The ancient Egyptians weren’t the only ones that mummified their dead for the sake of posterity. In more modern times, there have been multiple examples of mummification, using a range of weird and wonderful techniques from simple embalming to submerging the cadaver in a chemical-filled preservation tank, or perfusing it with wax, effectively rendering the corpse a giant human candle.
Here we examine ten of the most famous examples of modern mummies, their stories, and some of the methods used to preserve them for eternity. The deceased range from an Argentinean First Lady, a Soviet Head of State and various members of a powerful Tuscan political dynasty, to Japanese monks, Catholic Saints and one blatantly bonkers leader of a modern American religious and philosophical cult (who can even mummify you if you fancy it).
Some of these people may have mummified themselves – while others were preserved by accident. Suspend your disbelief now, because a few of these stories are so flabbergastingly weird they simply have to be true.
1. Vladimir Lenin
As the cruel mastermind of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 and the first Head of State of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin was one of the most important and powerful leaders in world history. So it wouldn’t really have done for his body to be allowed to rot after he died in 1924.
Instead, Lenin’s corpse was embalmed and permanently exhibited in a Mausoleum in Moscow, for all to see. Initially, it had been hoped that his cadaver could by cryonically preserved in the hope of future resurrection, but the technology mercifully wasn’t available. (Under his ruthless protege Stalin, the Soviets would later steal thousands of precious artefacts from Germany at the end of WWII).
He’s still lying in his special tomb today, where he requires constant maintenance to remain intact. Lenin’s sarcophagus has to be kept at a temperature of 16°C, and a humidity of 80-90 percent. He needs moisturiser applied to his features, and preservatives injected under his clothes, daily. Once every 18 months, he gets a special chemical bath, while his suit gets ironed.
2. Eva Peron
The preserved corpse of this famous former First Lady of Argentina has had a tumultuous time of it. Eva “Evita” Peron’s body was embalmed almost immediately after her death in 1952 by Dr Pedro Ara – an expert in “the art of death” – using a special technique that involved replacing her blood with glycerine and perfusing her body with wax, thereby giving her a very lifelike appearance described as an “artistically rendered sleep.”
It hasn’t proven a very peaceful snooze. In 1955, a military dictatorship seized power in Argentina and imposed a ban on Peronism. Evita’s corpse was stolen – no one would find out its whereabouts for another 16 years, until it was revealed to be buried in a crypt in Milan, Italy (where guards are said to have done some unspeakably nasty things to it). Evita was exhumed in 1971, taken to Spain, then back to Argentina in 1974 and eventually buried in the Duarte family tomb in La Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, where she remains today.
No one will be pinching this mummy again in a hurry – Peron’s tomb is said to be so secure it could withstand a nuclear attack. Her embalmed body has been described by mummy expert Dr Bob Brier as the “gold standard” of mummification.
3. Vissarion Korkoliacos
Greek Orthodox monk Vissarion of the Agathonos Monastery, near Lamia in central Greece, died in 1991. He was a well-liked cleric who was respected for his humanitarian spirit, but he was no celebrity. At least, not in his lifetime.
When his tomb was opened in 2006, Korkoliacos’ body was found preserved in pristine condition – so pristine, said coroner Panayiotis Yamarelos, that it “was ready to talk to you.” A commotion immediately erupted, and the story hit headlines around the world when it was reported by Greek television.
The simple explanation is that Korkoliacos was mummified by mistake – it hadn’t been considered that the air-tight and bone dry conditions of his tomb were perfect for preserving his body. But Christians have ascribed divine cause to the event, and declared the incorruptibility of Korkoliacos’ body as proof of his sainthood. Thousands flocked to Agathonos to venerate his corpse after its discovery. They didn’t get much chat out of him, though.
4. Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov
A Buryat Buddhist lama of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov was the 12th Pandito Khambo Lama – essentially the Dali Lama of Russian Buddhists – from 1911 until 1927. But he’s even more famous for being perhaps the most perplexing mummy of them all.
Sensing that the end was near aged 75, Itigilov asked that his body be buried in the state it died, before assuming the lotus position to meditate, then quietly expiring some time later. As requested, he was laid to rest exactly as he sat, inside a pine box in a special cemetery in the locality of Khukhe-Zurkhen.
When Buddhist monks surreptitiously checked on the body – in 1955 and in 1973 – it was astonishingly found to have not decayed. The phenomenon was kept a secret from the Communist authorities, and Itigilov was only exhumed and revealed to the world many years after the break up of the USSR in 2002. It apparently remains “in the condition of someone who had died 36 hours ago.” He still has muscles, soft tissue and skin. Reportedly, Itigilov still bleeds if punctured.
No one can be sure how this natural mummification occurred, although Buddhists naturally believe it to be a divine event. Abnormally high levels of bromine in Itigilov’s skin and muscles is the best explanation scientists have so far been able to offer.
5. Jeremy Bentham
18th/19th century political radical Jeremy Bentham was a preacher of utilitarianism who advocated the abolition of slavery, greater rights for women and homosexuals, greater freedom of expression and the end of corporal and capital punishment. Right-on, dude.
He was a fascinating character in life, and he remains a subject of fascination in death – albeit as much for his pioneering liberal views as for the bizarre spectacle he requested be made of his corpse. Bentham’s will stated that he first wanted his body to be dissected as part of a public anatomy lecture. Then he wanted his head mummified and placed upon his skeleton in a wooden display cabinet called the Auto-icon.
