Decomposition begins soon after death and is attributed to two factors: autolysis, which is the breakdown of body tissues by internal chemicals and enzymes, and putrefaction, which is the breakdown of body tissues by bacteria. The speed of decomposition can vary greatly, depending on factors such as temperature, humidity, prior embalming, and even cause of death. Generally, when a body is exposed to open air, it decomposes twice as fast as a body submerged in water, and eight times as fast as a body buried in the earth (Quigley, 1998). However, certain conditions can cause decomposition to slow down or to even stop, causing the preservation of body tissues. For example, extremely dry or cold conditions can cause mummification. Therefore, “deep burials of approximately four feet or greater, by maintenance of cool temperatures and inhibition of depredation, provide an extremely reduced rate of decomposition. A corpse buried at such depths will remain virtually intact, with minimal tissue loss, for a period of at least one year” (Rodriguez, 1997, p. 459).
Accidental mummification, classified as class one or “simple,” “signifies that there has been no human attempt to preserve the body tissues, and the preservation occurred secondarily to climatic conditions. This form of preservation has been documented for most New World mummies. The decomposition of soft tissue is influenced by both internal and external factors, and is accelerated by warm and damp conditions” (Eklektos et al., 2006, p. 498).
Simple mummification of buried remains is more likely to occur if the soil that surrounds a body has a high salt content, or if it is alkaline or absorbent. A corpse buried in icy ground can last forever with little to no decomposition (provided that it remains frozen). Dry sand or peat and moisture can also prevent decay. Among cases of natural mummification due to peat and moisture, bog bodies are numerous. Bog bodies have been found in northwest Europe, Holland, and in the British Isles, and there have been more than 120 such mummified bodies found (Fischer, 1998). Bogs tend to
Preserve bodies because of their bio-chemical composition. Fischer (1998) writes:
The flora of raised bogs is scanty in species and, naturally, dominated by peat moss (Sphagnum), the leaves of which are of special construction. Only a small proportion of the leaf cells contain chlorophyll granules and are therefore able to carry out the process of photosynthesis. The rest of the cells, which lie among those containing chlorophyll, are dead, empty structures of cellulose with an extraordinary ability to absorb water. They do not absorb subsoil water but rather imbibe surface rain water, and the underlying peat retains it. The nutritive salts that the peat moss requires, i. e. Ca, Mg, Na and K, come from atomized seawater carried into the atmosphere; the amount of nutritive salts increases the closer one gets to the sea. Measurements have shown that the annual growth of raised bogs is some 15mm, but pressure from the upper layers reduces the true annual growth to about 6.4 mm. This compression prevents oxygen from coming into contact with the underlying layers, thus oxygen dependent bacteria cannot destroy the peat and the organisms contained in it. Bog moss (Sphagnum) has a substance known as sphagnan in its cells. When the moss dies, the sphagnan is slowly released, dissolved into the bog water, and converted into humic acid. Sphagnan, the intermediate compounds, and the humic acid all produce two results: the bacterial growth is stopped, and the skin, hair and nails of the body are tanned [Painter, 1991, p. 238].
Two famous examples of bog mummies include the Borremose Man, found in 1946, and the Tollund Man, found in Jutland in 1950 (Fischer, 1998). Both men were exceptionally well-preserved. The skin, hair and internal organs were still intact, and both men had been hanged to death. Rope had been found pulled tightly around both of their necks, and the Borremose Man’s skull had been crushed. It is unknown whether the injury had been inflicted before the hanging or post-mortem. Radiocarbon dating has placed the time of death of the Borremose Man at 840 BCE, and the death of the Tollund Man at 220 BCE. The stomach contents of both men were analyzed: The former’s last meal mostly consisted of spurrey (Spergula Arvensis) and willoweed (Polygonum lapathifolium), while that of the Tollund Man consisted of hulled barley (Hordeum tetrastichum), Willowweed (Polygonum lapathifolium), persicaria, and linseed oil (Linum usitatissimum), washed down with bog water (Fischer, 1998).
