come to visit the dead.... Having seen the mummies before, I was in no hurry, especially just before lunch. However, I had heard the exhibit had been spruced up of late due to a persistent flood of complaints from tourists. People had registered their displeasure all the way to the president of Mexico and the Pope in Rome, shocked at such flagrant disrespect of the dead, putting human bodies on display like eerie side-show mannequins. I wanted to see the "improvements" for myself..... "

Pompeii exhibit with 'plaster mummies' opens in Chicago (ansa.it)

"A smash hit exhibit exploring the human tragedy of Vesuvius' eruption in 79 AD has arrived in Chicago for the first US section of its world tour. 'Pompeii: Stories From An Eruption' opened its doors in the city's Field Museum on Friday, fresh from a sell-out run in Mannheim, Germany and after having drawn thousands in Brussels, Trieste and Naples before that.... [A] large part of the exhibition's popularity is due to the fact that ... 'Stories From An Eruption' illustrates the desperate plight of victims as they tried to flee. Some 500 objects are on display, many uncovered in recent excavations, including 11 bodies - produced from plaster-cast moulds - 30 frescoes, 10 statues, a collection of 500 coins, a solid bronze and iron treasure box and a vast array of jewellery, ornaments and other everyday objects. The show features a sensational multimedia reconstruction of the eruption, which brings to life the terror that reigned as Vesuvius filled the sky with molten lava and lethal gases. But it is the bodies of the victims, 'frozen' in their last desperate gestures - screaming, writhing in pain or struggling to escape - that most vividly portray the horror of that day. In many cases the bodies are shown along with personal possessions found nearby and explanations reconstructing their life - and death - stories...."

Mysterious mummy on display at Rutgers Geology Hall (dailytargum.com)

"Although now at home in the Rutgers Geology Hall, the female mummy that resides on the Old Queens campus building spent many years in a far more undignified place: one of the closets of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary.... Of course, other than its resting place, there is very little known about the mysterious mummy.... Rutgers experts are unaware of exactly where the mummy originated from, or to what family the woman belonged. A missionary who had traveled to Egypt brought the mummy to New Jersey in the early 1700s, back when Rutgers was still a school of the Dutch Reformed Church, Selden said. When Rutgers and the church went their separate ways in 1766, the seminary kept the mummy...." 

Analysis reveals that King Tut may have drunk red wine (timesonline.co.uk)

"King Tutankhamum was partial to wine at the end of a hard day, it has long been assumed. Now scientists claim that he favoured drinking red over white. A long-standing mystery of precisely what was inside the jars, or amphorae, found in the tomb of the great Egyptian king (1336-1327BC) has been solved, according to academics who presented their findings yesterday at the British Museum in London. A team at the University of Barcelona studied residues from the scrapings of eight of the jars from Tutankhamun’s tomb, which are now divided between the British Museum and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Tutankhamun ascended the throne at the age of about 8. Analysis of his mummy suggests that he was about 17 when he died. Ancient Egyptians believed in equipping a body for the afterlife, and Tutankhamun was buried with 26 vessels of wine for his funerary meals. Our earliest knowledge of wine cultivation comes from Ancient Egypt, where the process was represented on tomb walls dating to 2500BC...."

Mummy known as 'Stone Willie' to be examined (courant.com) 

"You might call "Willie" a hardened criminal. So hardened, in fact, that he is also known as "Stone Willie," a rock-solid corpse whose well-preserved remains are the subject of examination by pair of Connecticut scientists who specialize in studying mummies. More than a century after Willie died in jail, Quinnipiac University researchers Gerald Conlogue and Ronald Beckett are unlocking secrets about his death and his remarkable state of preservation after decades in storage at a Pennsylvania funeral home.... Conlogue and Beckett went to Pennsylvania to examine the corpse with portable imaging equipment, including X-ray and CT-scanning machines...."

Mummified girl removed from carnival's Halloween display (cleveland.com)

"Mummified remains said to be those of a 12-year-old Indian girl are no longer on display at a Lake County Fairgrounds Halloween display. Regardless, a local American Indian leader has vowed to take action against the owner of the so-called relic.... On Oct. 15, after a story appeared in The Plain Dealer, Godard removed the remains, held in a glass-topped plastic coffin, from the vendors' building at Fright World. The remains, which Godard said he bought from a California supplier of universities and museums for about $20,000, had been scheduled to stay at the event through next Sunday...."

