Corpse preservation
Corpse preservation is a collective term for various methods of preserving the remains of human or animal bodies for as long as possible.
The preservation of a corpse can be brought about through the natural occurrence of favorable conditions or through consciously introduced artificial measures. They prevent or delay, physically and chemically , the natural processes of decay that are caused by various factors after death. The extent and durability of the conservation achieved varies greatly.
Conceptual provisions
Embalming, mummification, mummification
Depending on the extent and durability of a corpse preservation, one can speak of embalming or the process of mummification or mummification, whereby the end result of permanent preservation in particular is referred to as “ mummy ” or “mummified”. Although the terms mentioned should not be equated, they are closely related:
- Mummification itself describes the natural process of long-term corpse conservation
- Mummification itself refers to the long-term preservation of corpses that is artificially brought about by special processes
- Embalming in itself describes a temporary conservation of corpses that is artificially brought about by special procedures, without long-term preservation being the goal from the outset.
In German , all three terms are often used synonymously for any type of corpse preservation, without a distinction being made between the underlying physical and chemical processes. The lay language usage can easily lead to misunderstandings. For reasons of the lack of linguistic delimitation, it is often controversial as to when a preserved corpse can now be described as embalmed or mummified. Occasionally, conservation methods, which in themselves should only have a temporary effect, have resulted in permanent conservation. The regularly repeated use of temporary conservation methods can also lead to long-term preservation of a corpse (e.g. in the case of Lenin ). Finally, in many cases, natural conditions for the preservation of corpses have combined with man-made processes. The transitions between embalming, mummification or mummification are fluid. In contrast to this, even corpses well preserved over thousands of years can be quickly destroyed by natural decay processes if the environmental or environmental conditions change. A definition is also difficult because originally only Egyptian corpses were referred to as mummies and the term was only later extended to corpses obtained elsewhere.
The term “mummies” has been used longest for the corpses from ancient Egypt that were artificially prepared by specialists . In addition, so-called desert mummies are also known from Egypt, which were not conserved by specialists, but - on the contrary - were buried in simple ground graves without special conservation measures, where they quickly dried out due to the dryness of the environment and thus solely due to the favorable natural conditions have received. Such in different ways, of course, preserved corpses are found in many parts of the world, for example in bogs (so-called bog bodies ), in mountains or permafrost (called permafrost bodies ) or in buildings that drought and drafts the preservation of corpses also favor (for B. the Capuchin Crypt in Palermo ). The common feature of such corpses is that the original preservation happened by chance, i.e. without consciously initiated conservation measures. Many of these corpses have to be regularly restored after their discovery .
Natural and artificial preservatives
A sharp distinction between naturally and artificially preserved corpses is also not unproblematic, since since time immemorial dead bodies have been deliberately buried in places known to have a preservative effect, with the aim of preserving their corpses for as long as possible. In this way z. B. the mentioned Capuchin Crypt in Palermo is a popular burial place for the local upper class. Since the discovery of the natural conservation properties of this crypt in the 16th century, the number of burials there has steadily increased. In order to cope with the growing number of dead, the monks of the Capuchin monastery in Palermo soon no longer relied solely on the natural preservation properties of the crypt, but also used artificial means to preserve the corpses. These range from dusting the corpse with calcium carbonate ( chalk , lime , milk of lime ) to treating it with arsenic . Natural conditions for the preservation of the corpses were combined in this way with various artificial methods developed by human hands.
Of the purely artificial methods of preserving corpses, the technique of mummification in ancient Egypt is probably the best known today. For religious reasons, the body of the deceased should be preserved as permanently as possible “for all time” even after the burial, in order to enable the soul to recognize the body even after death. As part of this procedure, the corpse was treated with mixtures of resins and essential oils ( balms ), which could slow down the natural processes of decay, but in itself did not constitute a permanent preservation. The use of balsam for corpses was widespread in ancient times in the Orient ; Among other things, the practice of anointing the dead is also mentioned in the New Testament in connection with the burial of Jesus Christ , e.g. B .: " Nicodemus [...] brought a mixture of myrrh and aloe , about a hundred pounds . They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it in linen cloths, with the spices in, as is the custom at Jewish burial. " ( Jn 19,39-40 EÜ ). The term “ embalming ” is derived from this , which refers to methods of artificial corpse preservation, but which do not necessarily have to be designed for long-term preservation of the corpse.
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Conservation measures are sometimes carried out for practical reasons, for example when a corpse is to be transported over a longer period of time before its final burial or to be exhibited in public without its condition changing due to rot and putrefaction . Long-term preservation even after burial, such as in ancient Egypt, is not always aimed at. Rather, the focus is on ensuring the aesthetically perfect laying out of a deceased by means of measures that are known today as " thanatopraxia " or "practical thanatology ". These are services that go beyond the hygienic care of the dead , for example the preservation of a corpse for the purpose of transporting it abroad, laying it out in an open coffin for a longer period of time and / or in a public building (e.g. church , theater ). Temporary conservation nowadays mainly takes place in places where it is customary for the deceased to be laid out openly before the final burial, such as in the USA , Great Britain , Russia or Armenia . To temporarily preserve a corpse, thanatopractors today use a "preventive treatment" known in the UK and the US as " modern embalming ." The final burial takes place after the laying out either by burial or by cremation .
Extent and durability
The extent and durability of corpse preservation can be varied in individual cases depending on the requirements. For burial in a crypt or a mausoleum , conservation is not absolutely necessary for hygienic reasons, as the use of a metal coffin, sealed stone sarcophagus or an airtight insert made of zinc within a wooden coffin is required. In some countries there are also regulations that prohibit preservation measures altogether in the case of infectious diseases.
Since the early 19th century, corpses have been preserved by injecting a mixture of alcohol and arsenic (III) oxide into the bloodstream , removing the heart, brain and intestines. The results that can be achieved in this way are very different. While in many cases only temporary conservation was achieved for several months or years, other corpses proved to be dry and well preserved even in the 21st century. This suggests that the bodies have been preserved to a large extent due to favorable conditions, i.e. a combination of natural and artificial corpse preservation is present.
From the middle of the 19th century, the discovery of formaldehyde revolutionized the artificial preservation of corpses, so that - assuming a correspondingly high dosage of chemicals - a long-term preservation of the corpse became possible. With this procedure the corpses of the communist politicians Lenin , Hồ Chí Minh , Mao Zedong , Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-il were preserved in order to preserve them permanently for posterity. Their bodies are usually described as embalmed, although they could also be considered mummies due to the artificially created and long-term preservation.
Summary
The consistent delimitation of the terms embalming, mummification and mummification from one another seems difficult to implement , despite the differences discussed above, due to their common synonymous use in the German-speaking area . In archaeological science , the problem of the lack of linguistic delimitation between “embalmed” and “mummified” is circumvented by the fact that the term “mummy” is not defined in a binding manner. A definition is also difficult because originally only Egyptian corpses were referred to as mummies and the term was only later extended to corpses obtained elsewhere. So z. B. also known corpses from the Paracas culture or from the Thule culture as mummies. The term is not limited to corpses that have been artificially preserved for a long time, but also includes, in a broader sense, those that have survived solely due to the favorable natural conditions, such as bog corpses and glacier mummies . In Germany, archaeologists avoid the term as much as possible because it is associated too much with Egyptian finds.
Requirements for corpse preservation
In order to preserve a human or animal body in whole or in part, those biological processes of decomposition or degradation that occur naturally after death and in particular through microorganisms such as mold and yeasts or putrefactive bacteria must be stopped early and effectively prevented , but also autolysis , insect infestation , oxidation , swelling or enzyme reactions .