Mummified bodies found within bogs have shed light on forms of sacrifice and punishment utilized before the modern era, such as an individual being hanged to death and then put into a bog. They also demonstrate religious practices and superstitions from the past. For example, a birch stick is often found above bodies in bogs. A Christian practice, the stick is meant to prevent the dead from haunting the living (Fischer, 1998). Other information such bodies provide include such things as diet, work and vestments.
Mummified remains can serve as a doorway to the past, shedding light on practices, beliefs and customs, and such bodies are found in many places throughout the world. They provide invaluable information to archaeologists, anthropologists and historians. There are many examples of bodies that were naturally mummified throughout the world. In North America, many mummies have been found on the Aleutian Islands, the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas, and many Native American bodies were found mummified in caves or cliff dwellings in the southwestern United States. Many such mummies were found in southern Texas. The oldest mummies in Texas were found in the Rustler Hills, the Rio Grande, the lower Pecos region, and near Devil’s River (Turpin et al., 1986). Mahmoud et al. (1998) write:
These mummies are from hunter-gatherer cultures and provide an idea of the hazards of hunter-gatherer life in the area. One such hazard was seasonal starvation, as documented by Banks and Rutenburg (1982). Their radiographic analysis of a child mummy reveals a series of growth arrest lines that are probably the result of seasonal fluctuation in food abundance. The other main health hazard for the region was dental pathology. Dental attrition and dental caries with resulting tooth avulsion was the most consistent health problem faced by ancient Texas hunter-gatherers (Hartnady, 1986; Marks et al., 1988; Turpin et al., 1986). The cause of this severe dental pathology was a reliance on desert succulent plants (Huebner, 1991). These plants have been found to have a remarkably high concentration of abrasive crystals called phytoliths which are harder than enamel and which wore the teeth to the point of exposing the pulp chamber [Danielson, 1993, p. 127].
Not all mummies found in the United States are as old. The Mammoth Cave complex in Kentucky is the longest in the world, with more than 365 miles already explored. In 1935, the remains of an individual nicknamed Lost John were found in the cave. The victim of a mining accident, he was partially crushed by a boulder and trapped underneath. The body had mummified. “The body is well preserved, with flesh and internal organs present except for areas where rodent activities are evident” (Mahmoud, 1998, p. 135). Neuman (1938) believes the body to be approximately 500 years old.
Across the border, in Guanajuato, Mexico, 119 individuals were found naturally preserved when unearthed in 1896. “To the horror of the authorities and relatives of the dead, what they unearthed were not skeletons but flesh mummified in grotesque forms and facial expressions. The soil’s chemical content combined with the region’s atmospheric conditions to preserve the flesh in this unique way” (Noble, 1989, p. 745). Most of the cadavers were well preserved, displaying shiny teeth, fingernails, facial hair, genitals, and wrinkled skin (Quigley, 1998). The mummies are now located at the Museo de las Momias, located in Guanajuato, Mexico.
In a room in the National Museum of Natural History, where the Smithsonian stores its mummified remains, there is an individual who was unintentionally mummified in the eighteenth century in Philadelphia, due to conditions within his casket. There have been similar cases of natural mummification reported in countries throughout the American continents in which bodies had either mummified or saponified (turned into soap), which is also a form of preservation.
Sometimes, certain body parts mummified while the rest of the body naturally decomposed. There are many cases, for example, in which mummified brain tissue is found in skulls. In some cases, “the preserved brain tissue persists even after the cranial bone has decomposed” (Eklektos et al., 2006, p. 499). Such cases of mummification have been documented in the deserts of Chile, in mass graves in Bulgaria, in Denmark, and in the United States. One of the most significant of such finds was discovered in Florida (at Windover Pond), during the mid-’80s (Mahmoud et al., 1998). A peat bog had preserved the brain tissue of a hunter-gatherer who lived approximately 7,500 years ago, and it provided the oldest sample of DNA at the time.
