CT tells mummy's secret: Preservation no accident

Seattle Times ^ | Sunday, November 20, 2005 | Keith Ervin

[SunkenCiv]

Legend has it that two cowboys found Sylvester's dried-out body as they rode across Arizona's Gila Bend Desert in 1895. But the researchers say the brain and other internal organs are so extraordinarily well-preserved because an embalmer injected an arsenic-based fluid shortly after death. The body subsequently dried out, or mummified... It was the team's second trip here to study Sylvester, whose dark-brown, leathery body has stood in a glass case since the 1950s at Ye Olde Curiosity Shop on the Seattle waterfront... Equally impressed by the mummy was Andrew Jesberger, MRI manager of Inland Pacific Imaging. He pointed at the image of Sylvester's tongue, which remains intact. That means the tongue still has moisture, he said.

[SunkenCiv]

Jerry Conlogue, co-director of the Bioanthropology Research Institute at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, views Sylvester during CT scanning. Months of study are planned on thousands of medical images, but the cause of Sylvester's death may never be known.

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[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

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[tet68]

I can hardly wait till they do this with Nancy Pelosi,
I'll bet she's filled with Formalin also.

[SunkenCiv]

I kinda wonder if "Sylvester" was injected with arsenic to kill him, then dumped out of the wagon, where he was then found some weeks or months later.

[gnarledmaw]

He looks like he was holding something when his body was placed in its final position. Whatever lead to his death is hard to say but I dont think he was dumped. If his corpse was dumped fresh the arms wouldnt be in that position and if someone took care of the fresh corpse to arrange his arms then I doubt they would have dumped him once rigor mortis had set in.

[Freedom4US]

I've seen that. I used to drive 50 miles up I-5 from Ft. Lewis to a place right next door to YOCS, just to get a bowl of some killer clam-chowder and ho-jos for only a couple bucks.

[SunkenCiv]

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