The Mummies of Germany

I learned something new today: the aristocracy of 17th and 18th century Germany mummified their corpses and put them in specially prepared mausoleums. Knowledge of the practice seems to have been completely lost, until conservators and church officials began finding the mummified corpses during restoration projects:

About 1,000 mummified bodies in German noblemen's graves have been discovered and cataloged so far. The vaults contain children as well as adults, their clothes are sometimes still in remarkably good condition. Often the tombs also contain burial objects: Combs, spices, coins, and in one case, a shaving brush.

The surprising number of tombs containing mummified remains leads researchers to the conclusion that it was not random. "For a long time, I believed that mummification was more of an accidental corollary of the way people were buried in those days," Ströbl says. New evidence suggests something different: In this early modern period did many of the rich and aristocratic deliberately have themselves buried in this way so that their remains would be preserved?

I foresee a new genre of mummy movies, in which the corpse brought back to life is, not an ancient pharaoh, but a Prussian aristocrat. Much scarier.