Once a year, Philippines mummy is bathed and viewed (visayandailystar.com)

"The 131-year-old body of a man at the Bacolod City Cemetery is still intact and every year his family takes it out of its coffin at the family mausoleum to be bathed and viewed on Nov. 1. Mateo E. Cordova died at the age of 66 on July 28, 1941, and was embalmed by his brother-in-law, Aurelio Alisbo, who preserved him with embalming fluid that allows his family to take his body out for viewing at the family mausoleum at the Burgos Cemetery in Bacolod City every year on all Saints Day. On Sunday, as his family had done for 66 years, Lolo Mateo's body was bathed and given a fresh new pair of pajamas and socks in time for the annual viewing, Bacolod Councilor Catalino Alisbo, son of Aurelio, said.... "

Opening soon: The Guben 'Plastinarium' to pose plastinated bodies in 'Casino Royale' poker scene (dw-world.de)

"Gunther von Hagens, the controversial German anatomist who developed the "plastination" technique to preserve dead tissue, is going Hollywood. He's recreating a scene from the new James Bond film using corpses. Von Hagens has never shied from publicity, be it good or bad, and his latest project, the 'Plastinarium' in the town of Guben, has raised hackles again. When the four-story exhibit hall opens in three weeks, visitors will be able to see plastinated cadavers in various states of dissection made up to resemble Daniel Craig and others in a poker-playing scene from the upcoming Bond flick 'Casino Royale.' The Protestant church in Germany has protested the scene. 'Human bodies are being turned into commodities, prepared on the factory line,' local pastor Michael Domke said. Once open, the 'Plastinarium' will be able to accommodate up to 5,000 people daily and droves of visitors are expected, especially given the popularity of von Hagens' "Body Worlds" exhibition, which featured plastinated humans and animals and drew big crowds of fans and detractors wherever it went...." 

'Finest quality sarcophagus' in last two decades will be auctioned December 7 in New York City--mummy included (artdaily.com; with photo of sarcophagus)

"The leading lot in Christie’s sale of Antiquities, to take place on December 7, is an Egyptian painted wood sarcophagus and mummy for Neskhons, Third Intermediate Period, Dynasty XXI, circa 990 – 940 B.C. (estimate on request). Sarcophagi of this quality rarely appear on the market and Christie’s is delighted to offer this exquisite consignment. The last time a mummy with sarcophagus was sold at auction was in May 2003, when Christie’s South Kensington sold the sarcophagus and mummy of a priest of Amun for $1.4 million which still stands as the world auction record for a sarcophagus and mummy. 'This is the finest quality sarcophagus to have come to the market in the past two decades,” says G. Max Bernheimer, International Head of the Antiquities department. “The fact that it still contains its mummy and that it comes with an impeccable provenance having been in the United States since the turn of the last century, makes it all the more exceptional.' The death of many high-ranking or aristocratic Egyptians would have been lost to history but for the fact that they occurred in a time and a place where extensive efforts were made to assure a continuation of life for all eternity. The present mummy and superbly decorated sarcophagus are those of Neskhons, a Stolist – one who performs a ritual for anointing, clothing and otherwise potentiating the cult-image of the god in his Temple – who passed away due to unknown causes while in his twenties. His body was embalmed and the separately embalmed internal organs were replaced inside the body in wrapped bundles together with amulets. The body was expertly wrapped in good quality linen with amulets and placed inside a coffin of sycamore fig wood. The sarcophagus had been gessoed and extensively inscribed in hieroglyphs revealing the mummy’s identity. Neskhons’ burial took place during the Third Intermediate Period, Dynasty XXI, circa 990 – 940 B.C...."

More on the sale of the Egyptian mummy with ornately painted sarcophagus (nypost.com)

"Christie's is auctioning an ancient mummy and sarcophagus so spooky and well-preserved, you'd expect Boris Karloff to come dragging out of it. 'It almost looks like a stage prop, but it's the real deal,' said Rita Kueber of Ohio's Western Reserve Historical Society, which owns the mummy. Ornate paintings and hieroglyphics inside and outside the 75-inch sarcophagus identify the body as Neskhons, an Egyptian church official who lived around 950 B.C. Neskhons' mummy was brought to the United States in 1900 by the Cleveland publisher Liberty E. Holden, who partially unwrapped the corpse to see what riches had been buried with him...."