The decay of the organic material as a result of putrefaction or putrefaction comes to a standstill, in particular, if the relevant dead body is subject to environmental conditions that are unfavorable for the life of the organisms involved, such as cold , drought , toxicity and lack of oxygen . For example, cold with low temperatures well below the freezing point of water favors the preservation of corpses, since fungi and bacteria need heat in order to be able to develop. Drought with an arid climate and high evaporation rates of water, which lead to loss of body moisture and dehydration of the tissue , are also conducive to conservation. The absence of oxygen and the embedding in a toxic environment also inhibits the natural decay process.
Conditions favorable to the preservation of corpses can come about in a wide variety of ways, both through natural conditions and through consciously introduced artificial measures (see below).
Successful corpse preservation in humans or animals is in most cases characterized by the absence of putrefaction and putrefaction as well as the preservation of soft tissues , proteins and sometimes cell structures. Sometimes naturally occurring environmental conditions and measures artificially introduced by humans complement each other, for example when a corpse treated with chemicals is stored in an airtight coffin in a cool and dry environment.
If the conditions are favorable, a dead human or animal body can be preserved in different quality for several thousand years, but is sensitive to changes such as humidity or higher temperatures. If the corpse is stored on the surface of the earth, if the conditions favorable for preservation cease to exist, the organic matter will usually quickly decay, weathering or destruction by microorganisms.
Natural preservation of corpses
As mummification of course running process of a long-term preservation corpse without human intervention is called. This form of corpse alteration and preservation can come into play if the prerequisites for preservation (see above) come about naturally.
Artificial preservation of corpses
As mummification of initiated by people through special procedures process of long-term preservation corpse is called. This form of corpse alteration and preservation can come into play if the prerequisites for preservation (see above) are artificially created.
Early history to the Middle Ages
Old Egypt
America
Different peoples of South America made similar efforts with their dead as the Egyptians. In contrast to these, their mummies were not buried lying in an outstretched position, but sitting and crouching.
Mummification is controversial among the Chinchorro (Chile): They deflated the body, supported the bones with sticks and covered them with a kind of plaster of paris. They stuck the skin on it and painted it black. This means that approx. 80% of the original organic material was not preserved or was taken into account.
In Central and South America z. For example, in Paracas the people of the cavern culture put their deceased in innumerable layers of thick fabrics and preserved them in this way. Peruvian mummies are found in a crouching position, covering their faces with both hands.
Asia
Probably the best preserved mummy in the world was found in China in 1972–1973 . In Mawangdui in the central Chinese province of Hunan , the preserved body of a person around 160 BC was discovered. Woman who died worldwide under the name " Lady von Dai ". Your joints are still soft and blood can be drawn. However, mummification was not brought about by removing body parts or by dehydration and seems to depend on various factors (burial in cool earth; several airtight, canted coffins; a red liquid in the coffin). It comes from the Han Dynasty .
Practices of self-mummification are also known from China, which were practiced by Daoist monks in the 5th and 6th centuries AD. They wanted to achieve "immortality". In doing so, they learned to control physical processes through meditation techniques and changed their diet. The monks then brought about death by sealing their digestive organs by drinking lacquer tree sap. The bodies were then steam dried and again sealed with varnish.
Practices of self-mummification are also known from Japan . The practice of sokushinbutsu practiced here by Buddhist monks is intended to achieve a self-initiated preservation of corpses by following a special sequence of actions (especially dieting and refusal to drink). Sokushinbutsu was banned in the 19th century; the last known priest died in 1903 while practicing the ritual.
There were approaches to artificial corpse conservation in medieval Japan under the Fujiwara rulers, but these are considered less successful.
In Burma there is the custom of preserving corpses with priests, which is mostly related to the belief in the resurrection of dead bodies. Burmese priests use the process of mellification to preserve famous abbots in coffins filled with honey.
Another type of artificial corpse conservation is known from the Philippines : the fire mummification of the Ibaloi culture in Benguet province . With this type of corpse preservation, the preparations for mummification were initiated shortly before the death of the person concerned by giving the person concerned high-salt and alkaline drinks. After the death, the body was positioned in a sitting position over a fire of low to medium intensity until the body was completely dehydrated . This process could take up to two years, and at the end the body was embalmed with plant extracts. This type of mummification was carried out from the 10th to the 16th centuries and is considered worldwide as the second example of active mummification of the dead, which was carried out using a different technique than the method of mummification in ancient Egypt . These mummies are known as " Kabayan Mummies known" and stand on the proposed list of the Philippines since 2006 for inclusion in the World Heritage List of UNESCO .
In ancient India traces of an artificial method of preservation by smoking the corpse were found. In this technique, after the dead body has been washed and pretreated with certain substances, it is tied together and hung from a branch under which a heavily smoking fire is lit. The corpse hangs there for several days and turns black as the process progresses. Then he is buried.
Australia and Oceania
The technique of smoke mummification became much more common than in ancient India among the indigenous people of Australia and New Zealand , whose preservation methods are also the ones that have been best researched.
Europe
In Denmark in 1921 the preserved body of the so-called " Egtved Girl ( Egtved Pigen ) " was found. The find dates from the older Bronze Age (around 1400 BC). The girl lay in a large oak coffin. Examination of the teeth estimated their age to be 16 to 18 years. Only the soft tissues and teeth are preserved from the body.
The preserved body of the so-called " Frau von Skrydstrup ", which dates from the early Nordic Bronze Age (around 1300 BC), was also found in Denmark . It was found in 1935 in an oak coffin near Skrydstrup in Jutland . The find was important for the reconstruction of the women's costumes of this time and region.
In the Canary Islands ( Spain ) the Guanches knew about artificial preservation. Their bodies are sewn into goat skins and are well preserved. Some Canarian mummies can be seen today in the Museo de la Naturaleza y el Hombre in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and in the Museo Canario in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria . The only Canarian mummy to be found in Germany has been part of the collection of the Johann Friedrich Blumenbach Institute for Zoology and Anthropology at the Georg August University of Göttingen since 1802 . These are the remains of a 30- to 40-year-old woman who lived on the island of Tenerife in the late 13th or early 14th century.
In Russia , archaeologists found large burial mounds (" Kurgane ") in the former Scythian settlement areas , which contained gold, silk, weapons, horses and burials, among other things. An intact kurgan was discovered in July 2001 in the valley of the tsars near Aržan in the southern Siberian Republic of Tuva . The German archaeologist Hermann Parzinger succeeded in finding thousands of gold objects. The partially very good state of preservation of the remains, as in the Kurganen of Pazyryk , is due to the techniques of artificial corpse conservation and the Siberian permafrost .
Western methods of the Middle Ages and modern times
In Europe, in the Middle Ages and in modern times , the elaborate artificial methods of preserving corpses were primarily used for high-ranking deceased of the ecclesiastical and secular class, such as popes and bishops , monarchs and important nobles .
An early example of an artificial method for the preservation of corpses in the Middle Ages is Saint Margaret of Cortona († 1297), whose body was examined from 1986 by the pathologist Ezio Fulcheri from the University of Genoa. During the course of the examination of the body, Fulcheri's team of pathologists, chemists and radiologists found deep cuts along the thighs, in the abdomen and in the stomach area, which the saint had apparently been made after her death and then roughly sutured. The corpse was presumably preserved with simple means such as "Natron" (?), Which artificially accelerates natural drying out - similar to ancient Egypt. In addition, Fulcheri's team discovered traces of ointments, fragrant spices and essences of myrrh and aloe , which prevent the appearance of putrefactive bacteria. Fulcheri believes that the Jews took the knowledge of the preservation of corpses from Egypt to Palestine. From there, corresponding ideas came to Rome and the rest of Europe with the first Christians. The biblical passage already quoted at the beginning with the note " Nicodemus [...] brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds . They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with linen bandages, together with the fragrant ointments, as is the custom at Jewish burials is. "( Joh 19,39-40 EÜ ) seems to support Fulcheri's thesis.