More on court fight among those who claim to have found Ötzi first 

 

Mrs. Simon upset by claims of new 'discoverers' (telegraph.co.uk)

"Oetzi, the 5,300-year-old ice mummy discovered in the Italian Alps, is at the centre of a bitter court battle as three different people try to claim the €50,000 (£33,000) reward for discovering him...."

Who found Ötzi first--and how much should they be paid? (discovery.com) 

"The discovery of Ötzi the Iceman is being marked by a court fight among a group of four people, one of them deceased, who all lay claim to the reward for finding the world's oldest and best-preserved mummy. According to the sensational court case under way in Bolzano, Italy, German hiker Helmut Simon, his wife Erika, a Swiss woman and a Slovenian actress say they found Ötzi on Sept. 19, 1991, in a melting glacier in the Ötztal Alps."

Ötzi's discovery gets more complicated: Two more individuals claim that they found him before the Simons...and Erika Simon wants more money (ansa.it) 

"A Swiss woman has claimed that she discovered the famous Oetzi iceman and even spat on his 5,300-year-old remains in order to leave incontrovertible evidence of the fact. The ancient hunter's perfectly preserved body was discovered in a melting glacier in the Italian Alps in 1991. Until now his official finders were named as German hiker Helmut Simon, who died a year ago, and his wife Erika. But their role is being contested amid a bitter legal battle over a hefty financial reward for the discovery. The Bolzano provincial government has brought to court two rival claims. One is by Slovenian actress Magdalena Mohar Jarc and the other is by Sandra Nemeth, the Swiss woman who says she spat on the mummy so that traces of her DNA would remain on it for scientists to find later...."

Headless Huari mummy found in ancient Lima ceremonial complex predates the Incas (heraldsun.news.com.au)

"Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of the oldest mummy ever found in Peru's capital, Lima - a high-ranking official of the Huari tribe who lived about 1300 years ago, researchers said. The headless mummy was found in September in Lima's Huaca Pucllana ceremonial complex after studies and exploration at the site.... The mummy, which was found surrounded by tunics and food such as corn and beans, is not well preserved because of the humidity of Peru's coast. Its dried skin and bones are badly chipped and many of its ligaments are visible...."

Eyes from two Chilean mummies to be dissected next week in quest for medical knowledge (medicalnewstoday.com) 

"Over the next week, UC Davis ophthalmologist William Lloyd will dissect and examine the eyes of two North Chilean mummies for evidence of various diseases and medical conditions. One of the eyes belonged to a boy who was 2 years old when he died 1,000 years ago, and the other is from a female, who was approximately 23 years old when she died 750 years ago.... The thin tissues that make up the eye allow it to dehydrate quickly and, because moisture causes decay, most mummies are found with well-preserved eyes.... The child, who was one of the last members of the Tihuanacu culture, also had an inherited cystic disease in his liver.... The 23-year-old woman was buried in a seated position, fully clothed in embroidered V-neck wool shirts. She wore sea-lion-hide sandals and on her head, a bandana. Her hair was in two braids. In addition to the pneumonia, she had lice, bad teeth and osteoporosis...."

More on mummified arm from murderer donated to new London museum

Mummified arm handed to museum director (astlondonadvertiser.co.uk)

"An East London undertaker has been given a helping hand in his bid to open Britain’s first funeral museum – a murderer’s mummified arm. John Harris, of T Cribb & Sons Funeral Directors in Beckton, was handed the 213-year-old arm by police in Wiltshire on Tuesday. He said it would be a prestigious addition to his planned National Funeral Museum, but until that opens it would be kept at arm’s length in a storage chamber."

Mummified arm from executed murderer to be displayed in new London museum (wiltshire.police.uk)

"...Wiltshire Police handed over the mummified arm of a felon to the National Funeral Museum. The history of the arm is rather gruesome and dates right back to the early 19th century, when George Ruddock, aged 20 and George Carpenter, aged 21, murdered William Webb, a farmer, and his maidservant, Mary Gibbons, at Roddenbury Farm, near Longleat, on 28th December 1812. They were tried and sentenced to death and then brought from Salisbury to Warminster in an extraordinary procession to the place of execution where they were publicly hanged on a gallows erected on the downs above Warminster.... The execution took place on 15th March 1813. Ruddock jumped from the cart and death was instantaneous. Carpenter held on to the cart and suffered greatly in dying. The bodies were removed to Salisbury and dissected by surgeons. The mummified arm of George Carpenter was in the possession of local surgeon, Dr Charles Kindersley, until it was donated to Wiltshire Constabulary in 1938...."