Oldest bee ever found was mummified in amber 100 million years ago (salem-news.com)

"Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered the oldest bee ever known, a 100-million-year-old specimen preserved in almost lifelike form in amber and an important link to help explain the rapid expansion of flowering plants during that distant period. The findings and their evolutionary significance are outlined in an article to be published this week in the journal Science. The specimen, at least 35-45 million years older than any other known bee fossil, has given rise to a newly-named family called Melittosphecidae – insects that share some of the features of both bees and wasps. It supports the theory that pollen-dependent bees evolved from their meat-eating predecessors, the wasps. 'This is the oldest known bee we’ve ever been able to identify, and it shares some of the features of wasps,' said George Poinar, a professor of zoology at OSU and international expert in the study of life forms preserved in ancient amber. 'But overall it’s more bee than wasp, and gives us a pretty good idea of when these two types of insects were separating on their evolutionary paths.' Just as important, Poinar said, the discovery points to the mechanism that could have allowed for the rapid expansion and diversity of flowering plants around that time – the 'angiosperms' that depend on some mechanism other than wind to spread their seeds. Prior to that, the world was dominated by “gymnosperms,” largely conifer trees, which used wind for pollination and re-seeding...."

Great, great grandchildren watch as Smithsonian opens coffin of partially mummified ancestor (journalnow.com)

"Once the rusted bolts were sawed through and the lead seal chiseled open, six men hoisted the 125-pound lid from the iron coffin to reveal the mortal remains of Archibald Bennett Timberlake. A silver plate on the coffin's lid said simply, "A.B. Timberlake, age 53 years.' More than 140 years after A.B. Timberlake was buried on his plantation in Virginia's Hanover County, he was dressed in a black cutaway jacket with velvet lapels. His receding hairline was still on his scalp. Scattered bits of a beard littered the remains of a silk cravat under his gaping skeletal mouth. His great, great grandchildren, Donald and Betty Timberlake, peered into the coffin as Douglas Owsley, the chief-forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History, assessed their ancestor. 'One of the first things you see is he does have a severe abscess,' Owsley said, pointing at a tooth. 'Today people can go to the dentist and take antibiotics. But back then it could kill people. I don't know if that's what killed him, but it was aggravating the dickens out of him.' How the remains of A.B. Timberlake ended up on a table in one of the museum's laboratories is a story of forensic science, real-estate development and just plain curiosity. The Timberlakes offered the coffin to the Smithsonian to learn more about their ancestor and how he died. The Smithsonian accepted because forensic scientists want to know more about how bodies deteriorate and the signs they leave behind...."

"Martha Delgado says even strangers comment that her facial features are strikingly similar to those of former President Juan Peron. But it took until now, at the age of 72, before she got the chance to prove her claim that she is the Argentine strongman's illegitimate daughter. Forensic experts extracted DNA samples on Friday from Peron's formaldehyde-cured body for a paternity test, the latest indignity endured by former leader and his adored wife Evita in their exceedingly strange afterlife. Removing 12 locks and a heavy bulletproof plate that guarded his coffin, investigators took bone samples under the watchful eye of a judge handling the paternity claims of Holgado, who went public long ago saying she was the product of a brief affair between Peron and her mother.... Some 25 federal police officers ringed the tomb in the Buenos Aires cemetery of Chacarita as medical experts got their first detailed look at the body since 1987, when tomb raiders hacked off the general's hands and stole them along with a saber, cap and other items. 'Peron is recognizable but ... the body is desiccated,' funeral director Dr. Ricardo Peculo said after examining the remains. He pronounced the corpse 'very well preserved.' 'The body still has its features and some of the hair. The skin is still preserved,' Peculo added. 'Overall, the remains are in good condition save for the fact that the hands were amputated.' Peron's body was injected with a formaldehyde solution after death to retard decomposition, he said, but the body was never embalmed like Evita's remains after her 1952 death from uterine cancer...." 

