Kept in the crypt of a church in a remote in a village in Austria A set of unusual human remains has been a rich source of rumors and speculation.
Local tradition suggested that the mummified body thought to be from a cleric eighteenth century that succumbed to an infectious disease, had been removed from a tomb a few years after death and transferred to the crypt of St. Thomas Am Blasenstein Church a church in a village north of the Danube River in Austria.
The miracle preservation of the body – with the skin and intact tissues – then attracted pilgrims who believed that the remains could have healing properties. Centuries later, a capsule -shaped object detected on a mummy radiography revealed that the cleric may have had a more sinister end, suggesting that he could have been poisoned.
Now a team of scientists is offering new insights on many of the unanswered questions that surround the mysterious mummy, nicknamed “air -dried chaplain”. Revelations come after a recent restoration caused by a crypt water leakage, which created an unexpected opportunity to perform a cutting -edge scientific analysis at the corpse.
“We took the mummy for a few months to take exams with our specialized teams, computerized tomography, and so on. Meanwhile, they had time to restore,” said Andreas Nerlich, professor of medicine at Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, who led the research. “It was an advantageous situation for both of them. We had enough time to do a perfect analysis.”
Through computed tomography, radiocarbon dating, and chemical analysis of bone and tissue samples, nerlich and their colleagues were able to confirm the identity of the mummy and determine the unique way the body was preserved for so long. The researchers reported their findings in an article published on Friday in the magazine Frontiers in Medicine .
An unknown embalmed method
The biggest surprise of the study came as a result of computed tomography: scientists found that the abdominal and pelvic cavity of the mummy was full of material such as pine and spruce wood chips, linen, hemp and linen fabric, including some delicately embroidered. Additional toxicological analyzes revealed traces of zinc chloride and other elements.
“It was really unexpected because the walls of the body were completely intact,” he said.
To explain this apparent contradiction, the team theorized that the material was probably inserted through the rectum. And the researchers believe it is the mix of materials that kept the mummy in its apparent dry state in the air.
“The chips and the fabric would have held the water. Zinc chloride would have a drying effect and would reduce the bacteria load in the intestine,” nerlich explained.
This method of embalming differs from the best known methods used in ancient Egypt, in which it is necessary to open the body. The technique seen in the cleric had not been recorded in the scientific literature earlier, Nerlich added.
He believes that the method, although not recorded in textbooks of the time, may have been widely used in the eighteenth century to preserve a corpse for transport or display.
The practices of mummification They were probably much wider and diverse in the past, said Gino Caspari, archaeologist and editor of “The Book of Mummies: An Introduction to the Realm of the Dead.”
When examined with new interdisciplinary analysis techniques, the mummy They offer a richer source for the study of the past than purely skeletal remnants, Caspari added. “We can get a lot of knowledge from mummified remains: this ranges from the study of medical diseases and treatments to the use of substances and cultural aspects such as attitudes towards death and body,” said Caspari, who did not participate in the research.
Although it is clear that the “dry chaplain” is not a natural mummy, more detailed analyzes are needed to definitively state whether zinc chloride was used to preserve the remains, said Marco Samadelli, senior researcher at the Erac Research Mummies Institute, a private research institute in Bolzano, Italy, where the Mumzi, the man Ice.
Samadelli noted that small amounts of arsenic, a well -known embalming agent, were also detected in the mummy.
Decoding the identity of the mummy
The team concluded that the mummified body was Franz Xaver Sidler Von Rosenegg, an aristocrat who was a monk before becoming a vicar of the Parish of St. Thomas Am Blasenstein for about six years.
He died while in this position in 1746 at the age of 37. Among the locals, the mummy was considered Sidler, although there was no written evidence in this regard, according to the study.
Radiocarbon dating from the specimen placed the year of his death between 1734 and 1780, and body analyzes suggested an age in death between 30 and 50 years, with the most plausible range between 35 and 45 years. The dates, in both cases, coincide with what is known about the end of Sidler, the study observed.
In addition, the study of chemical isotopes – variants of carbon and nitrogen that reflect proteins from plants or animals consumed – from a bone sample taken from the mummy spine has revealed a high quality grain -based diet and a large proportion of meat.
“This is well aligned with the expected of the rural food supply of a local vicar,” wrote the study’s authors in their article, adding that the absence of stress in the skeleton matched the life of a priest without intense physical activity.
However, the study found that, at the end of the cleric’s life, he may have experienced food shortages, perhaps caused by the war of Austrian succession that was underway at the time.
What killed the “dry chaplain”?
The vicar, which had the habit of smoking for a long time, was not poisoned, the study determined. Instead, the researchers believe that he suffered from chronic tuberculosis, which may have killed him by causing acute pulmonary bleeding.
Inside the mummy, the researchers found a small glass sphere with holes at both ends – perhaps part of a set of rosary accounts accidentally trapped in the embalming material. This item, said Nerlich, was the bullet -shaped object that was detected on a radiography held in the early 2000s, which raised suspicions of a poisonous capsule.
The team also found no evidence that the body had been buried and exhumed, Nerlich added. The greater probability is that the body had been prepared to travel back to the “mother monastery” of the vicar, 15 kilometers away, but for lost reasons in time, the corpse was left in the church crypt without ever embarking on its final journey.
This content was originally published in a mummy of the eighteenth century is well preserved due to unusual embalming on the CNN Brazil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
Charles Grill is a tech-savvy writer with over 3 years of experience in the field. He writes on a variety of technology-related topics and has a strong focus on the latest advancements in the industry. He is connected with several online news websites and is currently contributing to a technology-focused platform.