Why certain body parts mummify while others do not is a mystery that has not yet been adequately explained. Likewise, it is unknown why some of the ascetics in Japan that attempted to mummify themselves were completely preserved, while only certain body parts of other monks were mummified (and the rest of their bodies decayed). Considering that they completed the same training regimen and regulated their diets in the same way, the reasons why some were successful and others were not is truly a mystery (unless spiritual development is also a factor in determining success).
Cold temperatures can also preserve bodies. Every year a number of individuals disappear in mountainous areas. Some fall into glacial crevasses, others are buried by avalanches (Hansen, 1998). Many explorers and adventurers that go missing are eventually found frozen and preserved. For example, in the fifteenth century, a man was walking through an area of the Tatshenshini-Alsek Provincial Wilderness Park in British Columbia, and he fell into a crevasse. His body was found in 1999. It was in several pieces, but it was almost perfectly mummified (Pringle, 1999).
This type of mummification has also occurred during the twentieth century. In 1942, an air force pilot named Leo Mustonen took off on a training flight in November and disappeared. The plane, which was soon found, had crashed, but there was no sign of the pilot. Six decades later, the body was found, in perfect preservation, in a glacier off the coast of California (Stekel, 2009).
In October 1972, the frozen, mummified body of a woman was found by Eskimo hunters at Kialegak Point (St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea).
Radiocarbon dating determined that the remains were from c. 405 (Zimmerman, 1998). The body was well-preserved and weighed approximately 25 kg. “Several teeth were missing, as was the left lower leg, apparently postmortem. The internal organs were noted to be somewhat desiccated but generally well-preserved” (Zimmerman, 1998, p. 140).
Ten years later, in July 1982, a family of five was found dead in a crushed winter house in the modern town of Barrow, Alaska. “Their deaths were attributed to the well documented phenomenon of ivu, an enormously powerful inland incursion of large amounts of broken sea ice driven by winds and tides (Kovacs and Sodhi, 1981)” (Zimmerman, 1998, p. 143). Three of the individuals did not mummify, but the other two were well preserved. All of the bodies in the house were subjected to the same external conditions, so it is a mystery why some mummified while the others did not.
In 1991, another individual was found perfectly preserved in an alpine glacier. He is the oldest naturally mummified Chalcolithic European man that has been found and his body is currently located in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bozen, Italy. Hansen (1998) writes:
In September 1991 two mountain walkers discovered the apparently naked body of a man partly frozen in ice at 3210 m at Hauslabjoch on the Otzal Alps, close to the border between Austria and Italy (Spindler 1994). Only his head and shoulders were free of the ice. The Austrian police took action as the location was believed to be in Austria. At first the body was thought to be the remains of a professor of music from Verona who had disappeared in the vicinity in 1938, and it was several days before the body could be taken down from the mountains by the forensic pathologist, who brought the body to his institution in Innsbruck. The police had used compressor drilling to remove the body from the ice and it was slightly harmed. The true nature of the body was not even imagined at that time. Archaeologist Konrad Spindler was consulted the next day. Among other things, the presence of a copper axe led him to believe that the body was approximately 4,000 years old. Radiocarbon dating at several different locations showed later that it was about 5,200 years old. The body was named the Ice Man, Homo Tyrolensis or Otzi, a word formed by combining Otztal and yeti [pp. 344-345].
