An Open MindA mounted human head strikes a brain-teasing pose—just one of eight forgotten but stunningly preserved 19th-century Italian mummies whose secrets of preservation have only recently been unraveled.Working in the town of Salò, anatomist Giovan Battista Rini (1795-1856) "petrified" the corpses and body parts by bathing them in a cocktail of mercury and other heavy metals, according to new chemical analyses and CT scans, to be described in a future issue of the journal Clinical Anatomy.The study marks the first time a collection of Italian mummies made for anatomy studies has been analyzed in detail, according to study team member Dario Piombino-Mascali, a forensic anthropologist at the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman in Bolzano, Italy.(Pictures: "Lifelike 'Wet Mummy Found During Roadbuilding.")—James Owen
Photograph courtesy Dario Piombino-Mascali, EURAC, and Clinical Anatomy/Wiley

Mummy Pictures: Secrets of Stunning 19th-Century Heads Revealed

Their heads may be peeled like onions, and they may be 150 years old, but these Italian mummies are oddly lifelike. Now we know why.

February 19, 2012

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