GWU professor hopes to exhume Meriwether Lewis' mummifiied body (washingtonpost.com)

"Professor James E. Starrs lives for the dead. Their remains tell powerful truths, he says. And in some of history's most famous murder mysteries, their decaying bones have guided him to dramatic conclusions: That convicted cannibal Alfred Packer indeed was a murderer (and not just a desperate man) who ate his five gold-prospecting buddies while stranded for months during an 1874 blizzard in the Colorado mountains. That Huey Long, Louisiana's populist former governor, could not have been assassinated by the young doctor accused in the 1935 crime. That Albert DeSalvo, the man who confessed to murdering 13 women in the Boston area in the 1960s, may not have been the so-called Boston Strangler. Such findings have brought the 79-year-old George Washington University law school professor worldwide acclaim and made him a much sought-after forensics expert. Inside the classroom, where he has spent the past 45 years talking his students through the finer points of forensics, he is a legend. While he recognizes that his students are likely to end up using evidence collected from fresher corpses, historical figures are his real passion. These days, Starrs is after the corpse of Meriwether Lewis, half of the explorer team that made up the famed Lewis and Clark Expedition in the early 1800s. Lewis's body has been decomposing in a Tennessee grave since his death in 1809. But historians continue to debate whether the evidence points to suicide -- as declared at the time -- or murder...."

Mummy from Stockton's Haggin Museum on display in SF (recordnet.com)

"Stockton's favorite mummy is back on display, just in time for Halloween. Iret-net-Hor-irw, a 65-year-resident of The Haggin Museum, begins a run today as the centerpiece for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco's Very Postmodern: Mummies and Medicine exhibit at Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park. Since his August departure from his longtime Victory Park home, the mummy - called Irethorrou by his new owners at the Fine Arts Museums - has undergone extensive scanning and a little touch-up restoration for his debut today. The preliminary results of high resolution and dual energy CT scans have been crafted into a three-dimensional fly-through of Irethorrou's body, with detailed renderings of the artifacts within his wrappings. Also on display is a bust of what Irethorrou, a lower-order priest in Akhmim, Egypt, likely looked like when he was alive. The facial reconstruction was done by Jonathan Elias, director of the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium in Harrisburg, Pa. The noninvasive nature of the scans and science involved in the exhibit guarantee that Irethorrou continues to rest peacefully in his coffin while modern-day scholars and audiences are able to find out more about who he was, said Renee Dreyfus, curator of ancient art and interpretation at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco...."

Results of mummy studies to be released on Richmond mummies (pal-item.com)

"On a day when children costumed as mummies go trick-or-treating, it's appropriate that new information has been acquired and new conservation efforts made for the only two Egyptian Indiana museum-owned mummies. Both are in Richmond. On Sunday, Wayne County Historical Museum volunteer Bonnie Sampsell, guest curator of the museum's Egyptian collection, will share the results of carbon dating on four samples from the mummy there. Also on Sunday, area residents can tour the Joseph Moore Museum of Natural History at Earlham College to see how recent conservation efforts on the mummy and its coffin there have improved its look and added information about it. "

Mummy's curse at Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park and Museum (cincinnati.com)

"In October, days shorten and cold wind begins to howl through the trees of Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park and Museum near Hamilton. As leaves fall, the park remains a beacon of natural beauty and man-made artistic splendor. Nonetheless, staff and visitors have noticed an increase in mysterious occurrences on the property. There can be only one explanation: the Mummy’s curse. Behind the walls of the new Ancient Sculpture Museum, artistic masterpieces of the ancient world patiently await visitors. The collection includes several items directly connected with the dead from centuries ago. Visitors can view beautiful ancient grave markers and an elaborate Etruscan funerary urn, but the centerpiece of the collection is the mummy case of Ankh Takelot. Ankh Takelot was a high priest and the grandson of pharaoh, Ahkmenrah. His coffin has survived the centuries with much of its decorative paint still intact. An artist covered this “anthropoid polychrome mummy case” with hieroglyphics and pictures of gods sometime between 944 and 732 B.C. The coffin decor has all the Egyptian prayers necessary to guide a soul along the path toward judgment. One problem: the mummy is no longer contained within. What happens to the spirit of an ancient high priest when a collector displaces his body? More to the point, what happens when this art enthusiast removes the mummy from the presence of protective afterlife prayers? Could the angry spirit of an ancient Egyptian high priest haunt Pyramid Hill? Many people believe so.
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Profile: The man who oversees the Burns Collection of medical mummies (cnn.com)