The methods of preservation, which went back to the Arab doctor Rhazes (864–925) and which essentially consisted of removing the intestines, washing the body cavities with vinegar and alcohol, and filling the corpse with aromatic powders and preserving salts, were also known in Europe. His methods of preserving corpses were not only used in Europe during the Middle Ages, but - with subsequent improvements - were also able to hold up during the early modern period until the second half of the 18th century.
However, the methods for preserving corpses available here in the early Middle Ages did not reach the level of the ancient methods. Given the poor knowledge of chemistry at that time and the experience of the Egyptians, which has now been forgotten, attempts to preserve the deceased were mostly short-lived or failed altogether. One of the most important differences between the preservation techniques used in ancient Egypt and those used in Europe since the Middle Ages was that the latter were based predominantly on the use of agents that the Egyptians had only been an accessory, such as aromatic resins, spices and oils that did not or have only very low disinfectant properties. Another difference was that in the ancient Egyptian methods, the corpse was usually wrapped in several layers with bandages and these bandages were glued together with resin. In the European procedures of the Middle Ages and modern times, however, the bandaging characteristic of the external appearance of ancient Egyptian mummies is mostly completely absent ; instead, it seems to have been more important here to present the body of the deceased in a celebratory manner in public as long as possible can.
Gertrud von Hohenberg († 1281), the wife of the Roman-German King Rudolf von Habsburg , had chosen the Basel Minster as her grave. The Colmar chronicler describes the circumstances of her burial in detail: “The entrails were removed from her corpse, the abdominal cavity was filled with sand and ashes, and her face was embalmed. Then the body was wrapped in an oilcloth and wrapped in splendid silk robes. A gold chain adorned the veiled head. Then the dead queen was placed in the coffin, which was made of beech wood, her arms crossed over her chest. So the king saw his wife for the last time before the coffin was locked with iron straps. ”The funeral procession arrived in Basel on March 20, 1281. "Three bishops celebrated the office of the dead, in which the coffin was placed vertically and the lid was opened so that all those present could see the eminent deceased again." Her tomb is still in the choir aisle of Basel Minster, but was opened several times before In 1770 the bones of the queen and her sons Karl and Hartmann, who were once buried with her, were moved to the monastery of St. Blasien in the Black Forest through the ceremonial translation of the highest corpses, imperial-royal-ducal-Austrian . Today the remains of these early Habsburgs rest in the St. Paul Abbey in the Lavant Valley in Carinthia.
Separate funeral
It was already known in ancient Egypt that the artificial preservation of a corpse can be considerably improved and simplified by removing the brain, the internal organs and the viscera. In Europe, similar findings in the Middle Ages favored the spread of the separate burial of heart, innards and body, even if heart burial did not reach its peak until the 17th century. After death, many princes and monarchs had their hearts and sometimes their entrails removed and buried separately from their bodies. This was especially useful when there was a long period of time between death and burial. In the High Middle Ages, the mos teutonicus method was sometimes practiced for particularly high-ranking people . Since the body was not preserved, but rather broken down into the meat and bones by boiling, this technique was not a matter of corpse preservation in the true sense. At least one had the possibility of at least transferring the bones of a deceased person to their destination without the possibility of decomposition during the trip. The procedure was mainly used for rulers who died in theaters of war or who died abroad or while traveling, such as Emperor Lothar III. († 1137). He died on December 3, 1137 near Breitenwang and was buried on December 31, 1137 in the Imperial Cathedral of Königslutter . When Emperor Friedrich I († 1190) died during a crusade in Cilicia , his body was also buried in this way. His heart and entrails were finally buried in Tarsus , his skeleton in Tire, and the rest of the body in Antioch .
The ecclesiastical prohibition of mos teutonicus , pronounced by Pope Boniface VIII in 1299 and reaffirmed the following year, encouraged the search for suitable conservation methods in Europe. The division into heart, innards and body was largely tolerated in practice, at the same time it corresponded to the practical necessities of preservation during transports or long-lasting funeral celebrations. Out of respect, attempts were made to preserve the bodies of popes and rulers at least for a certain period of time ( Latin : per aliqod tempus ) so that they could be exhibited or transferred to another location. In order to slow down the decomposition of the body, the thoracic and abdominal viscera were usually removed first in the Middle Ages and in modern times. The removal of the thoracic viscera (Precordia) was carried out usually by a longitudinally sliced sternum, the removal of the abdominal viscera ( Viscera ) by a further longitudinal section from xiphoid to pubis . Since the opening of bodies was subject to a church ban in the Middle Ages, these measures were mostly carried out by lay people from the entourage of the deceased, sometimes also by monks who had accompanied the dying person. Only after cadaveric openings had found their way into anatomical practice during the Renaissance , they were also carried out by doctors, surgeons and bathers, in the case of the Habsburgs in part by renowned doctors from the University of Vienna . However, detailed autopsy reports from Habsburg court doctors are rare. The division of the bodies finally took on institutional forms in medieval Europe, which lived on in court ceremonies, especially in the Catholic ruling houses, until modern times. The heart as the “noblest part of man” should always be given a worthy place. However, due to the technical possibilities, no permanent conservation was guaranteed for the corpse itself. The inadequate availability of permanently effective preservation methods also explains why there are hardly any artificial mummies from the Middle Ages in Europe. Corpses from this time are only preserved to this day if local coincidences played a role.
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Apart from the removal of internal organs such as the heart and viscera, attempts were made in the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the early modern period to preserve the corpses of high-ranking deceased at least for a short time with precious waters and ointments. Were used herbal essences , acetic acid , resins and made of different materials perfumes whose content often than professional secrecy was traded, but it was their effect on the body thus treated more course of anti-odor because conservative nature. This was the procedure for the death of Emperor Friedrich III. († 1493). His body was then shown to everyone for a day in the great room of Linz Castle, sitting on an armchair as an expression of the ruling power , then transferred to Vienna and buried together with his amputated leg in St. Stephen's Cathedral. The heart and bowels of Frederick III. were buried in the parish church of Linz .
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After the death of the antipope Alexander V († 1410), the anatomist Pietro d'Argellata treated the corpse according to the following procedure: The intestines of the thoracic and abdominal cavity were removed, the body cavities washed out with alcohol, filled with cotton and a powder , which consisted in equal parts of myrrh , aloe , acacia , cypress , nutmeg , sandalwood , bolus armenicus , terra sigillata , burnt alum and "dragon's blood" resin . The corpse was then sewn up and anus, mouth and nose plugged with balsam-soaked cotton. The extremities and torso were wrapped in linen soaked in wax and turpentine (the so-called "Sparadrap"). This was sewn, the seams smeared with pitch, and finally Alexander V was dressed in the robes of a bishop. The body prepared in this way was placed in the coffin and buried. According to Hawlik, the most conservative effect was the small amount of alum.
Another method common in Europe in the Middle Ages was to introduce aromatic wine into the abdomen and mouth of the corpse, soak it in an alum-soda solution and finally wrap it in a resin or pitch-soaked sparadrap. This or a comparable method may have been used by Duke Rudolf IV of Austria († 1365). After his death in Milan , the corpse was treated with red wine and sewn into a black cowhide, covered with a valuable shroud and then transported across the Alps to Vienna, where it was buried in a copper coffin in the ducal crypt of St. Stephen's Cathedral.
