Human Mummies

On 15-17 September, 1993, Innsbruck, Austria, search. Another remarkable case, that of the pre-Colum­ hosted the International Mummy Symposium. This bian miner from Restauradora Mine near Chuqincamata does not mean that beautiful North Tyrol was the setting in northern Chile, is the result of impregnation with for a gathering of the world's most prominent mummies copper salts, and the mummy became an attraction as themselves, but rather the exciting discovery of a Late "Copper Man" at various fairs around the country. As he Neolithic glacial mummy released from the ice of the was found with a complete set of miner's tools, the Otztal Alps provided the focus of attention for numerous mummy offers a unique insight into the life and working scholars from many different parts of the world to come conditions of an Indio miner of the first millennium AD. together to address various questions relating to mum­ Even so, the mummified remains comprise only the skel­ mified human remains. eton with a completely rigid covering of skin, whereas Normally researchers studying the remains of histori­ the other soft parts have not survived. calor prehistoric human bodies will at best have bony In contrast, mummification in ice, and especially in substance to work on. It is rarely the case that soft parts the permafrost, can produce much better results.

This volume comprises the proceedings of the International Mummy Symposium held in Innsbruck, Austria, on 15-17 September 1993. The variety of the reports is considerable, ranging from the 10,000 year old mummies of the Andes and the corpses found in various fens and bogs to less well known finds from central China. In the context of the Tyrolean Iceman, the permafrost corpses of the Arctic region are highly meaningful, of course, especially with regard to the comparability of the natural processes of mummification. In addition to providing a thorough overview of the various mummies found worldwide, the international Mummy Symposium focused especially on aspects of conservation and the preservation of soft parts. As far as visualisation techniques are concerned, the emphasis is on non-invasive methods such as computer tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. The book closes with a separate section devoted to the progress made to date in researching the Tyrolean Iceman. In keeping with the topic of Symposium, the research results relate to the natural processes of conservation in this five-thousand year old glacial mummy from the Austrian Alps.