Media coverage of eBay mummy exaggerates the story for Halloween angle (thetimesherald.com)

"A mummified skeleton a Port Huron woman was trying to sell on eBay has created an international stir. The skeleton was confiscated by Port Huron Police from resident Lynn Sterling's Jenkinson Street home Tuesday evening. On Wednesday, the St. Clair County Medical Examiners office examined the mummified remains and made plans to send it to a Michigan State University anthropologist next week for further analysis. The medical examiner's office said the skeleton is very old and most likely was used for medical study. 'It really surprises me,' said Mary Palmateer, chief forensic investigator with the medical examiner's office. 'I don't think they realize it's a medical specimen. People are picturing a mummy and the body wrapped in white sheets. And it's close to Halloween.' Sterling said since the story ran Thursday in the Times Herald her phone has been ringing off the hook. She has received calls from several newspapers, including the Washington Post and television stations, such as Fox 2 News in Detroit. The story also was featured Friday on CNN."

eBay seller only intended to sell mummy 'for medical purposes' (detnews.com)

"Maybe it's just a sign that Halloween is around the corner. Port Huron officials this week confiscated a mummified cadaver that a woman tried to sell on eBay, an online auction site. The human remains were obviously those of a body used for scientific research, said Port Huron Police Capt. Don Porrett. The seller, Lynn Sterling, said she got the mummy from a friend who found it when he helped demolish a Detroit school about 30 years ago, Porrett said. Sterling said she only intended to sell the item for medical purposes. 'I would never have put it on (eBay) if I thought it was anything other than an anatomical, medical thing,' she told the Associated Press. Porrett said it was unclear how long Sterling had the mummy, which appeared to be a male, or where she kept it. The St. Clair County medical examiner reviewed the corpse and has sent it to a Michigan State University anthropologist, Porrett said. Those officials will dispose of the body, he said. Sterling will not be charged with any crime. EBay officials removed the item from its auctions Wednesday. By then, a buyer identified as Satan's Child had bid $500...." 

Port Huron woman tries to sell mummified human remains on eBay (thetimesherald.com)

"The mummified remains of a human body found in a Port Huron woman's home are expected to be analyzed by an anthropologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing. Port Huron police confiscated the skeletal remains from the Jenkinson Street home Tuesday evening. Police Capt. Don Porrett said officers received a tip resident Lynn Sterling was selling the remains on the Internet auction site eBay. St. Clair County Medical Examiner Daniel Spitz examined the skeleton Wednesday and confirmed it was that of a human, said Mary Palmateer, chief forensic investigator at the medical examiner's office. The MSU anthropologist will examine the skeleton to determine factors such as how old it is. Sterling said she was selling the item for a friend, had done research and contacted an attorney before posting the remains on eBay. The mummy, she said, was taken from a Detroit school several years ago...."

Ridgecrest archaeological museum, with replicated mummy, set to expand hours (ridgecrestca.com)

"There are dinosaur bones on Las Flores Avenue. And a mummy replication.
 The Biblical Archaeological & Anthropology Museum on Las Flores Avenue, behind the Seventh-Day Adventist School, is open to the public Saturdays from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Ridgecrest Seventh-Day Adventist Church pastor John Aitken, who oversees the museum behind the Seventh-Day Adventist School on Las Flores Avenue, said the hours it is open to the public will soon be expanded.... Aitken, who also is an archaeologist, said the museum consists of artifacts he has collected over the course of 40 years.... A person walking through the museum would find a mummy replication, exact replications of bones that have been found, a wall of time and a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, which has yet to be found, among other things. “Most of the stuff in L.A. museums is replications. There isn’t that much that’s been found,” he said. He said there are companies that make replications of archaeological discoveries. In the museum there is a replication of bones from a baby Tyrannosaurus and replications from bones found from an ape. Aitken said dinosaurs were not around millions of years ago as some people say. Rather, Aitken says they were created when the Bible says the rest of the Earth was created...."

