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

Head Trip

Photograph courtesy Dario Piombino-Mascali, EURAC, and Clinical Anatomy/Wiley

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."

(See a picture of the Sicilian "Sleeping Beauty" mummy also studied by Piombino-Mascali.)

Published February 17, 2012

Had Some Work Done

Photograph courtesy Dario Piombino-Mascali, EURAC, and Clinical Anatomy/Wiley

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.

(Pictures: Millions of Puppy Mummies in Egypt Labyrinth.)

Published February 17, 2012

Inside Job

Photograph courtesy Dario Piombino-Mascali, EURAC, and Clinical Anatomy/Wiley

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.

(Explore our interactive human body.)

Published February 17, 2012

Petrified

Photograph courtesy Dario Piombino-Mascali, EURAC, and Clinical Anatomy/Wiley

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. (Video: Human Body 101.)

Published February 17, 2012

Mind-Blowing

Image courtesy Dario Piombino-Mascali, EURAC, and Clinical Anatomy/Wiley

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.

(Pictures: Mystery of the Tattooed Mummy.)

Published February 17, 2012

Worlds of Difference?

Photograph courtesy Dario Piombino-Mascali, EURAC, and Clinical Anatomy/Wiley

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.

More: "Cadaver Exhibition Draws Crowds, Controversy in Florida" >>

Published February 17, 2012