October 29, 2011 The Wet Mummy
 

Not your average Halloween mummy, but a real live Ming Dynasty mummy!

http://cellar.org/2011/china-ming-dy...00_600x450.jpg

http://cellar.org/2011/china-ming-dy...98_600x450.jpg

They don't know who she was, but it looks as though she had a good family. She was buried with a lot of nice things, but wasn't royalty or anyone of importance.

She was a young woman, and very modern with purple hair, probably from something in the water.

She was buried with her exorcism coin, but it didn't keep water from leaking into her coffin. Instead of rotting her body, though, the water actually preserved her, turning her into a wet mummy.

A wet mummy is made when the water lacks oxygen, preventing bacteria from breaking down the body.

Follow the link to see some other great pictures.

via National Geographic

Photograph from Fame Pictures/Barcroft

I beg to differ.
Great IoTD though.

But why is she wearing a bomber hat?

I'll bet that was a unique scent when they opened that centuries-flooded coffin.

:greenface

Probably not much odor since there was no oxygen to contribute to decay.

600 years? Pffffft! It is to laugh.

Ötzi is 5300 years old.

You are right. We are ALL important.

Especially Grandads. My heartfelt condolences. I've been there. Let him live in the memories.

Peace.

I just watched Zombies: Living History on the History channel and they talked about how the Chinese would bind their dead so that they could not free themselves and come back to devour the living. Looks like they did a good job here. I just hope now that they excavated her, we don't see the Zompocaplyse start now.

The flesh from a genuine mummy is said to have a very distinct smell. It's smells like something very common, but, I can't for the life of me remember what it is.

Pine trees?

Many parts are edible.

--Euell Gibbons

I seem to remember reading it was like creosote?

Most of what I've found describing the scent involves the word "musty."

So, they don't smell like much of anything other than the cupboards they've been kept in in museum basements.

Seriously, though.
The first thing you do after digging up a centuries old body is to have a good sniff?

I retch if milk is on the turn.

ETA - googling suggests some smell of bitumin.
So creosote wasn't a bad stab in the dark.

There's a great Jake Thackray song The Jolly Captain, I think. His wife is a mean, bitter scold who curses him before she dies and swears she'll come back to haunt him if he re-marries.

Of course he remarries after a fortnight and his friends say he's made a mistake. He replies,
"No she won't come to haunt me or taunt me, I know. For I buried her face downward, she's a long way to go."