"Throughout his life, Ronn Wade has been surrounded by death. And in most cases, it hasn't seemed to bother him.... The son of a mortician from Laurel, Maryland, Wade has always been fascinated with the human anatomy. Intrigued by his father's medical books as a boy, he learned about the superior vena cava, the palmar plexus and the adductor tubercle early in life. Wade even mummified a dead rat for his ninth-grade science project. "Preserving the body was interesting to me." he says. After a stint in Vietnam as an Air Force medic, Wade arrived at the University of Maryland School of Medicine as the director of the anatomical services division. One of Wade's responsibilities is to provide cadaver donors to local hospitals and medical institutions for surgical training. But perhaps more intriguing, Wade's department also oversees a collection of 200 medical mummies, called the Burns Collection. Assembled in Scotland in the early 1800s by Allen Burns, an expert dissector, the mummies were used as teaching tools; eventually they were brought to Maryland and bought by the university. The collection of mummies was well preserved, Wade discovered. "They were embalmed -- the fluids had things like mercury and arsenic -- and then they were salt- and sugar-cured to be preserved," he says...."

Profile: The professor who studies the mummy of Eva Perón (fordham.edu)

"For Margaret Schwartz, Ph.D., the study of communication and media in the 21st century is akin to another academic discipline—philosophy.... The larger part of her research, however, is on the embalmed corpse of Eva “Evita” Perón, the former first lady of Argentina, who has been preserved since her death in 1952. “How does this corpse interact with ways of duplicating someone’s image, like a photograph, or ways of storing memory, like a record album?” Schwartz said she wants to know. Because of the enormous impact of Evita on Argentina’s history and politics, the corpse functions as the physical locus for a range of emotional, political and cultural affectations, Schwartz said. But does the corpse represent death, or does it mediate between lived experience and the knowledge of death? Schwartz argues that the communicative structure of the embalmed corpse is an archive where cultural representations of death are stored, and from which they are redeployed.... For Schwartz, mediated representations connect back to what they represent and, at the same time, are free from them. She explained that a person cannot talk about Perón’s corpse without talking about the historical person Eva Perón. The second wife of Argentine president Juan Perón, Evita was a powerful—though unofficial—political leader. Born into poverty, the former actress was instrumental in the success of his first presidential campaign and won the adulation of the masses."

Review: 'The Secrets of Tomb 10A: Egypt 2000 BC' at Boston's MFA (boston.com)

"There are some things that bring the ancient Egyptians closer to us, and some that make them seem further away. Their religious beliefs, for instance, can be dauntingly arcane. And hieroglyphics, too, are hard to parse. But when Djehutynakht, a governor in Middle Kingdom Egypt, informs us that he has no wish to spend eternity eating his own excrement, I think we can all relate. There were other things Djehutynakht (pronounced “Je-hooty-knocked’’) was adamant he would rather not do for all time, such as standing on his head. And here again, I’m in utter sympathy: “[T]o be upside down is my detestation,’’ he informs us in a passage of script that can be found on the inside of the outer coffin in which he was buried. On the other hand, carousing, drinking, and eating were all on his list of activities to look forward to in the hereafter. There is something very moving about the intensity of the ancient Egyptians’ desire not to be forgotten, not to vanish into dust, and indeed to thrive in the afterlife. The Museum of Fine Arts tries, in its own way, to honor this desire with its excellent new show, “The Secrets of Tomb 10A: Egypt 2000 BC.’’ The museum is also trying to right some historical wrongs, beginning with the desecration of Djehutynakht’s tomb by ancient robbers, which left it in a state of utter chaos. But it may also be making amends for its own neglect: Most of the tomb’s contents, which were recovered by archeologists and brought to Boston almost a century ago, have been left to languish in storage ever since...."

Face of Belfast mummy is revealed in CT scan (bbc.co.uk)

"Meeting the ancestors took on a whole new meaning for a group of Northern Ireland filmmakers and scientists. They found themselves traveling to Cairo as they searched for the story of a famous Belfast immigrant, Takabuti, the Ulster Museum mummy. When the museum closed in 2006 for refurbishment, experts used the opportunity to find out more about her history. To be broadcast on Monday on BBC 1, Show Me The Mummy: The Face Of Takabuti, explores her history and what she would have looked like in life. Director and producer Ian Dougan, from Borderline productions, who made the programme for BBC NI, said he had been fascinated by the mummy since childhood. "I have lost count of the times I've been to the Ulster Museum to see her," he said. "I've always wondered what life might have been like for this mysterious woman, and the recent refurbishment of the museum presented us with an incredible opportunity to learn so much about more about her. "Takabuti is surely one of the most looked at women in Northern Ireland." Takabuti was first brought to Belfast from Egypt by boat in 1834 by a wealthy young Holywood man named Thomas Greg...."