His wishes were honoured, but the mummification job was botched, and Bentham’s head came out looking like a dried prune (shame our handy guide to how to make a mummy wasn’t around then). A wax replacement was created, and this was balanced on top of a body made from some of Bentham’s clothes stuffed with dry straw. The Auto-icon went on display in University College in 1850. It’s still there now.
Bentham’s badly mummified head was initially displayed on the floor between his feet, but it’s since been locked away, after it became subject to a few too many student pranks. Certainly beats pinching a traffic cone.
6. Rosalia Lombardo
The Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, Italy, are practically a museum of modern mummification, and represent perhaps the world’s most macabre tourist attraction. Here, between 1599 and the 1920s, over 8,000 regular residents of the city from many walks of life – priests, doctors, lawyers and their families – were mummified using a range of different techniques.
The last body preserved in the Capuchin Catacombs is probably its most famous. Rosalia Lombardo was a two-year-old girl who died of pneumonia. So distraught were her parents that they approached well-known embalmer Dr Alfredo Salafia to preserve her body. He did so with such expertise that her tiny corpse – which lies in a glass covered coffin in a small chapel at one end of the catacombs – has been given the nickname “Sleeping Beauty.”
The formula Salafia used has recently been derived from his memoirs. He replaced little girl’s blood with formalin, to kill bacteria, and used alcohol to dry her body out. He applied glycerin to keep her from overdrying and salicylic acid to kill fungi. The key ingredient was zinc salts to give the body rigidity. X-rays of Lombardo have shown her internal organs to be remarkably intact.
7. The Medici
About 50 bodies of the Medici grand Dukes of Tuscany – a famously nasty dynasty of politicians, bankers and royals – were buried in the crypts of the Medici Chapels between about 1434 and 1737, where they were sealed in such a way that some of them became naturally mummified. Many remain in a good state of preservation, but have only recently begun to be systematically examined.
Bob “Mr Mummy” Brier has been one of the experts involved with investigations into the Medici mummies since 2004. Research has proven that some of them have been given an unfairly bad press by historians. It’s commonly thought that the Medici were a ruthless, bloodthirsty bunch who weren’t averse to bumping each other off in fraternal spats, by stabbing, poisoning or strangulation. But histological tests have shown that disease was as much of a killer in the family.
“It was believed that some of the Medici killed each other,” Brier told Heritage Key in a recent interview, “murder, violence, all of that. But clearly some of them died of simple malaria.”
8. Shinnyokai Shonin
The Sokushinbutsu monks of northern Japan – followers of Shugendu, an ancient form of Buddhism – could never be accused of lacking dedication to their cause. Over two dozen of them committed the ultimate act of self-denial, by undertaking a three-year long ritual regime that resulted in their slow, agonising death and self-mummification.
For 36 months they ate a special strict diet of bark, nuts, roots and seeds, and drank only a vomit-inducing type of poisonous tea made from the sap of the Urushi tree. When the effects of this pitiful existence began to take their final toll, they each assumed the lotus position inside a tomb only just big enough for them to sit down in. Each day, the monks would ring a bell to indicate to people outside that they were still alive. When the bell ceased tolling, the tomb was sealed.
Shinnyokai Shonin of the Dainichi-Boo Temple on the holy Mount Yudono is the best-preserved of the 28 remaining Sokushinbutsu, 16 of which can still be visited. High levels of arsenic in the local spring is believed to have aided their suicidal quest for eternal preservation.
9. Nikolay Ivanovich Pirogov
The second most famous Russian on this list was nowhere near as powerful a figure as Vladimir Lenin, yet his body was embalmed with far greater skill and precision than that of the iron-fisted Soviet leader. Nikolay Ivanovich Pirogov was a prominent doctor and scientist in the 19th century, who pioneered field surgery and the use of ether as an anesthetic. After his death in 1881, his corpse was embalmed using ingenious techniques he had developed himself.
Whereas Stalin’s cadaver – as described above – needs unwavering conditions and round-the-clock maintenance 365 days a year to remain intact, Pirogov’s body – which lies in a church in Vinnitsa, Ukraine – survives completely untouched and unchanging, at room-temperature in a coffin with a glass lid. He apparently requires only an occasion brush, to remove dust.
10. Claude “Corkey” Nowell
Claude “Corkey” Nowell was a former funeral director from Utah, who in 1975, after what he claimed was an encounter with highly intelligent extraterrestrial beings, founded Summum – a religious and philosophical cult that seeks to spread the “gift” he received in the form of concepts pertaining to the nature of creation. To underscore his commitment to the cause, in 1980, Nowell changed his name to Summum Bonum Amon Ra. Would it be unfair to describe him as a fruitcake? Probably not.
Summum have become well-known as the first organisation in the modern world to offer a personal mummification service (check out their website if you don’t believe us, where you can download their brochure). They’ve already embalmed many deceased household pets so far, ala the ancient Egyptians.
After his death in 2008, Nowell became the first human to date to undergo the laborious Summun mummification service, which is estimated to require around 1,000 hours of work over the course of six months. It involves immersing the body in special fluids for 77 days, and the recital of a “spiritual will” to the body – written in advance of expiry by the deceased – on a daily basis throughout.
Nowell’s 2,000-pound bronze mummiform casket is currently on display in the group’s very own pyramid, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Book your mummification now before you kick the bucket – as the Summun website puts it: “some decisions are too important to leave to anyone else.”
