Mummy Mystery

Scientists say they know why the world’s oldest mummies have been turning to goo

Scientists say they know why the world’s oldest mummies have been turning to goo

Scientists believe the Chinchorro people began mummifying their dead around 2,000 years before the Egyptians.

Something strange has been happening at the University of Tarapacá’s archeological museum in Chile. Over the past several years, the museum’s famous Chinchorro mummies have been decaying at an alarming rate. In some cases, parts of the 7,000-year-old mummies have even turned into black ooze. 

Two years ago, scientists at Harvard began studying the mummies to figure out what was going on. “We wanted to answer two questions,” scientist Ralph Mitchell said in a press release. “What was causing it and what could we do to prevent further degradation?”

After months of testing mummy skin in the lab, Mitchell and his team believe they have solved the mystery. They say that extra humidity is to blame. The wetter weather allows tiny living things called microbes to thrive. And microbes are eating away at the mummies.

Scientists at Work

In the lab, the scientists exposed pig skin and then mummy skin to very moist air. After 21 days in the extra humid environment, both skin samples began to break down. “The water activates the microbes,” Mitchell told TFK.

So, what do moist conditions in a lab have to do with the mummies’ home in the museum? The mummies are from a group of people called the Chinchorro, who lived along the coastal region between modern-day Peru and Chile, close to the Atacama Desert. The Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on Earth. The dry air has helped to preserve the mummies for thousands of years.

But experts say the area, which is also where the museum is located, has recently become extra humid due to climate change. In order to prevent the mummies from continuing to rot, Mitchell’s team says the humidity in the museum must be kept between 40 and 60 percent. 

With this mummy mystery solved, Mitchell can lend his experience to other problems. He says climate change could cause harm to other ancient objects. “Is climate change making important artifacts vulnerable? The answer is yes,” he says. 

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The March For Justice Continues 50 Years Later

Remembering “Bloody Sunday” with hope for the future.

Remembering “Bloody Sunday” with hope for the future.

: President Barack Obama speaks in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 2015.

President Barack Obama was in Selma, Alabama, yesterday to cross the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge alongside tens of thousands of others. There, he made a speech that looked back on the 50^th anniversary of the historic “Bloody Sunday” civil rights march and discussed the issue of race in America today.

“There are places, and moments in America where this nation’s destiny has been decided. . . .  Selma is such a place,” President Obama said. “If Selma taught us anything, it’s that our work is never done—the American experiment in self-government gives work and purpose to each generation.”

Remembering the Past

On March 7, 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led 600 protestors on a 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to take a stand for African American voting rights. At the time, laws in southern states made it difficult for blacks to vote, despite the fact that the Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, gave African-American men the right to vote.

While crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the peaceful protestors were attacked by Alabama state troopers with tear gas and batons. The event became known as “Bloody Sunday.” Later that year, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which guaranteed all African Americans the right to vote by strengthening the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. (The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to people who had once been held as slaves.)

Luci Baines Johnson, daughter of President Lyndon B. Johnson, also attended yesterday’s march. She was 18 when her father signed the legislation. She remembered his words to her that day. “He said, ‘Luci Baines, we are going to Congress today and there are going to be many brave and extraordinary men and women there.’”
 

A Legacy That Lives On

In his speech, President Obama acknowledged the progress that has been made in the fifty years since the historic march.

“Because of campaigns like this, a Voting Rights Act was passed,” Obama said. “Political, economic, and social barriers came down, and the change these men and women wrought is visible here today in the presence of African-Americans who run boardrooms, who sit on the bench, who serve in elected office from small towns to big cities; from the Congressional Black Caucus to the Oval Office.”

He added, “Because of what they did, the doors of opportunity swung open not just for African-Americans, but for every American.”

President Obama reminded Americans that the fight for equality continues. He explained that people must work together to combat “roadblocks to opportunity” that many Americans face. With him at the march were his daughters Malia, 16, and Sasha, 13.

William Baldwin, 69, of Montgomery, brought his two grandsons, ages 11 and 15, to Sunday’s anniversary event. He said he wanted them to understand the importance of the historic march he took part in half a century earlier.

“They’re going to take this struggle on and we have to understand the price that was paid for them to have what they have now,” Baldwin said. “It wasn’t granted to them, it was earned by blood, sweat, and tears.” 

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