Two severed legs, two different methods: Swiss researchers recreate Egyptian mummification (discovery.com)

"Swiss researchers have succeeded in mummifying a body part using the salty recipe of the ancient Egyptians. The experiment, which has been running for more than four months, takes inspiration from a 1994 study by Ronald Wade, director of Maryland's State Anatomical Board, and Bob Brier, one of the leading experts on mummies and Egyptology. During that study, Brier and Wade replicated for the first time Egyptian mummification using the tools and procedures of the ancient embalmers. "We are trying to improve on that important experiment using the most up-to-date methods, such as radiological technology, magnetic resonance imaging and computer tomography. It's a unique project, the first of its kind," Swiss anatomist and paleopathologist Frank Ruhli told Discovery News. While Brier and Wade used a complete male body, Ruhli, head of the Swiss Mummy Project at the University of Zurich, used two legs which were severed from a female donor body. One leg was used in a control study and placed in an oven at 40 degrees Celsius (4.4. degrees Fahrenheit) with low humidity to reproduce natural mummification as it occurred in the Egyptian desert...."

After 45 years of being displayed in glass box, mummified Vietnamese king will be buried (vnagency.com.vn)

"In the traditional Vietnamese way of thinking, when a person dies the body should be buried so that his or her spirit can rest in peace. Death leads to eternal life. A Buddhist teaching says that whatever comes out of the dust must return to the dust. Members of the Le family, descendants of a Vietnamese king, have suffered greatly because their royal ancestor has been lying in a glass box at the history museum for the last 45 years. After many struggles, authorities have finally given the family permission to reintern the remains of their ancestor. The first and only discovered remains of a Vietnamese king will be re-interned by the end of November. After 45-years of being stored at the Viet Nam History Museum, the remains of King Le Du Tong (1680-1731) will be officially returned to his homeland for burial in Xuan Quang Commune, Tho Xuan District, in the central province of Thanh Hoa. He will be reinterned 20km from the mausoleums of the Le dynasty kings in Lam Kinh...." 

Museum of Fine Arts opens 'Secrets of Tomb 10A' with mummified head 'ripped from its body by tomb plunderers' (bostonherald.com)

"Forget the haunted houses - the real-life chills will be on display at the Museum of Fine Arts starting this macabre month. From mummies and coffins to skeletons and grave robbers, the new exhibition the Secrets of Tomb 10A brings to life the eerie afterlife of an Egyptian governor and his wife. Featuring a mummy’s swaddled head and ancient treasures such as the celebrated Bersha coffin - considered a gem of Egyptian Middle Kingdom art - the breathtaking 9,000-square-foot installation is a journey to the netherworld. Built as a scale model to look like the actual Tomb 10A - which was recovered down to “every last splinter” by a joint MFA-Harvard University excavation in 1915 - the show will feature as its a centerpiece the hauntingly preserved mummy’s head, violently ripped from its body by tomb plunderers. Four thousand years after he or she was entombed - it’s still uncertain whether the head belonged to the governor or his wife - top scientists in Boston are striving to unravel the mystery of the head’s gender and shed new light on ancient burial practices...."

Preserved mammoths help scientists discover why they became extinct (guardian.co.uk)

"It was 15 years ago when Vasily Ivanovich spotted something curious poking out of the side of a lake. Scrambling down a reed-lined bank, the reindeer hunter gently coaxed the object from the mud. "It was a mammoth tusk," Ivanovich said. "It wasn't very big," his wife, Valentina, pointed out. "There are lots of them," she added. Ivanovich is one of a group of nomadic reindeer herders who live in Russia's remote Yamal peninsula, a vast wilderness of frozen tundra in north-west Siberia. It was here that in May 2007 another reindeer herder stumbled on the corpse of a perfectly preserved female baby woolly mammoth – which he named Lyuba, after his wife. Some 9,700 years after woolly mammoths became extinct, mysteriously dying out at the end of the last ice age, more mammoth remains are emerging from Russia's thawing permafrost. Russian experts say that the question of why the mammoth died out may shed light on our own prospects of survival in a world gripped by rapid climate change. "Dinosaurs died out. Mammoths died out. Maybe we're next," mused Fedor Romanenko, a mammoth specialist and senior scientist from the geography department of Moscow State University. "Mammoths are a window into changing climate and ecology," he added. Armed with an old-fashioned Soviet box camera, and a sturdy shovel, Romanenko spent several days last week prodding the tundra...."