In the case of the Archbishops of Salzburg, too, recent research (2009) has shown that most of them were first washed in lukewarm wine after their death, then dissected and finally treated with balsam. The separately buried innards of the archbishops of the late Middle Ages and the early modern period are located in different churches in the city of Salzburg .
In another method that was common at the time, the body cavities were filled with a large amount of various drugs and medicinal herbs after removal of the intestines , plus alum and table salt, which was also followed by sewing the corpse in sparadrap. Emperor Maximilian I († 1519) ordered his naked body to be wrapped in a loincloth, dressed in the robes of the Order of St. George and then sewn into a sack made of linen, damask and ashes with the addition of lime and ashes white silk. The body was placed in the coffin and buried under the altar of St. George's Church in the castle in Wiener Neustadt . In addition to religious considerations of penance , the methods of preserving corpses that were customary at the time may also have played a role in this process, which was handed down by Cuspinian , since the sack was evidently designed as a kind of Sparadrap.
Exact information on the ingredients used is rare. Which means were used for preservation in individual cases also strongly depended on the financial strength of the deceased; certain ingredients, especially plant extracts, oils and fragrant spices, were considered more precious than others and were accordingly more expensive. Agree the sources following ingredients appear to be: myrrh , vera Aloe , Tolu , cinnamon , beeswax , Elemi (resin paste), palm wine , cedar oil , baking soda , juniper oil , Kampheröl , animal fats, pistachio resin and thyme .
According to Hawlik, if these methods are used to preserve them temporarily, this will be attributable less to the herbal mixtures and drugs used, but mainly to the effect of the salts used. In general, the exact composition of these agents was relatively insignificant in terms of their preservative effect on the corpse; Such spices mainly counteracted the smell of decay and also avoided the nesting and development of insect larvae. With the state of the art at the time, it was not yet possible to prevent bacterial infestation in the long term. It was enough if the deceased rulers could be laid out for a few days. It was therefore a temporary preservation before the deceased were buried in magnificent sarcophagi.
Section and disinfection
In the 16th century, doctors in the Netherlands and France refined the Rhazes-based techniques for preserving corpses, with the main stages of the procedure essentially remaining the same: cutting open the body ( dissection ) and removing the viscera, washing out the body cavities and filling them with aromatic powders . To increase the effectiveness of this method, the Dutch changed the composition of the aromatic powders and the preparation of sparadraps, while the French developed the so-called Myrrhaceum for this, which essentially consisted of salt, alum, balsam and spices and was crushed into powder with the addition of vinegar . The skull was now opened at the vertex and also filled with the preserving substances. The French anatomist Ambroise Paré described in his work Opera chirurgica , published posthumously in 1594 , that despite the long-term unsuccessfulness of the preservation methods used at the time, the popes as well as the French and Spanish kings in particular clung to them.
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In addition to his work as the personal surgeon of the French king, Paré developed a new method for preserving corpses, which, after removing the entrails and making deep cuts in the muscles, consisted of placing the corpse for three weeks in a wooden tub with a solution made from hot vinegar, aloe, Wormwood , coloquins and alcohol consisted. The process was completed by drying the corpse treated in this way in an airy place. This method was eventually also practiced at the French court, and Paré is said to have kept a corpse prepared in this way in his house for 25 years. In the early modern period, Paré was also one of the first to publish a comprehensive work on his method. After this, corpses were essentially conserved at the Spanish and French royal courts until the 18th century. The corpse of the French King Henry IV († 1610), preserved according to the Parés method, was in such a good state of preservation when the royal tombs were plundered in the Abbey of Saint-Denis in 1793 that he and several other mummified corpses in front of the church Was put on display for passers-by.
Due to new scientific findings, the methods have been continuously developed over time, including the importance of disinfection . At the turn of the 16th to the 17th century, techniques of corpse conservation were presented by the German physicians Melchior Sebisch (1539-1625) and Gregor Horstius (1578-1636) and the Dutchman Louis de Bils (1624-1670). As a non-physician, the latter developed a method for preserving corpses and sold objects he had prepared at a profit to anatomical collections and museums. His method, the details of which he never published, could not fully halt the process of decay, but could halt it for a few years. The French surgeon Pierre Dionis (1643–1718) developed a method in which the use of tannic acid in powder form played an important role. Dionis was also commissioned to preserve the body of King Louis XIV († 1715). When the royal tombs of Saint-Denis were sacked in 1793, his body was still very well preserved and was thrown into a pit along with the corpses of other kings. In the case of Louis XIV, Dionis' procedure was successful, but later it turned out that the technique he practiced could not guarantee lasting success, since the corpses prepared by other doctors using his method showed advanced signs of putrefaction after just a few years.
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From the beginning of the 18th century, real methodological advances in the field of corpse preservation were achieved through the use of vascular injections, as this was the only way to achieve a uniform infiltration of the tissue by preservative substances. The Dutch anatomist Steven Blankaart (1650–1704) suggested that the corpse should first be cleaned of putrefactive substances over several weeks by long-lasting enemas with alcohol and large amounts of warm water, and that the body thus preserved should then be placed in a tin or lead coffin not to let the alcohol evaporate. However, this procedure was only partially successful. So it was not possible to completely remove the intestinal contents by enemas, and a body prepared with alcohol was only protected from putrefaction until the alcohol had evaporated. This was also the weak point in the method of the Dutch anatomist Frederik Ruysch (1638–1731) for the production of anatomical specimens. He injected a mixture of sebum , white wax, and vermilion into the vascular system and then soaked his preparations in alcohol to which black pepper had been added. If the alcohol escaped, the long-term preservation of the preparation was no longer guaranteed. Hawlik speculates whether the techniques of Paré and Blankaart between 1640 and 1740 were possibly also used at the Viennese court and whether the injection method by Ruysch was then used, but points out that details of the conservation methods used during this period have not yet been determined with certainty could become. The anatomist Theodor Kerckring , who worked closely with Ruysch, described in detail the use of liquefied amber to preserve corpses.
From the 17th and 18th centuries it is known from the Viennese court that a corpse destined for conservation measures was dissected as soon as possible after death . After the heart, brain and intestines had been removed, the remaining body was treated with alcohol- based disinfecting solutions , the cavities were poured out with beeswax , then bedded in a coffin and buried in a crypt or a brick-lined grave. Instead of wax, cloths with alcohol and bacteria-inhibiting herbs such as thyme or juniper were often placed in the cavities created by the eccentricity - the persistent influence of the conservation method, which goes back to Rhazes , is still clear here. Which chemical substances were used to preserve the corpses in the 17th and 18th centuries can only rarely be determined. Messages in the ceremonial and family files are mostly limited to rather unspecific statements such as “the embalming was done with the most precious ingredients” or “after the organs were removed, he was usually embalmed” . However, there is no lack of indications as to which court doctors, personal surgeons, bathers, chamberlains, servants and court officials were present.
When the Roman-German King Ferdinand IV died on July 9, 1654 in Vienna, the corpse was dissected that same evening, prepared for laying out in the manner described last and put on public display on a parade bed . The mug with the heart was also displayed on the display bed. One day after his death, at 9 o'clock in the evening, the heart was transferred to the Augustinian Church near the Hofburg , where it was buried in a simple ceremony in the Loreto chapel there. After several days of funeral services, the body was buried in the Vienna Capuchin Crypt.
At the death of Ferdinand Wenzel († 1668), the first-born son of Emperor Leopold I , a similar protocol was followed. Since he was the heir to the throne, the body of the archduke, who was almost four months old, was dissected by the imperial physicians, treated in the usual way and laid out on a parade bed in a garment woven with silver. His heart and entrails were transferred to the duke's crypt in St. Stephen's Cathedral in two separate containers , and the rest of the body was buried in the Capuchin crypt.
