*Photos Added* Mummy Murder Mystery: Incan Woman Victim of Foul Play

[DiamondSmiles]

Stephanie Panzer, Oliver Peschel, Brigitte Haas-Gebhard, Beatrice E. Bachmeier, Carsten M. Pusch, Andreas G. Nerlich

February 26, 2014

A mysterious mummy that languished in German collections for more than a century is that of an Incan woman killed by blunt force trauma to the head, new research reveals.

The story began in the 1890s, when Princess Therese of Bavaria acquired two mummies during a trip to South America. One was soon lost, but the other somehow made its way to the Bavarian State Archaeological Collection in Munich.

To learn more about the enigmatic remains, Andreas Nerlich, a paleopathologist at Munich University, and his colleagues put the mummy through a computed tomography, (CT), scanner.

From the outside, the mummy's head looked fairly normal, but the frontal bones of the skull were completely destroyed.

"She must have received a couple of really severe hits by a sharp object to her skull just before her death," which killed her, Nerlich told Live Science.

The woman's skull structure, diet, (determined by isotopes found in the hair), and hairbands woven from alpaca or llama hair point to a South American origin.

One possibility is that she was killed in a ritual murder, just as other Incan mummies were.

"She might have been chosen as a victim for a ritual murder, because she was so ill and it might have been clear that she might have lived only for a relatively short period," Nerlich said.

Nerlich's findings are available on the journal PLOS ONE

— Tia Ghose, Live Science

This is a condensed version of a report from Live Science. Read the full story here. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%...l.pone.0089528.

[TwistedSisterr]

Can you even begin to imagine what will surface in the future from the here and now? between lost/forgotten about items to lost, murdered and missing people.... one day its going to be news about us
I wish I could be around to see the reaction!!

[Shadedwill]

I like the title. It has added alliterative appeal.

[Megamel29]

How do they know the damage to her skull was from just before she died and not from improper storage? I know they can tell on a 'fresh' corpse but on a very old skeleton?

Also, is she missing the calf bones or are her legs bent up really tight?

[Pyramid_Head]

Wonder if they'll get the murderer.

[gatagato]

Now that's what you call a cold case!

[DiamondSmiles]

Originally Posted by gatagato

Now that's what you call a cold case!

Yes. I must write to, "Cold Case Files."

They keep showing the same damned cases over and over. As soon as I see the victim or the crime scene, I know the case and the outcome.

[oldnorseman]

She was one of mankind's early pointers.

[Photoplay]

Originally Posted by oldnorseman

She was one of mankind's early pointers.

[DiamondSmiles]

I found her a date

http://www.documentingreality.com/fo...0/#post4139015