There's a Mummification Mystery in the Midsts of Portugal
Bodies are naturally mummifying and experts don't know why
Hiya!
I used to think our species has learned just about all there is to know about life on Earth. I figured that’s why we were in such a hurry to migrate toward Outerspace. Well, that and surviving global warming. I’ve since discovered how naive I was and most likely still am.
The Truth is we have no idea how much we don’t know about Life or Earth. Actually, we don’t know how much we don’t know, period — about anything. Even gravity remains an unproved theory, riddled with holes and contradictions.
Mysteries exist in every thought or feeling you experience and everywhere you look — and right now, Portugal has a doozy of one. For some reason, bodies aren’t decomposing as expected, which only further illuminates how little we understand about death… and life, for that matter.
Burial Laws in Portugal
As a reminder, the entire landmass of Portugal is over four times smaller than the state of California. Additionally, according to WorldAtlas, Portugal has a population of 10,299,000, whereas the United States has 331,894,000 people.
Portugal’s limited landmass presents a tricky situation. They only have so much space to dedicate to the dead, and coffins take up a lot of room after millennia. So in 1962, officials implemented a new law. Forensic anthropological investigator Ângela Silva Bessa involved with the current situation explains in an article by the Portugal Resident:
“The law says that after three years the corpse will be ready to be exhumed and, in the case of temporary graves, these can be reused. However, when cadaveric decomposition does not occur, inhumation (meaning, remaining in the ground) will have to continue, for successive periods of two years, in which every two years the body is dug up and the relatives are called to verify its state.”
See, it’s generally assumed that a body takes three to five years to decompose down to bones, hence the three-year rule. Then after a body decomposes, the bones are placed in a smaller container and stored in a more space-efficient location — such as a shelf in the cemetery.
And Portugal isn’t alone. Several other European countries are also forced to recycle graves to preserve space. Including France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland. However, Portugal is the only country facing a particularly unique predicament.
The Situation
Now we understand why Portugal is exhuming graves on a regular basis, but they’re facing a problem. The bodies aren’t all decomposing the way they’re supposed to. In fact, some of them aren’t decomposing at all. Not only are experts confused as to why, but the phenomenon is traumatizing the loved ones of the deceased.
See, allowing a loved one to be exhumed and relocated is troubling enough for most people, even though they understand why it must be done. But it’s far tougher when you have to go through it every couple of years and learn the decaying process of your loved one’s remains every time.
To make matters worse, the reason for the repeated exhuming is that some bodies are mummifying, and experts don’t know why. Even more bizarre is that the mummification effects don’t always occur throughout the entire body. Often only parts of the remains go through the transformation — like part of a leg or hand.
While this information may be new to us, it’s been going on for a while. A survey looking at the decomposition of bodies between 2006 and 2015 across eight cemeteries in Porto, Portugal’s second-largest city, found that between 55 and 64 percent were not fully decomposed after their first exhumation.
Mummification
The elaborate mummification procedures used throughout ancient Egypt are usually the first thing we think of when hearing about mummies. Well, unless we’re close to Halloween, in which case we envision a very different sort of mummy. But as I’m sure you noticed, I’m not talking about either of these versions.
Unlike the intentionality of Egyptian mummies, the ones in Portgual are happening naturally. And natural mummification occurs when a body dries out incredibly fast, which stops the decomposition process entirely in its tracks. It usually occurs in environments of either extreme heat, such as deserts, or intense cold, like glaciers.
In fact, in addition to the mummified bodies buried throughout Portugal’s cemeteries, in March earlier this year, archeologists also unearthed a mummified body that takes the title of the World’s Oldest Mummy. Experts say it’s at least 8,000 years old — 1,000 years older than the previous title holder discovered in the coastal region of Chile’s Atacama Desert. Although unlike the mystery mummies in the cemeteries, this one was intentionally mummified.
The Mystery
Unlike the new world’s oldest mummy, experts are dumbfounded by the mummies in the graveyards. Thankfully, researchers like Bessa and her colleagues are dedicated to finding answers as part of Bessa’s Ph.D. thesis project.
In addition to collecting samples from the soil around the mummified bodies from five cemeteries, Bessa also received consent from families involved to collect samples from the bodies. Not only is the fact that it’s happening in Portugal bizarre on its own, but the way it’s happening is odd. In an article by Insider about the find, Bessa said:
"It's quite astonishing. In the same section of the cemetery, I have different stages of decomposition. Even on the same body, I might have all the body skeletonized, the pelvis area is in putrefaction, and the hands mummified. So you can find a little bit of everything.”
If the typical natural mummification conditions are absent, then the next logical step would be to test the soil of the cemeteries — which is exactly what Bessa did. She and her team tested the acidity, density, heavy-metal contaminations, moisture, organic matter, and temperatures of the cemetery soil samples, all of which could affect a body’s decomposition rate.
So far, though, the reason for such widespread and seemingly randomized mummification in Portugal remains elusive. In the same Insider article, Bessa states:
"I honestly thought I would at least find a relation between the soil properties and the state of the composition of the body — And I didn't."
Since the environment doesn’t appear to play a role in this particular scenario, Bessa’s next step is to analyze the lives of the deceased. Specifically, whether they had any habits or consumed any substances — such as any medications, their diets, or whether they smoked — and if any of those may be a contributing factor.
Perspective Shift
Given our religious history and general respect for the dead, we usually try to avoid disturbing the remains of the recently deceased. But in this case, grave recycling has provided an intriguing insight into body decomposition.
Most research on the subject revolves around bodies above ground or in shallow unprotected graves, which is helpful for murder investigations but doesn’t provide much data about what happens to a body when it’s buried in a coffin.
Remember when people used to bury people with bells in their coffins, in case they weren’t actually dead? There are plenty of myths and rumors but little research about what happens to us there. Of course, just like Portugal’s situation with exhuming bodies, respect for both the dead and the living is also a big reason little progress has been made.
Still, I’m intrigued about what Bessa discovers — or doesn’t discover — next. Could random or partial mummification be a common effect of being buried in a coffin? I mean, perhaps the chemical composition of the coffin itself influences mummification in some way. Although, this appears to be a relatively recent shift in decomposition, considering we haven’t found this when exhuming older graves throughout the world.
I mean, could a person’s lifestyle while alive actually influence the chances of mummifying after death? Could a diet of highly processed foods with lots of preservatives literally preserve us too? Probably doubtful, but I guess we’ll have to wait to find out for sure.
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