The burial of Emperor Leopold I is a typical example of the burial ritual as it was practiced by high-ranking personalities in the Baroque period. After his death in May 1705, the late Habsburg was laid out in public for three days: dressed in a black silk coat, gloves, hat, wig and sword, his body was put on display, next to the catafalk stood candlesticks with burning candles. The insignia of secular power, such as crowns and medals, were also represented. After the public display, the corpse was placed in a wooden coffin lined with valuable fabrics, which was then transferred to the Capuchin Crypt after the public celebrations and lifted there in the metal sarcophagus, which was elaborately designed during the Emperor's lifetime. The corpse had been preserved immediately before the public laying out: the rapidly decaying internal organs had been removed, the cavities had been filled with wax, and the surface of the corpse had also been treated with disinfecting tinctures. The body parts removed from the corpse were wrapped in silk scarves, placed in alcohol, and the containers were then soldered shut. The emperor's heart and tongue were placed in a gold-plated silver beaker that was placed in the Loreto Chapel of the Augustinian Church . Like the rest of the Habsburgs, his entrails, eyes and brain were buried in a gilded copper cauldron in the ducal crypt of St. Stephen's Cathedral.
At the death of Archduke Leopold Joseph († 1701), the eldest son of Emperor Joseph I who died at the age of ten months , the body was opened in the presence of four personal physicians, the organs removed in the usual way and placed in two copper cauldrons. Then the dead child was put on a cushion in a dress and decorated with wreaths. A chambermaid, accompanied by two valets, carried the body to the court chapel, which was lined with red damask. There she placed him on a pedestal three steps high while the clergy offered the prayers. At eight o'clock in the evening the two copper kettles were taken to St. Stephen's Cathedral. Shortly afterwards the small body was picked up by the chief steward and placed in the coffin by the chambermaid. Two chamberlains locked the two locks on the coffin. Six chamberlains carried the coffin to the Burgplatz, where a carriage drawn by six horses was waiting. The Chief Chamberlain accompanied the car to the Capuchin Crypt, where the Provost of St. Stephen, assisted by other clergymen, carried out the church blessing and burial.
Archduke Leopold Johann († 1716), the first-born son of Emperor Charles VI, who died at the age of almost seven months, was similar . The funeral was based on the mourning ceremony for Archduke Ferdinand Wenzel († 1668), the first-born son of Emperor Leopold I .: On the morning of November 5, 1716, Leopold Johann's corpse was handed over to court lady Sabine in the presence of the Court Master Anton Florian von Liechtenstein Christina Countess von Starhemberg, three imperial personal physicians and the personal surgeon Heinrich Cöster. The internal organs and the heart were removed and the body was embalmed. The child's body was then placed on a parade bed in the Antecamera, the virtue hall of the Vienna Hofburg, and consecrated by the court and castle pastors . He wore a flower crown and around his neck the small chain of the Golden Fleece . The large fleece chain and the archduke's hat lay on a silver cushion . The silver urn with the removed heart and the copper urn with the bowels were brought to St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna on the same day and placed in the ducal crypt. In the evening at 11 p.m. the body was consecrated again and taken to the Capuchin Church in Vienna with a large entourage . For the last time the coffin was consecrated and opened in the presence of the chief steward and the chief chamberlain to show the body. Six Capuchin Fathers then brought the coffin into the Capuchin Crypt.
After the Prussian Queen Sophie Charlotte died on February 1, 1705 in Hanover, her body was dissected and embalmed and displayed publicly on a parade bed. The transfer to Berlin took place on March 9th of that year. The long time lag between death and evacuation can be explained by the elaborate preparations for the funeral ceremonies, especially the erection of funeral architecture that had to be built at the stations of the funeral procession.
When the Roman-German Emperor Franz I died unexpectedly on the evening of August 18, 1765 in the Innsbruck Hofburg , the funeral ceremony was modeled on the funeral services for his father-in-law, Emperor Karl VI. († 1740), determined. After the internal organs had been removed, the body was laid out in public from August 21 to 23 in the giant hall (ballroom) of the Innsbruck Hofburg. The room was lined with black fabric, and the parade bed was surrounded by four altars, where masses were celebrated. The emperor lay under a black canopy on the parade bed, dressed in a black silk coat with a hat and an allonge wig. He was holding a rosary and the Habsburg death cross in his hands. On the side were six cushions made of gold brocade with the crowns, medals and decorations to which he was entitled. Two urns covered with cloths for the heart and entrails of the deceased were exhibited at the foot of the building. After being laid out in public in the giant hall of the Innsbruck Hofburg, the body was transferred by ship to Vienna, where the second laying in the knights' hall of the Vienna Hofburg only took place with the coffin locked. The body was buried in the Vienna Capuchin Crypt on the evening of August 31, 1765. The emperor's heart was placed in the Augustinian Church in Vienna, the entrails in the ducal crypt of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna.
After the death of his wife Maria Theresia on 29 November 1780, the funeral, according to the court protocol designed as follows: " The lifeless kai [ser] l [cozy] highest body, which, however, in the quays [variable] was kept rooms, were the 30 then opened at 7 p.m. and embalmed. The eccentricity lasted from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m., with the Imperial and Royal Protomedicus Kohlhammer present. The opening and embalming was done by the quays [dissolute] Kings [iglichen] abdominal surgeon Jos [eph] Vanglinghen, Ferdinand of liver and Anton Rechberger, also the court pharmacist Wenzel Czerny wobey need let. On Friday, December 1st, early in the morning, the corpse was exposed in the large court chapel on a mourning scaffolding four steps high under a black canopy in the humble clothing of a spiritual habit . On the right hand was the silver cup in which the heart; to the left on the 3rd season down from the head of the cauldron with the bowels. “The protocol also states:“ On Saturday , December 2nd , in the afternoon, the goblet with the heart was ceremoniously brought to the Loreto Chapel of the Augustinian Church and after this the kettle with the entrails was brought to the ducal crypt at St. Stephen. On Sunday, December 3rd, as the day designated for the solemn burial, the body was buried in the Vienna Capuchin crypt in a double sarcophagus next to her husband, who had died in 1765. The funeral service for Maria Theresa in St. Stephen's Cathedral, organized by the Vienna City Council, did not take place until January 1781.
The preservation results that can be achieved by using such methods are very different in individual cases. In the Capuchin Crypt in Vienna, for example, the existing metal sarcophagi of the Habsburgs are regularly opened during restorations . In the 19th century, for example, the metal sarcophagi, which were restored at that time, were always opened, regardless of the condition of the wooden inner coffins, and an exact description of the mortal remains was given. It was found that the wooden inner coffins of those who died from the beginning of the 17th to the beginning of the 19th century - as far as they have survived - contained in most cases only bones and remains of skin. The conservation methods used therefore did not lead to permanent preservation. If one looks at the processes involved in deaths at the Viennese court in the 17th and 18th centuries, the relative urgency with which the dissection, removal of the organs and preparation for public laying out was carried out - with the death of Emperor Leopold I. In 1705 only a few afternoon hours were needed for this - together with the fact that all those deceased who were not allowed to lay out in public were completely dispensed with treatment of the corpse, according to Hawlik the assumption that it was in the Baroque era The methods used by the Habsburgs were not really about preservation, nor were they attempted at the Viennese court and could not even be achieved with the knowledge of the time. If the Viennese court in the Baroque period after the corpse preservation method of Paré procedure (1510-1590) that was practiced at the same time at the French court, so you would have this required between death and burial for several weeks, and also the method of Blankaart (1650- 1704) lasted no less long. In addition, if the corpses had been preserved using these methods, according to Hawlik, they would not have survived for more than 25 years - a value handed down by Paré that a prepared corpse is said to have kept in his house for this period. Father Gottfried Undesser, the custodian of the Capuchin Crypt, reported in 2001 that " most of the members of the ruling family [buried there] preferred not to be embalmed, but preferred a coffin burial that simply delayed decay. " It seems likely that - especially as long as the state of development of the conservation methods did not allow otherwise - the intention was merely to preserve the corpse for a limited period of time, initially for the duration of the public laying out, which could take one to three days, and then until the magnificent sarcophagus was in Capuchin Crypt was completed. According to Hawlik, one of the main goals must have been to delay the decomposition process at least until the artfully designed metal overarching sarcophagus was ready to accommodate the wooden inner coffin, which, according to the relevant archives, could take months, but sometimes even a few years. Only rarely was it possible to close the lids of the metal sarcophagi without any solder pores, so that the corpse was still likely to decay. The air permeability of both the inner wooden and the outer metal sarcophagus has an influence on whether the degradation processes inside the coffin take place under aerobic or anaerobic conditions.