Mütter Museum dedicates room to late curator (nytimes.com; free registration required)

"This, her friends agree, is how she would want to be remembered: her own Gretchen Worden Room at the Mütter Museum, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia's collection of medical specimens and instruments. It's a small room, in a former storage area Ms. Worden jokingly referred to as "the tumor room." But it has been handsomely fitted out with display cases of polished wood and glass, filled with the kinds of spectacularly grotesque anatomical oddities Ms. Worden spent her adult life explicating as the museum's director and tireless promoter. There are jars of preserved human kidneys and livers, and a man's skull so eaten away by tertiary syphilis that it looks like pounded rock. There are dried severed hands shiny as lacquered wood, showing their veins like leaves; a distended ovary larger than a soccer ball; spines and leg bones so twisted by rickets they're painful just to see; the skeleton of a dwarf who stood 3 feet 6 inches small, next to that of a giant who towered seven and a half feet. And "Jim and Joe," the green-tinged corpse of a two-headed baby, sleeping in a bath of formaldehyde...."

Fossil-mummy of pregnant hornless rhinoceros discovered in China (iol.co.za)

"Archaeologists in eastern China have excavated a fossilised pregnant hornless rhinoceros thought to have lived 18 million years ago, state media reported Monday. The fossil was dug up during a recent excavation at the Shanwang Ruins of Ancient Extinct Life near Linqu County in the central province of Shandong, the China Daily said. The rhino, 2.7m long and 1.7m high, was well-preserved. The foetus, inside its mother's uterus, had an almost fully developed skeleton and teeth...."

Exhibits of human bodies in Scotland will require special license starting next year (timesonline.co.uk)

"Ghoulish exhibitions of human corpses and body parts will be banned in Scotland amid fears that they are discouraging people from donating their bodies to medical science. Doctors blame exhibitions such as Body Worlds by the German anatomist Gunther von Hagens for causing alarm among would-be donors, who fear their bodies or organs could be put on public display. Two years ago, von Hagens displayed two skinned corpses in Edinburgh as part of a fringe festival event. Von Hagens’ show attracted almost a million visitors in London and is currently touring America, it has raised £45m. A similar exhibition, Bodies Revealed, which was held in Blackpool last year, has prompted similar accusations of bad taste. However, under new rules contained in the Human Tissue (Scotland) Bill, due to come into force next year, such exhibitions would require a special license to be staged in Scotland...."

Ötzi's discovery gets more complicated: Two more individuals claim that they found him before the Simons...and Erika Simon wants more money (ansa.it) 

"A Swiss woman has claimed that she discovered the famous Oetzi iceman and even spat on his 5,300-year-old remains in order to leave incontrovertible evidence of the fact. The ancient hunter's perfectly preserved body was discovered in a melting glacier in the Italian Alps in 1991. Until now his official finders were named as German hiker Helmut Simon, who died a year ago, and his wife Erika. But their role is being contested amid a bitter legal battle over a hefty financial reward for the discovery. The Bolzano provincial government has brought to court two rival claims. One is by Slovenian actress Magdalena Mohar Jarc and the other is by Sandra Nemeth, the Swiss woman who says she spat on the mummy so that traces of her DNA would remain on it for scientists to find later...."

Fossil-mummies of two winged lizard dinosaurs discovered in China (people.com.cn)

"Fossils of two previously unknown species of pterosaurs or winged lizards have been found by Chinese and Brazilian scientists in western Liaoning in Northeast China. It is thought the flying reptiles could have travelled and communicated with their peers between today's France, Germany or Britain and East Asia more than 120 million years ago, the scientists report in today's Nature magazine...."

Is it time to bury Lenin's mummified body? (nytimes.com; free registration required)

"For eight decades he has been lying in state on public display, a cadaver in a succession of dark suits, encased in a glass box beside a walkway in the basement of his granite mausoleum. Many who revere him say he is at peace, the leader in repose beneath the lights. Others think he just looks macabre. Time has been unkind to Lenin, whose remains here in Red Square are said to sprout occasional fungi, and whose ideology and party long ago fell to ruins. Now the inevitable question has returned. Should his body be moved?"

