Undying Dread: A 400-Year-Old Corpse, Locked to Its Grave

Re:Undying Dread: A 400-Year-Old Corpse, Locked to Its Grave by jaclaz on Tuesday September 12, 2023 @12:57PM (#37484195)

Basically, clay or any other condition/material that insulates the body from oxigen (ground burials or sealed tombs).

I wouldn't dare to say that weeks or month after death a corpse can still be "fresh", but in some places when/if you open a buried coffin after 5 years or so it is not rare that there has been not enough decomposition to allow the transfer of the body to an ossuary.

There are "aerated" tombs devised to accelerate the decomposition:

https://www.mdpi.com/2673-6756/2/3/37

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Re:Undying Dread: A 400-Year-Old Corpse, Locked to Its Grave by cm2187 on Tuesday September 12, 2023 @04:14PM (#37487520)

On the opposite side I remember that researchers were (cautiously) harvesting the original strain of the spanish flu and performing a modern autopsy on its victims by opening lead coffins which preserved well enough the body after a century.

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Re:Undying Dread: A 400-Year-Old Corpse, Locked to Its Grave by jaclaz on Wednesday September 13, 2023 @03:53AM (#37493543)

I think you are referring to Sir Mark Sykes (BBC made a documentary on that a few years ago):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Sykes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Sykes#Exhumation_for_biol...

but it seems like the attempt was not successful, the lead coffin was broken and the body was not as well preserved as it was expected.

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