The material of the coffin can also have a positive effect on the conservation of a corpse. Depending on the financial situation, there were also metal coffins (or metal outer coffins for the wooden inner coffins), which were mostly made of zinc , copper , tin or lead and were particularly magnificent in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Graubünden forensic doctor Walter Marty stated: "Coffins lined with lead are known for preventing the signs of decomposition." In the coffins, the dead were mostly laid on their backs on wood shavings, under the skulls there were remains of linen pillows filled with wood shavings . Unless extensively prepared and filled with wax, the bodies were often covered with lime. The hearts of members of the lower nobility were often removed and buried elsewhere. In baroque church tombs, newspaper bags with lime for disinfection purposes were also found in the coffins. Several nested coffins were also used successfully. When the wife of Count Wilhelm von Slavata died in 1633 , the church authorities allowed her to be buried in the Chapel of Mercy in Altötting , which took place on the evening of May 18, 1633, quite unobtrusively. When Elector Maximilian I of Bavaria found out about this, he feared, among other things, that the exhalations from the corpses would have harmful effects on the health of the chapel visitors. The dean responsible for the chapel of grace, however, pointed out to the elector that "health damage could not arise because the corpse was first placed in two wooden coffins and finally in a tin coffin and sunk into the ground above a man's height".
In other cases, dissection and conservative treatment were completely omitted due to special circumstances and circumstances, mostly because of contagious diseases . Upon the death of Archduchess Maria Josepha († 1703), a daughter of Emperor Leopold I , the coffin was immediately locked and buried because of the " affection of the disease ". In the case of the wives of Emperor Joseph II († 1790), both of whom died of peeling , dissection and conservation were expressly forbidden due to the ideas of personal physician van Swieten . Regulations prohibiting preservation measures in the case of particularly serious infectious diseases still exist in many countries. Infectious diseases of this type include anthrax , cholera , viral hemorrhagic fevers , plague , smallpox and other orthopoxviruses . In these cases, immediately after death and before leaving the place of death, the corpse should be placed in a hermetically sealed coffin with a gas filter system and the coffin finally closed.
Unsuccessful preservation is also documented. During the funeral ceremonies for the British King George IV, who died in 1830 , his body turned out to be so poorly preserved that it swelled badly and holes had to be drilled in the coffin wall to allow the decomposition gas to escape. Even with the death of the Elector and Archbishop of Cologne , Maximilian Franz von Österreich , in July 1801, the body began to deteriorate so quickly as a result of the great summer heat, despite conservation measures, that one did not wait for the artistically designed metal sarcophagus to be delivered at the burial in the Vienna Capuchin Crypt but had to wall up the wooden coffin in a wall niche for several decades because of the advanced decay.
Corpse of Wenzel Anton Kaunitz
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Wooden coffin in the Kaunitz family crypt
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When, however , the sarcophagus of Emperor Frederick II († 1250) made of dark red porphyry was opened in the Cathedral of Palermo in 1782 , the body was found intact. Since he was first transferred to Messina after his death in Castel Fiorentino near Lucera and was not buried in Palermo until February 1251 , it must be assumed that the corpse was treated to prevent decay. The fact that the body was still preserved 500 years later, however, is less due to the conservation methods used, but rather to the favorable climatic conditions that favored the preservation of the body, as numerous other finds in the Palermo area show. The body of King Friedrich II of Prussia , who died in 1786, also turned out to be dry and well preserved when his coffin was opened in 1952 as part of the reburial in the chapel of Hohenzollern Castle . The Flaschner Adolf Rudolph, who repaired the eight hundredweight (around 400 kg) heavy metal sarcophagus at the time, described the condition of the corpse from memory in 1991 as follows: “ It looked great, you saw no decay, and nothing at all, the only thing was that the tip of the nose had dried up. His uniform was in good condition, by the eye how it was [...] materially, we hadn't checked that. “The body of Prince Wenzel Anton Kaunitz , who died in 1794 , is buried in a wooden coffin in the Kaunitz family crypt under the Austerlitz / Slavkov cemetery chapel , and is dry and well preserved. Both the king and the prince took conservative measures after death, but a comparison with the condition of the dead from the Capuchin crypt in Vienna shows that their bodies have been preserved to a large extent due to favorable natural conditions. Here, too, natural conditions for the preservation of corpses have been combined with artificial methods developed by human hands.
Dieter Brozat reports in "The Berlin Cathedral and the Hohenzollern Crypt" (1985) on the remains of King Friedrich Wilhelm II. Of Prussia , who died in 1797 , that his sarcophagus in the Hohenzollern Crypt of the Berlin Cathedral was exposed to severe destruction during the Second World War. During the reconstruction of the cathedral and the search for the dead, " the research in the cathedral crypt [...] painstakingly found skeletal parts, some in the rubble of the cathedral, such as the head with hair [...]." The tissue of the feet was still fully in the embalming. The other skeletal parts clearly indicate embalming in terms of their texture and color. Since only the ruling princes were usually embalmed in Prussia, the author is convinced that the bone finds are the remains of King Friedrich Wilhelm II. A precise medical examination has not yet been possible. “Brozat, however, does not give any more precise information on the methods of corpse conservation used by Friedrich Wilhelm II.
Arterial Conservation
After the first successful attempts towards the end of the 18th century, in the beginning of the 19th century, in addition to dissection and disinfecting surface treatment, corpses were also increasingly "actively from the inside" by injecting a mixture of alcohol and arsenic (III) oxide (Arsenic) in the bloodstream , mostly through the carotid artery . A corresponding method had already been described several decades earlier by the British physician William Hunter (1718–1783) and was first used in practice in 1775 by his brother John (1728–1793). During Napoleon's campaigns, French military doctors began to preserve the bodies of fallen soldiers so that they could be transported back home so that their relatives could say goodbye. After experiments with chemicals, some of which were dangerous, the dialysis process began to replace blood with lead-containing fluids. However, several decades would pass before methods of "arterial preservation" became generally accepted.
Until about the middle of the 19th century, when a corpse was preserved by injecting alcohol and arsenic, the heart, brain and intestines were usually removed as usual and usually buried separately . This procedure came e.g. B. 1821 with Napoleon Bonaparte , 1832 with his son Napoleon Franz and 1847 with his mother Marie-Louise of Austria . In Marie-Louises' case, the corpse was preserved after the removal of the heart, brain and innards by introducing a solution of one kilogram of arsenic and ten liters of alcohol through the carotid artery. The body was then laid out on a parade bed in the Palazzo Ducale in Parma for six days . Finally the dead woman was placed in a wooden coffin lined with purple velvet, which was locked in a lead and a wooden coffin and transferred to Austria. In Vienna, Marie-Louise's body was buried in the Capuchin Crypt in a copper sarcophagus near her father.
