July 2006

EXHIBIT: MALAYSIA

Museum Sultan Alam Shah exhibits mummified mermaid(thestar.com.my) 

"They came by the hundreds to the small hall wanting to see for themselves what they had read in books and seen in movies. At the “Genies, Ghost, Coffin?” exhibition at Museum Sultan Alam Shah, a mummified mermaid has caught the imagination of the visitors. Encased in glass, the exhibit is half-a-metre long with hair and scales on its body and the tail of a fish. The mermaid’s owner, Safuan Abu Bakar, is adamant that the exhibit is real. He told The Star that he and a group of bomoh (mediums) took months to locate the mermaid “in a secret location in a neighbouring country.” “After locating it, we performed special prayers, including throwing yellow rice into the sea, to entice the creature out,” he said. The mermaid died when it surfaced.... "

 

July 2006

EXHIBIT: MEXICO

The story of Guanajuato's Museum of the Mummies (brownsvilleherald.com) 

"The macabre meets the masses at the city’s Museo de las Momias, or Museum of the Mummies. The dry climate and high mineral content of the soil in Guanajuato is believed to have created 119 modern-day mummies inside the hilltop crypts of the city’s old cemetery. Residents discovered the first mummy in June 1865 when officials enforcing an unpaid grave tax exhumed the body of French physician Remigio Leroy to make room in his grave for another body. Although state officials have since repealed the grave tax, authorities found dozens of mummified bodies during their posthumous evictions. Rather than destroy the mummies, grave workers put them on display in a makeshift, crypt-like museum. They charge a few pesos for a peek. Museo de las Momias director Felipe Macias-Lopez said the museum was officially founded in 1894 and has steadily been attracting tourists ever since. Today, the museum houses 119 mummies and draws 800,000 visitors a year. Crowds eagerly press their faces against glass cases and take pictures of the mummies while zigzagging through the museum on guided tours...."

 

July 2006

EXHIBIT: NEW YORK

More on the mummified arm of Boxer Dan Donnelly

How the arm became mummified (thesweetscience.com) 

"At the time of his death, Dan Donnelly was broker than Mike Tyson, but 186 years later the legendary bare-knuckle champion finally made it to Broadway. Which is to say, part of him did.... The legend of how the mummified right arm came to repose a few miles from what is still known as ‘Donnelly’s Hollow’ at the Curragh remains a tangled tale, but by most accounts, Donnelly’s corpse was “Burked” shortly after its internment, and spirited off to the medical college at Edinburgh University . When a few of his friends learned of this fate, they set sail to Scotland in an effort to retrieve his remains, but by the time they arrived Dan had already been dissected, and they returned with what was left – his right arm. For nearly two centuries the appendage served as the centerpiece of traveling carnivals and medicine shows, and was later put on display in pubs from Belfast to Kildare...."

Boxer's mummified arm to be part of boxing exhibit (eastsideboxing.com) 

"Jim Houlihan, curator of “Fighting Irishmen: A Celebration of the Celtic Warrior” set for the Irish Arts Center later this summer, has collected some neat artifacts for the exhibition from John L. Sullivan’s fur coat to Jack Dempsey's blazer to Gerry Cooney’s robe to John Duddy’s trunks to the punching bag from Sullivan's final bareknuckle training camp. But none more unique that the late, great Irish fighter Dan Donnelly’s mummified right arm, yes, that’s correct, arm, which will be flown in from Ireland on Wednesday. Josephine Byrne, former owner of the Hideout Pub in Kilcullen, Ireland, and rightful owner of the arm, will accompany it to America...."

Bottom of the boxing barrel--or important boxing curio? (thesweetscience.com)

"Just when one thinks that the bottom of the boxing barrel has been completely scraped of all residue and trace molecules, news comes from Ireland that a keepsake of one of that country’s greatest bare-knuckle fighters, ‘Sir’ Dan Donnelly, will hit Gotham Wednesday afternoon at Gallagher’s Steak House in midtown Manhattan. The memento, according to Jim Houlihan, curator of exhibition “Fighting Irishmen: A Celebration of the Celtic Warrior,” set to open at the Irish Arts Center later this summer, will join artifacts like John L. Sullivan’s fur coat, Jack Dempsey’s blazer, Gerry Cooney’s robe, John Duddy’s trunks, and the punching bag from the Great John L’s final bare-knuckle training camp. The newest addition to the collection is a boxing curio, a certifiable boxing fetish, something from the dark side of boxing’s dark moon… it’s the mummified right arm of a fighter. But not the mummified right arm of just any fighter; no, the mummified right arm of a pugilistic legend named Dan Donnelly, Ireland’s greatest 19th century bare-knuckler, and it’s enclosed in perpetuity forever in a glass case...."