Often, bodies preserved by ice tell gruesome stories that shed light on the beliefs and practices of ancient civilizations. In 1999, a naturally mummified body was found on the summit of Mount Llullaillaco in Salta, Argentina. It was a 15-year-old girl nicknamed Doncella (Inca, 2007). She was one of three Incan children who were sacrificed in a religious ritual more than 500 years ago. They were given maize beer to make them sleep, and then sealed in a tomb. Locals believed that the children, upon freezing to death, became gods who would protect the village from misfortune. Hansen (1998) explains:
On or close to many of the highest summits, sanctuaries with stone constructions and altars have been found dating from the period of the Inca empire between c. AD 1430 and AD 1536 when the Spaniards arrived (Reinhard, 1992). The sanctuaries sometimes contain artifacts and the mummified remains of young people who most probably were sacrificed. Some have been killed by blunt force to the head or strangled, others poisoned or drugged before being buried or left to die of exposure. To be sacrificed was regarded as a great honor
Bodies can also mummify in extremely dry conditions. Desiccation, or the drying of soft tissues, occurs “when atmospheric conditions are consistently dry and the temperature is above or below that favorable for bacterial growth. Temperature and humidity are the key factors in the desiccation of the body. The ideal conditions for mummification are high environmental temperature, low humidity, and adequate ventilation” (Quigley, 2006, p. 17). When bodies desiccate, the soft tissue shrinks and the skin loses its elasticity. Often, the skin turns brown and has a texture resembling parchment. Extremely saline conditions can cause this type of mummification. In 2007, a man from 540 BCE was found completely preserved in the Chehrabad Salt Mine in Iran. Even his hair and beard were still intact. This is only one of six cases in Iran in which individuals had completely mummified due to the drying properties of salt. Several of these mummified remains are located at the Zanjan Anthropology Museum (Zanjan, Iran). Parts of another are located at the National Museum of Iran in Tehran. Similar examples are found in countries throughout the world that have dry and warm climates.
Another means of mummification that has been largely unexplored is the preservative effect of certain plants (Quigley, 2006). A number of bodies in San Bernardo, Columbia, were found completely mummified when unearthed, yet no one can adequately explain how the bodies were preserved. Locals believe that the bodies were preserved because the individuals had ingested large amounts of both guatila and balu, both native produce. “One elderly resident confesses that he never eats vegetables so that he can decompose properly after death and won’t become a mummy” (Quigley, 2006, p. 221). Although such statements are hardly scientific, it may indicate a correlation that has been noted between certain foods and lack of decomposition after death.
Some plants and herbs may have preservative qualities, and they may delay decomposition. “Natural plant products with antibacterial action are found in honey, cinnamon, vanilla, anise, black pepper, hops, and red pepper. Foods with antibacterial action include mushroom (Agaricus bisporus), cycad (nuts), Laburnum senecia, Crotoleria, Heliotropium, sassafras, and sesame seed. These plant products contain compounds that inhibit bacterial
Growth, especially when combined under heat with amino acid and simple carbohydrates, as would be present in mummified human remains” (Micozzi and Sledzik, 1992, p. 762).
The self-mummified monks of Yamagata all abstained from five types of cereals, but some of them did continue to eat other grains, such as black sesame, buckwheat, corn, and hie (barnyard) millet (Matsumoto, 2002).5 In conjunction with their meager intake of such grains, they ate certain berries, nuts, pine bark, and pine needles, which may have inhibited bacterial growth and assisted in their preservation after death.
The self-mummified monks were not embalmed or treated after death in order to mummify, but they did intend to mummify themselves. Besides their intense spiritual practices, they only altered their diets, and there is no evidence that this dietary change results in mummification. Therefore, though their mummification was not exactly accidental, they cannot be classified as having been intentionally mummified either. Vreeland (1998) has proposed three classifications:
This simple classification is as follows: Type I, natural mummification, caused by a number of factors (either singly or in combination) such as dryness, heat, cold, or absence of air in the burial unit or grave; Type II, intentional natural mummification, brought about by the intentional exploitation or deliberate enhancement of natural processes; Type III, artificial mummification, produced by a variety of techniques including evisceration, fire and smoke curing, and the application of such embalming substances as resins, oils, herbs, and other organic materials [p. 155].
The self-mummified monks of Yamagata Prefecture intended to mummify themselves through natural processes, so they would fall into Vreeland’s (1998) second category of mummy classifications. They did not make use of any embalming techniques, and their mummification was certainly not accidental. However, although many individuals (in the issei gyonin sect) ate the same foods and practiced the same spiritual and ascetic techniques, only some mummified. The reason why cannot be explained. In addition, Japan is an extremely humid country, and mummification by means of the monks’ limited practices was highly unusual and unlikely to occur (Sakurai et al., 1998).
World History
