[GODREKR]

A 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.

A motley assemblage of mummified heads and busts from the 1800s in various states of anatomical undress await their turn on a CT scanner in a hospital near Salò, Italy—a long way from their home in a Brescia, Italy, hospital.

Intended for teaching and study, the collection was made using a method known as petrification. The technique, which substitutes organic for mineral matter, has made the specimens very hard.

"They have a wooden consistency," said Piombino-Mascali, a past grantee of the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. (The Society owns National Geographic News.)

"In Italy we had several people who petrified human cadavers" in the 19th century, he added. "Some of them really made a great job."

The witchlike appearance of a 19th-century woman's disembodied head (pictured in a CT scanner) is heightened by fake eye caps and hair long ago added for realism.

Scans revealed that the mummies' original eyes, though shrunken, had survived behind the prosthetic versions.

Giovan Battista Rini, who made the mummies, "wanted to make them as realistic as possible, and perhaps he used the real eye to support the fake eye that was put on it," Piombino-Mascali said.

This mummified male head and shoulders were purposely taken apart to show muscles, airways, blood vessels, and other inner workings.

The cadavers were preserved by immersion in chemical baths and by injecting mercury and other minerals into internal body tissues, according to the new study.

"Because there are some vessels that are completely preserved, we have the feeling both techniques were used," since the chemical baths wouldn't have been enough to fully preserve internal tissues, Piombino-Mascali said.

Fresh bodies supplied to Rini for his human "petrification" work in the 1800s (such as this male seen in an Italian lab) didn't come only from the hospital where he worked. For instance, two of the mummified corpses in the study belonged to outlaws, Piombino-Mascali said.

Regardless of their provenance, cadavers made to demonstrate internal body parts had their skin and subcutaneous tissue removed prior to preservation.

This was likely done with surgical tools, although reports from the period say that meat-eating insects such as maggots were also sometimes employed, Piombino-Mascali said.

CT scans show a mummified head (see the first slide in this gallery) that in the 19th century was surgically cut and peeled to expose the brain.

Chemical analysis of small pieces that had broken off the antique exhibits showed that "an enormous amount of mercury" was used to petrify the human body parts and organs, Piombino-Mascali said. Potassium, iron, barium, and arsenic were also among the preservatives Rini used.

"These chemical substances were probably mainly heavy metals, which would have saturated the piece and made it stone-like," he added.

It might be more than 150 years old, but this Italian anatomical mummy, like others in Rini's collection, may look familiar to anyone who's seen the popular "Body Worlds" exhibitions of "plastinated" human corpses.

Whereas Rini's "petrification" technique involved replacing the body's organic matter with minerals, plastination fills human tissue cells with polymers, said Peter Kiefer, spokesperson for the Institute for Plastination, the Heidelberg, Germany-based organization behind "Body Worlds." (See pictures of "Body Worlds" corpses.)

Kiefer agreed that the two collections are strikingly similar looking, despite being centuries apart—and he may soon be able to examine the anatomical antiques up close, along with the rest of the public.

Plans are afoot, study co-author Piombino-Mascali said, for a "Body Worlds"-style display of the 19th-century mummies in a Salò museum.

[Kelseecat65]

Very cool post!!

[Ratzerfratzer]

The first guy is like a brain basket.

[vagabond]

Very interesting! That guy was ahead of his time

[drusilladimitria]

Take that, Body Worlds!

[murofhsirgo]

outstanding post thanks, very curious and the dude had skill. hope he didnt die of 'mad as a hatter' mercury poisoning:(

[Sharon]

Incredible, thanks for posting this

[T2]

That is awesome!!

[kellyhound]

now that's cool

[jlip22]

Great post