More on the professor who mummified his mother's body Lonely professor encased his mother's body in glass (webindia123.com)

"Even Alfred Hitchcock could scarcely have imagined that his Oedipal horror film 'Psycho' would actually come alive in Andhra Pradesh where a Cambridge-educated professor kept his mother's mummified body for 20 long years - a secret that came to light only with his death...."

Professor loved his mother so much that he mummified and lived with her body for over twenty years until he died (scotsman.com)

"A professor in southern India loved his mother so much he lived with her corpse for 20 years. When he died, the pair were laid to rest in the same grave. Syed Abdul Gafoor's mother died in 1985, but he refused to bury her. He preserved her body with chemicals and kept it at home in a glass case, causing his wife to leave him...."

More on Tampa's controversial plastination exhibit

 Art or artless? That is the question (miami.com) 

"The corpses are bent into jaunty poses, their flesh peeled away to reveal perfectly preserved muscles, bones and organs. The anonymous bodies of 20 Chinese men and women are the stars of a blockbuster exhibit that has drawn more than 80,000 visitors since opening here in August over the objections of the state anatomical board, which regulates the use of cadavers. The corpses are, depending on whom you ask, magnificent figures created in the spirit of education or an insulting mockery created in the service of greed.... A man clutches a conductor's baton over his head as if leading an orchestra of the dead, his body cut to reveal his brain and nervous system. Two halves of a woman sliced down the vertical axis face each other, hands meeting in the air for a high five. A corpse bends back limbo-style to kick a soccer ball suspended in front of him. A glass case shows the blackened lungs of a smoker next to a pair of white, healthy lungs; nearby, a brain is sliced open to reveal caked blood, evidence of a stroke. In a darkened room, a complete circulatory system, dyed red, is dense with blood vessels that trace the shape not only of arms and legs but of kidneys, lips, nostrils and the folds of the ear...."

More on the plans to display Llullaillaco children  Information about the struggle to prevent exhibit of frozen Incan children (dallasnews.com) 

"Their facial features are clear, their muscles firm. The blood remains frozen in their veins, and the vivid clothes they wore the day they died remain intact. The three Incan children – believed to be victims of a mountaintop sacrifice about 500 years ago – are among the best-preserved mummies ever found, and Argentine officials hope to display them this fall in a museum in this city in the far northern part of the nation. But not everyone is looking forward to the public unveiling of human remains that look anything but ancient...."

Plans to display Llullaillaco children, well-preserved Incan mountaintop mummies, cause protests from indigenous groups (guardian.co.uk) 

"They are the most perfectly preserved mummies in the world - their skin so intact that they look practically alive, their clothes still bright and new, the remains of their last meal still undigested inside their stomachs. But plans to put on display the remains of three 500-year-old Inca children have run into resistance from Argentinian indigenous groups who consider the project an insult to their ancestors and even some scientists who have expressed misgivings about the project. The mummies were found in 1999 by a National Geographic team on the 22,000-foot (6,700m) peak of Llullaillaco, a mountain in the Andes between Argentina and Chile. The three children, two girls and a boy aged between six and 15, were left on the peak to freeze to death in the 15th century, shortly before the arrival of Spanish colonists in America, apparently as a human sacrifice. But a combination of high altitude, low oxygen and humidity levels as well as zero-degree temperatures has produced a near-miraculous preservation...."

More on the opening of 'Body Worlds' on October 7 

More background on the show in Philadelphia (philly.com)

"Among the "Body" specimens are The Smoker, with a blackened lung visible through his rib cage, and The Teacher, whose muscles have been partly removed to illustrate the body's nervous system. And there's one of the exhibition's highlights - a human cadaver on top of a likewise plastinated horse.... Whether it is right or wrong to display bodies in a profit-making show has been an issue since the show opened. In Europe, the show's creator, Gunther von Hagens, was accused of making a spectacle out of cadavers and robbing them of their dignity. Early German exhibitions in Mannheim and Cologne drew large crowds, followed by heated debates. But in the United States, 'Body' hasn't raised such furor...."

How 'Body Worlds' made the trip to Philly (delawareonline.com)

"Snyder wanted "Body Worlds" to visit Philadelphia, but he and others had questions: Is it appropriate for this venue? How best to display it? Had the people whose bodies were on display truly consented? Ought there be an age limit? He suspects some will object to the exhibit, but the general acceptance Snyder noticed in Los Angeles and Chicago implies vehement opposition is unlikely. The museum assembled a small panel of bioethicists and doctors to examine those issues and, by spring, the planning stage had begun...."