Advances in chemistry enabled a gradual change in conservation methods during the 19th century. The trend mentioned continued to treat corpses from the inside, in addition to dissection, removal of internal organs and disinfecting surface treatment, by injecting preserving fluids into the bloodstream. New findings in organic and inorganic chemistry and the availability of new types of artificial substances shifted the focus from the previously dominant soft tissue removal to the exchange of body fluids with suitable chemicals. The French anatomist François Chaussier (1718–1828) made significant progress by proving that mercury (II) chloride, also known as the "sublimate", protects the corpse from rotting and promotes its dehydration. The German chemist Eduard Tauflieb discovered the preservative effect of zinc chloride , while French anatomists and surgeons contributed new experiences and scholars in Switzerland and Italy did research on a large number of preparations. Up until the end of the 19th century, experiments on the preservation of corpses used a series of liquid, anti-decay and anti-worm protective substances with which the blood vessel system was flushed out after the intestinal contents had been removed. Solutions of mercury (II) chloride, arsenic , phenol , alum , zinc chloride, tannic acid or a mixture of several of these substances with water and glycerine , similar to those in Germany as " Wickersheimer 's liquid", are suitable for this purpose "Garstin's liquid", commonly used in England, containing glycerine, arsenic and phenol. The French chemist Jean Nicolas Gannal (1791-1852) achieved a satisfactory preservation of corpses for a short time by injecting aluminum sulfate or aluminum chloride . The method of Sucquet, who used zinc chloride in the same way, is said to have given even better results. The "Stirling's liquid" consists of creosote , methanol and mercury chloride. In spite of some successes, the application of these methods was often limited to the laboratory. The sole use of mercury (II) chloride and other metal compounds was abandoned when it was noticed that metal precipitated out of the solution and left disfiguring stains on corpses treated in this way. In addition, mercury (II) chloride caused the skin to turn gray. In contrast, the use of glycerine, discovered in 1779 by the Turin anatomist Carlo Giacomini (1840–1898), made a significant contribution to progress in the preservation of corpses. However, the new developments sometimes also brought disadvantages. In 1988, the restorers entrusted with the repair of the metal sarcophagi in the Vienna Capuchin Crypt wrote : “The major damage to the base plates of the sarcophagi and thus also to the inner coffins was not only caused by the leakage of the corpse fluid, but the corpse fluid could work together with the chemicals used in embalming caused the evils. "
After the shooting of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico (1867), his body was taken to the Capuchin convent in Querétaro , where a military doctor and a gynecologist preserved the body. It failed so badly that another month was necessary. Contrary to the executioner's request that his body be brought to Europe immediately, Vice Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff was only able to receive the body, which had been badly damaged by the transport, after long negotiations and finally bring it to Trieste on the Novara . From there the coffin was transferred in the court's gala funeral car to Vienna, where - seven months after Maximilian's execution - it was laid out in the chamber chapel in the Leopoldine wing of the Hofburg. He was buried in the Capuchin Crypt on January 18, 1868.
In the USA in the 19th century it was mainly military and country doctors who dealt with the preservation of corpses. The pathologist Thomas Holmes (1817–1899) also researched the further development of preserving fluids. Holmes, who relied on Gannal's findings and studies of ancient Egyptian mummies, tried to replace the chemicals used in the preservation of corpses such as arsenic , mercury and zinc with alternative substances. He later brought a preservative and an apparatus on the market with which the preservative fluid could be introduced into the corpse via the arteries. This equipment also enabled appropriately trained personnel to use preservatives in different compositions and concentrations. During the Civil War , Holmes served as a military doctor on the Union side. He was commissioned to preserve fallen soldiers for transport to their families, for which he received $ 100 per corpse. President Abraham Lincoln eventually commissioned and provided funding to return as many of the fallen as possible to their hometowns. According to Holmes' own statements, he had to preserve the bodies of 4,028 fallen soldiers and officers during the war, which made him a rich man. The frequent use of his procedure also ensured that the temporary preservation of corpses for the purpose of transportation was widely known and became a generally accepted part of burial preparations in the USA. After Lincoln's death in 1865, his body was also treated conservatively for the several weeks of transport and burial ceremonies.
While the effectiveness and reliability of injection processes was already clearly demonstrated by these experiences, the discovery of formaldehyde by the Russian chemist Alexander Butlerow in 1855 and the creation of a technical possibility for its production by the dehydrogenation of methanol by the German chemist August Wilhelm von made possible Hofmann increased efficiency again in 1867. Despite all the disadvantages that the treatment with formaldehyde on an aqueous basis ( formalin ) brought with it, it was developed into the standard method. In the funeral industry, methods of preservation based on formaldehyde finally became generally accepted.
Use of formaldehyde
From the middle of the 19th century, the discovery of formaldehyde (1855) revolutionized the artificial preservation of corpses, so that the removal of the heart and intestines became unnecessary and long-term preservation of the corpse could be achieved with the appropriate dosage of chemicals. The removal of the heart and bowels was last practiced by the Habsburgs in Vienna in 1878 when Emperor Franz Joseph's father, Archduke Franz Karl , died, after which the Austrian court also began using formaldehyde. In 1903 the body of Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska was preserved by Anton Weichselbaum . The Vatican followed the development a little later. Since Sixtus V († 1590) the internal organs of deceased popes had been removed and kept in Rome near the Trevi Fountain in the church "St. Vincent and Anastasius", the bodies mostly in the Vatican grottoes under St. Peter's Basilica . Leo XIII. († 1903) was buried in this way, his successor Pius X. abolished organ removal. Since then, the blood of dead popes has also been replaced by a preserving liquid containing formaldehyde.
For the preservation of corpses, formaldehyde is mostly used as formalin (or formol ) in an aqueous , buffered solution with methanol . The ratio between formaldehyde and methanol can be varied depending on requirements and objectives; in the early days of this technology, the proportion of formaldehyde was usually around 35 percent. Since formaldehyde, like all aldehydes, is a strong reducing agent , it is well suited for killing germs . It stops the autolysis and putrefaction of tissue and makes it permanently durable. Formalin, despite some disadvantages, quickly found general use in the preservation of corpses, as it penetrates well into the tissue and evaporates more slowly than pure alcohol. In the 19th century, when a corpse was preserved, a formalin solution with a formaldehyde content of 40% was usually injected through the cervical artery into the head so that the soft facial tissues hardened quickly without disfigurement. To treat the rest of the body, a formalin solution with a formaldehyde content of 10% was injected in an amount of around eight liters through both femoral arteries. Corpses treated in this way can be kept almost indefinitely in a closed metal coffin, which prevents the formaldehyde from evaporating and preventing it from drying out. The addition of mercury (II) chloride , zinc chloride or phenol (carbolic acid, or carbol for short ) to formalin can also prevent insect infestation and the growth of putrefactive bacteria and mold. Phenol was first used in medicine by Lister (1865) because of its bactericidal effect and was often used in the context of autopsies, but due to its caustic properties it was more suitable as a disinfectant than as a basic chemical for preserving corpses.