St. John Vianney's preserved heart is one of many incorruptibles (newsday.com)

"...The arrival this week of St. Jean-Marie Baptiste Vianney's heart at Merrick's Church of the Curé of Ars - from there it goes to Boston, then back to France - brings the holy-relic phenomenon to America, where it's rare enough to attract thousands of visitors and spur lively chats online. Laments a user at forums.catholic.com: 'I wish the miraculous and beautiful heart of St. John Vianney were coming to California ... What a gift.' It's hard to imagine now, but from the 12th to 14th centuries, shrines housing saints' body parts were sacred tourist attractions; crowds clamored to pray there for healing and other miracles. In an era when your average Theobald or Ermintrude was predestined to live in the same village from birth to death, shrines offered virtually the only legitimate excuse for long-distance travel. (Such a trip, in fact, is what Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales' are about.) Clever locals renting beds to pilgrims around Cologne Cathedral, where the alleged remains of the Three Kings have been ensconced since the late 12th century, are believed to have launched what we now know as the hotel industry.... Some relics are skin, bones, limbs: St. Thomas' finger bone in Rome; in Budapest, looking like broiled chicken, St. Stephen's mummified fist. Others are whole bodies, heads or organs, officially declared 'incorruptible' - defined by the church as retaining a lifelike freshness, flexibility and hue without embalming. St. Anthony's tongue awaits spectators in Padua. Seated upright in a black-and-white habit, head tilted to one side as if listening, St. Catherine of Bologna's body is chocolate-brown, enthroned."

Preserved heart of French saint makes trip to Long Island (nj.com)

"In life, St. John Vianney was a revered 19th-century French clergyman who was said to be blessed with the ability to read the hearts of worshippers. In death, his own heart has become an object of worship. For reasons unknown, Vianney's body never decayed after death, and his heart and body have been encased in separate glass reliquaries in France for more than a century. The heart is being brought to the U.S. for the first time this weekend in what the pastor of the Long Island church hosting the relic calls a 'historical moment for our country, our diocese, our church.' The Rev. Charles Mangano of Long Island's Curé of Ars church said pastors from some of the Roman Catholic parishes around the country that bear Vianney's name are flying in for the occasion, and thousands of worshippers are also expected. The heart and Vianney's chalice will be placed at the front of the altar, where people can alternately walk past the relics and pray, or attend various Masses and other events commemorating the visit. The brownish heart, with just a hint of pink in the middle, sits in a small glass case. After five days of services beginning tomorrow, the heart will be taken to a parish in Boston before returning to France."

Exhumed body of retired pilot may reveal secrets of his death (reviewjournal.com)

"Although Charles Augustine had been in the grave for three years, his body was found to be well-preserved when it was exhumed by authorities Tuesday. His condition was good news for investigators who will be looking for injection sites on the body as they try to determine whether the retired pilot was slain with a hard-to-detect drug while under the care of critical care nurse Chaz Higgs in 2003. Authorities expect to deliver Higgs to the Washoe County Jail in Reno late tonight. The 42-year-old was arrested Sept. 29 in Virginia on a charge of murder in connection with the death of state Controller Kathy Augustine. She had married Higgs in Hawaii three weeks after the death of Charles Augustine, who had been her third husband. "

Egyptian mummies and ancient diseases: Tracing the development of leishmaniasis (sciam.com)