 

July 2006

CRIME: TENNESSEE

Pathologist to help police in case against woman found with naturally mummified cats in home (wate.com) 

"A pathologist at the UT School of Veterinary Medicine is helping perform necropsies on some of the mummified animals found at the home of woman charged in a cruelty case. Sylvia Sexton faces a long list of cruelty to animal charges and is out on bond, awaiting her arraignment. Both of her homes, one on Champions Point in the Fox Den Subdivision in West Knoxville, and the other on Tazewell Pike in North Knoxville, have now been condemned. Animal control authorities tell 6 news, the temperature inside the house was 143 degrees when they first opened the door. Inside, they say, it looked and smelled worse than the city dump. The cats found dead inside were decomposing, some of them already mummified. The ones found alive were very skinny. They were also covered with fleas and ear mites. Authorities say they also found a dead cat inside the dishwasher and a mummified cat in the chandelier...."

Knoxville woman charged with animal cruelty after dead and mummified cats found in home (wate.com) 

"A Knox County woman has been charged with 26 counts of cruelty to animals after animal control authorities found dozens of dead cats in two of her homes. Authorities say some of the cats they found had been dead for so long, they were practically mummified. Others were found decomposing. Animal Control officers also found 10 skeletal remains at one of Sylvia Sexton's homes. Authorities were notified by neighbors who say one of the cats bit their pet dog and scratched their child's hand. Animal Control officers got a search warrant after getting the complaint. "

 

July 2006

EXCAVATION: IRAN

Archaeologists to excavate Iranian mine famous for 'salt men' mummies (payvand.com) 

"Following the visit of two Iranian archeologists to Germany and Austria, the condition for a joint cooperation between Iranian and German archeologists was prepared and a team of archeologists of Bochum Mining Museum of Germany is to come to Iran to carry out excavations in Chehr Abad historical salt mine, the burial ground of the discovered famous salt men in Zanjan province.... The news of discovery of four salt men in Chehr Abad mine was widely spread around the world and attracted the attention of archeologists and cultural heritage experts. The first discovery of salt men and their belongings in Chehr Abad mine of Zanjan province goes back to some ten years ago. They are among rare mummies discovered around the world that are mummified as a result of natural conditions. Samples of these salt men have been sent to Oxford and Cambridge universities to implement genetics studies and DNA analysis. The results showed that the first two salt men date back to the Parthian era (150 BC-226 AD) while the other two are believed to have belonged to the Achaemenid period (648-330 BC). "

 

July 2006

MUMMY HISTORY: MISSOURI

The story of William Lee, AKA the 'Alton mummy' (stltoday.com) 

"Just at the edge of the St. Francis of Assisi Church cemetery in Portage des Sioux, steps away from the shrine marking the graves of two parish priests, William "Deaf Bill" Lee finally lies at rest. His flat, gray, granite grave marker shows his name, a figure of a fisherman and three dates: 1863, the year he was born; 1915, the year he died; and June 24, 1996, the day he was buried - 10 years ago last month. Where did Deaf Bill hang around for 81 years? Lee, who after death became known as the Alton Mummy, was a poor, hard-of-hearing fisherman known for delivering drunken sermons on the Missouri and Illinois riverbanks, said Troy Taylor, who has written about the oddities of Alton. Deaf Bill would deliver sermons on street corners and in Sunday morning church services, and his exploits landed him in jail several times. A man named Bill Bauer operated a ferry that crossed the Mississippi River and came to know Deaf Bill, a frequent customer. Bauer also owned the Bauer Funeral Home in Alton, and when Deaf Bill grew older, Bauer signed him into the Madison County poor farm. He died there on Nov. 13, 1915, at age 52. Residents of the poor farm usually were buried in a potter's field, but Bauer decided to hold on to Bill's body until he could find relatives, who perhaps lived across the river in West Alton...."

 

July 2006

DISCOVERY: INDIANA

Mummified hand turns up in South Bend alley--where did it come from? (fortwayne.com) 

"Police are investigating how a decomposed human hand wound up in an alley on the city’s south side. The appendage, which was found this weekend, was “very mummified” and may have come from a body that has been dead for two years, officials said.... Metro Homicide Cmdr. Tim Corbett told the South Bend Tribune that investigators turned the case over to South Bend Police, who will be trying to figure out where the hand belongs....  "