Detecting salt mummies from 1,800 years ago

The corpse of a man preserved in a natural salt mine for 1,800 years in northwestern Iran has been discovered and remains quite intact .

During the period of the Roman Empire, only after the collapse of ancient Persia (present-day Iran), a salt mine worker in northwestern Iran was killed after a catastrophic rock fall. About 1,800 years later, the man's body was preserved in a newly discovered salt mine, and remains quite intact.

This news has been published in Iranian newspapers and appeared in a cultural organization Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies.

Because salt works to prevent bacterial growth and acts as a moisturizer, the body of the ill-fated victim has become a rare natural mummy. This is the sixth 'saltman' found in the Chehr Abad salt mine in Zanjan province.

This is a very accidental discovery. Heavy rains have revealed mummies located deep in the earth about 20cm in a mine tunnel. Besides this body, the researchers also found more leather shoes, a leather bag, a terracotta lamp and two young cow horns in the mine. These horns are probably used to store oil for miners to light up when working.

The corpses of these ill-fated workers have been preserved for centuries by salt, accidentally discovered by a heavy rain (Photo: CAIS).

Relocating this mummy from the current preservation environment can cause bad effects, so archaeologists hope to continue it at the site.

Hassan Fazeli Nashli, director of the Iranian Archeology Research Center (Iran's Archeology Research Center), explained that he and his colleagues are still facing many difficulties in preserving 5 other excavated mummies 14 last year.

He added: 'Those mummies are very suitable for conducting future studies.'

Johan Reinhard, a leading researcher at The Mountain Institute (the study of life issues in the mountains) in West Virginia, USA, said: 'Chops are more valuable than diamonds. . They are very rare and contain a lot of information. '

Jobs such as DNA testing, blood sampling, and other operations are possible because mummies are stored in very low temperature environments.

Reinhard said: 'The mummy's DNA is almost perfect, as if they just lost.'

Such information can provide research on ancient people's diets, each person's health before death, and the type of plant that exists in the environment of the deceased. Reinhard said a sapling preserved in a mummy's garment is the remains of 17 ancient plant species.

So far, this mummy remains in his grave .

Manh Duc