When you hear the word mummy, chances are you think of ancient Egypt. Many different cultures embalmed their deceased, however, and scientists have just found a particularly unexpected case.
As detailed in a study published today in the journal Frontiers in Medicine, researchers analyzed a well-preserved 18th-century mummy from a small Austrian village. The individual represents the first documented example of a previously unknown—and frankly strange—embalming method, which essentially involved shoving different things into the person’s rear end. But what’s more surprising is that it seems to have worked, allowing researchers to study the mysterious mummification process centuries later.
“The unusually well-preserved mummy in the church crypt of St Thomas am Blasenstein is the [corpse] of a local parish vicar, Franz Xaver Sidler von Rosenegg, who died in 1746,” Andreas Nerlich, a pathologist at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and first author of the study, said in a statement. “Our investigation uncovered that the excellent preservation status came from an unusual type of embalming, achieved by stuffing the abdomen through the rectal canal with wood chips, twigs and fabric, and the addition of zinc chloride for internal drying.”
While the head and lower extremities were in poor condition, the vicar’s upper body was completely intact. To study the mummy and identify the individual, the researchers conducted radiocarbon dating (a tried-and-true technique for dating organic material), CT scans (a type of X-ray image), and an autopsy. In the abdomen and pelvic cavity, they identified linen, flax, and hemp fabrics, as well as a bead, pieces of branches, and fir and spruce wood chips.
“Clearly, the wood chips, twigs, and dry fabric absorbed much of the fluid inside the abdominal cavity,” Nerlich explained. According to the statement, these were widely available materials in that region of Austria. Furthermore, the researchers found traces of zinc chloride in the mummy, which also dries materials.
Unlike the widely studied mummification process in ancient Egypt—where priests cut open the individual to remove and treat certain organs—inserting materials into the body via the rectum is a previously undocumented embalming method. “This type of preservation may have been much more widespread but unrecognized in cases where ongoing postmortal decay processes may have damaged the body wall so that the manipulations would not have been realized as they were,” Nerlich added.
The researchers revealed that Sidler von Rosenegg likely died between age 35 and 45, sometime between 1734 and 1780, which corresponds with what historians know about the vicar’s life. The results of their analyses also indicate that—besides some potential food shortages likely caused by the War of Austrian Succession—Sidler von Rosenegg lived a pretty good life. His skeleton doesn’t carry evidence of significant stress, and he ate a seemingly balanced diet of grains, animal products, and perhaps fish. He was a long-term smoker, however, and the researchers suggest he suffered from lung tuberculosis in his last days.
Ultimately, the study shows we still have a lot to learn about how past cultures treated their dead—even those as recent as 18th century Austria.