"Centuries of silence cannot keep ancient Egyptian mummies from sharing their secrets with scientists. From archaeologists determining cultural practices to chemists studying embalming, mummies have revealed libraries of information. Now such mummies are also yielding evidence about the diseases of the past by giving up the facts encoded in their preserved DNA, and new research may have pinned down the ancient homeland of a modern scourge. Leishmaniasis--a disease caused by microscopic parasites, like malaria, and transmitted by sand flies--results in painful skin sores and in its most vicious form causes at least 500,000 deaths worldwide every year. Endemic to northeastern Africa, it also afflicts South and Central America as well as the Middle East; as many as 650 U.S. soldiers experienced it during the first year of the invasion of Iraq. The lethal form--visceral leishmaniasis, also known as kala azar, or black fever in the Hindi language of India, where the disease was first discovered by British doctors--is particularly prevalent in Sudan, and some authorities have claimed it originated there. Albert Zink of Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich and his colleagues tested the DNA of bone samples from 91 ancient Egyptian mummies and 70 from old Nubia--modern Sudan--to determine if they had suffered from leishmaniasis...."

For more information, see the October issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases

Chachapoya burial cave discovery, first of its kind, yields five mummies (reuters.com)

"Archeologists have uncovered a 600-year-old, large underground cemetery belonging to a Peruvian warrior culture, thought to be the first discovery of its kind, an official said on Thursday. After a tip-off from a farmer in Peru's northern Amazon jungle, archeologists from Peru's National Culture Institute last week found the 820-feet-(250-meter)deep cave that was used for burial and worship by the Chachapoyas tribe. So far archeologists have found five mummies, two of which are intact with skin and hair, as well as ceramics, textiles and wall paintings, the expedition's leader and regional cultural director Herman Corbera told Reuters. 'This is a discovery of transcendental importance. We have found these five mummies but I believe there could be many more,' Corbera said. 'We think this is the first time any kind of underground burial site this size has been found belonging to Chachapoyas or other cultures in the region,' he added...."

More on the Chachapoya burial cave

Mummies and artifacts stolen from Chachapoya burial cave (livinginperu.com)

"For centuries the Yayacuj cave ('Enchanted water' in Quechua) remained intact because it is hidden by a surrounding leafy forest. Until a few days ago when a settler of the Jalca Grande region discovered that unscrupulous people stole several mummies and burial artifacts from this cemetery of Peru's Chachapoyas culture. Not even the 300 meter (1000 ft.) deep descent into the cave prevented the eager desecrators to remove the skeletons and seriously damage this archaeological, remote site located three hours from Chachapoyas, the capital of Peru's Amazon region. According to Herman Corbera Valdivia, regional director of Peru's Cultural Institute, the vandals caused irreversible damage to the circular stone construction that the ancient settlers of this culture used as houses. Similar constructions can be found at the nearby Kuélap fortress...."

Legs, feet, and brain matter: Mummified body parts greet Marines in Downey training exercise (latimes.com)

"When the Marines opened the ancient freezer in the abandoned building Wednesday, they found … body parts. The squeamish need go no further. The macabre tale began Wednesday morning on the grounds of the Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, the noted county hospital in Downey, where a group of U.S. Marines were using abandoned buildings as part of a military exercise. The troops spotted a freezer inside one of the buildings. Upon opening it, they discovered a package full of mummified body parts. David Sommers, a spokesman for Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe, whose district includes the hospital, said the freezer was in what was once a hospital morgue. He said the body parts, estimated to be 30 to 40 years old, probably were forgotten in a long-ago move...."

Man's mummified body found in bed five years after his undetected death (washingtonpost.com) 

"Austrian authorities have discovered the body of a man who apparently died at home in bed five years ago, a Vienna newspaper reported on Wednesday. The corpse of Franz Riedl, thought to have been in his late 80s when he died, went undetected for so long because his rent had been paid by automatic order from the bank account into which he received his pension, the daily Kurier said. Neighbors said there was no strange smell coming from Riedl's apartment and authorities who found the body after a court order was given to enter said his body appeared to have 'mummified' and was well preserved. 'He had been frail and a woman had helped him,' the husband of the apartment block's caretaker told Kurier, adding that mail had always piled up outside the pensioner's flat. 'We thought he had moved in with her or gone to an old people's home.' Police said they were not certain as to exactly when the man had died, but that they had found only schilling notes in the apartment -- the currency used by Austria before the introduction of the euro on January 1, 2002...."