Preserved body of woman 'from a dream' found in Jiangxi province (people.com.cn)

"A mechanical digger uncovered an ancient tomb when working at Lianxi Street of Jiujiang City in Jiangxi province on October 2. An unputrefied and well-dressed female corpse was found in the tomb. According to local residents who witnessed the scene, when the body was dug out the skin looked like the woman had just died, the joints could still move and under the moonlight, she looked just like an ancient woman from a dream. According to archeologists' preliminary estimations from the style of hair and tomb, the woman was a civilian who lived in the Ming and Qing dynasty. However, for now it is very difficult to accurately judge her age because in ancient Chinese feudal society the clothes styles of civilians changed little, and no epitaph or other funeral objects were discovered. But, the scattered remains of the only vessel in the tomb and the hair style of the woman tell us that she would have been a civilian. Regarding her position, it is unlikely that she was embalmed when buried. Therefore it is likely to be by some accidental reason related to geography and sealing of the tomb that preserved her body...."

19th century autopsy of Egyptian mummy named Irtyersenu misdiagnosed her cause of death (guardian.co.uk)

"The mysterious death of an Egyptian woman, whose mummy became a public spectacle in Georgian Britain, has been solved by a team of researchers in London. Forensic analysis of tissues taken from the 2,600-year-old corpse has revealed signs of tuberculosis, a disease that was widespread in Egypt. The mummy of Irtyersenu or "lady of the house" became the first to go under the surgeon's knife in an autopsy in 1825, when England was in the grip of mummy mania. The remains were unveiled to a large crowd in a macabre lecture by Dr Augustus Granville who, in a theatrical flourish, lit the room at the Royal Society with candles made from wax scraped from the shriveled corpse. The examination revealed that Irtyersenu "had very considerable dimensions", was around 50 years old when she died, and had borne several children. Her body was so well preserved, Granville said he could identify the cause of death as ovarian cancer. The corpse, which has been dated to 600 BC, had been removed from the necropolis in Thebes by a young explorer called Archibald Edmonstone, who had passed it on to Dr Granville to investigate. The autopsy laid the foundations of the scientific study of Egypt's mummies...."

The first mummy found at Guanajuato: An excerpt from the book about the Detroit Science Center's upcoming exhibit: The Accidental Mummies of Guanajuato (detnews.com)

"On the morning of June 9, 1865, the remains of Dr. Remigio Leroy were removed from crypt #214 at Santa Paula Municipal Panteon because no one could be found to pay his grave tax of 50 pesos. When the cemetery caretakers pried opened the French physician's wooden casket, located in the middle of a concrete wall of tombs, the men were horrified, according to one of the many local legends. One immediately fled and another fell to his knees in prayer because both feared they had just unleashed the devil. Dr. Leroy should have been a skeleton. He died three years earlier during the great cholera scourge. Instead they found something with skin and still wearing elegant burial clothes. His beard had appeared to continue to grow beyond his death though his eyes had vanished. His dropped lower jaw and the slight tilt of his head to the right makes it looks as if he's in the middle of an engaging conversation. Was it the hand of God or Satan? The brightest minds of 19th-century Guanajuato -- priests and politicians and philosophers and scientists -- gathered to examine him. Even an old Indian woman said to be able to communicate with the dead was brought in, but allegedly ruled Dr. Leroy wasn't sufficiently dead for her powers to work. Little was concluded beyond he was actually dead and posed no health threat. He was a mummy, just as the ones in Egypt. Except he was unplanned; an accidental mummy. The most decisive action came from the underpaid caretakers. They started charging admission to the steady stream of public who wanted to see the mummy. Thus began a curious and macabre industry -- even for a country that joyously celebrates its dead every year. Dr. Leroy was the first of 112 mummies to be discovered, all of them pulled from the virtually airtight wall of tombs, away from bugs and dirt...."

Video about the exhibit

More info about the exhibit