After the death of King Ludwig II of Bavaria (1886), his body was first transferred to Munich , where the car with the coffin arrived at the Residenz on June 15, 1886 at 2 a.m. The pathological examination by thirteen doctors took place on the same day from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the residence. After the autopsy, the corpse was immediately preserved, which ended at 8 p.m. Then the corpse of the king was dressed in the regalia of the Order of Hubert and laid out in an open mahogany coffin for three days in the court chapel. Ludwig II was buried on June 19, 1886 in Munich's Michaelskirche , and his heart was buried on August 16, 1886 in the Altötting Chapel . The skull was also opened as part of the autopsy. In order to give the corpse a dignified appearance for laying out, the face should be coated with wax, as well as the hands and the other visible parts of the body. According to Werner Schubert, the preservation liquid most likely also used in the case of King Ludwig II was composed as follows: 4 liters of distilled water , 4 liters of alcohol 96%, 500 ml formaldehyde 40%, 200 ml chloral hydrate , 100 ml sublimate . The information applies to a corpse with a body weight of 70 kg. Five liters of this fluid are injected directly into the femoral artery , the rest injected intramuscularly into the large muscles of the legs, arms, back and buttocks. The face, fingers and toes must be injected subcutaneously using a fine cannula . The preservative fluid is injected into the brain through the nose using a long, strong cannula, piercing the ethmoid bone . A corpse preserved according to this recipe can be kept for a very long time; you could still see all the external details on it even after many years.
The Russian surgeon Nikolai Pirogow and the Italian chemist Alfredo Salafia also worked with formalin . The procedure proposed by Pirogow was used in 1881 for his own corpse, which is well preserved to this day and can be seen in the Pirogow estate in Vinnytsia . It is said that his successful preservation technique essentially anticipated the process that was used on Lenin's corpse after 1924. Salafia, on the other hand, was a sought-after specialist during his lifetime, preserving the body of the Italian Prime Minister Francesco Crispi in 1902 , that of the Archbishop of Palermo Michelangelo Cardinal Celesia in 1904 and that of the young Rosalia Lombardo in 1920 . These bodies are so well preserved that contemporary witnesses reported during exhumations that the people looked as if they had just dozed off. The body of Crispis († 1901) had initially been treated by taxidermists from Naples, but their methods proved to be inadequate. A year later, Salafia was commissioned to save the body, which he succeeded in several months of work. He was also able to restore Crispi's facial features through paraffin injections . The body of Celesia († 1904) preserved by Salafia was also considered a sensation. He was seen in the Capuchin Crypt in Palermo for five years before he was transferred to the cathedral there . Salafia's preservation technique, however, was only known for certain that he exchanged the blood of the corpses for another liquid. For decades it was suspected that he had injected a nitrate - nitrite mixture into the veins of the corpse of Rosalia Lombardo († 1920) and filled cavities in the head with wax in order to preserve the rounded shape of her face. The exact method was only discovered in March 2009. In an estate paper found with Anna Phillipone, a great niece of Salafia's second wife, entitled “Nuovo metodo speciale per la conservazione del cadavere umano interno allo stato permanentemente fresco”, Salafia had written that part glycerine and part formalin were enriched with zinc sulfate and chlorides , for which a third part of alcohol solution with salicylic acid was the right mixture and which he had injected into Rosalia's veins. To exchange the body fluid, he inserted the cannula into a femoral artery and placed the container of preservation fluid over the body. The blood displaced by gravity flowed out through a vein cut. The alcohol in the preservation liquid dehydrated the corpse, formalin killed bacteria, glycerine prevented excessive drying out, salicylic acid killed fungi, and the zinc salts helped set the tissue in place. Salafia later marketed a preservative called "Salafia Perfection Fluid", but it was his art of matching ingredients and injections that established his reputation as a corpse taxidermist.
Because after the assassination attempt in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 there was no time to bring a professor from Vienna, the young coroner Dr. Paul Kaunic was called to the military hospital in Sarajevo and asked if he could preserve the bodies of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie : “ He had to prepare everything, and at 10 o'clock in the evening he and his younger colleague Dr. Pollak and the prosecutor Hecht were brought to the Konak , where they worked all night afterwards. First the cause of death was determined, then the blood had to be removed from the veins. The veins were washed out with table salt and then a solution of glycerine and formalin was introduced, and everything was ready at 7 a.m. “The bodies were then laid out in open metal coffins in the Konak. In the early evening of June 29th, the coffins were closed, transferred to Austria and finally buried in the crypt at Artstetten Castle on July 4th .
In the medical protocol on the preservation of the corpse of Emperor Franz Joseph I , who died on November 21, 1916 shortly after 9 p.m., it says: “Protocol recorded on November 23, 1916 on the preservation of the body of His Majesty Emperor Franz Josef I. of the produced in the presence of the two signed attending doctors. The two large carotid arteries are exposed, cannulas are tied into them and then injected with formalin in a concentrated state into the head on the one hand and into the trunk on the other hand in an amount of 5 liters. Finally, the throat wounds are sutured. ” The protocol is signed by forensic physician and pathologist Alexander Kolisko , the personal physician of the Emperor's Councilor Joseph Ritter von Kerzl and the then director of the II Medical University Clinic Norbert Ortner . Edmund Glaise-Horstenau writes about it in his memoirs : "When I went into the adjutant's room at Schönbrunn on November 22 , 1916] , Brougier asked me:" Do you want to see the Kaiser again? " [...] He led me into the dying room. [...] The emperor's corpse lay on a table, covered by a sheet. It was ready for the embalming and the removal of the death mask. [...] When the death mask was removed, half of the famous emperor's beard got stuck in the plaster mask. A new means of embalming had been used, an injection that was supposed to save the body from gutting. Perhaps the dose was too strong, and the corpse's belly swelled up enormously. Of course, there was no longer any question of an open laying out, the coffin was closed as soon as possible and after the ceremony was brought to the castle chapel in the courtyard corpse fort in the dark. ”In 1955, Egon Caesar Conte Corti wrote about the conservation of Franz Joseph's corpse in his biography of Kaisers: “Then the corpse is embalmed with paraffin using a new process , placed in a copper coffin and transferred to the chapel of the Vienna Hofburg . It remains there for three days in public on the display bed, surrounded by the most beautiful flowers and wreaths with splendid bows. During this time the face of the deceased changed and the features so familiar to his subjects are hardly recognizable. The doctors committed a malpractice with this new type of embalming, which is not very often practiced. ” According to Hans Bankl , Corti was wrong in his description of the procedure: As you can see from the protocol, the corpse was preserved with formalin rather than paraffin. Emperor Franz Joseph was buried in the Capuchin Crypt in Vienna nine days after his death . Bankl still considered it normal that the facial features changed somewhat during the laying out. Also, the preservation of corpses by means of formalin injection was no longer a new procedure, but had been established as a common method in practice for over thirty years at that time. Other details in the information provided by Cortis are also inconsistent with the facts. As the adjacent images show, Emperor Franz Joseph was laid out in his bedroom in Schönbrunn Palace . At first he was seen lying on his deathbed in pajamas , later in the dress uniform of an Austro-Hungarian field marshal in an open coffin. According to the photos, this is likely to be the same coffin that - now closed - can also be seen when laying out in the castle chapel of the Hofburg. A parade bed, as it was common in the baroque and z. B. was also used in the laying out of the Bavarian King Ludwig II († 1886) and the German Emperor Wilhelm I († 1888), but does not seem to have been used by Emperor Franz Joseph. There are contradicting statements in the press as to whether a heart burial was carried out in the case of Emperor Franz Joseph : on the one hand it is reported that the heart was removed and buried in the ducal crypt of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna (although no longer in the heart crypt of the Habsburgs ); on the other hand, it is said that before his death Emperor Franz Joseph had spoken out against a separate burial of entrails and bodies (he is said to have ordered a burial in the Capuchin crypt " without transferring individual parts to other crypts ") and was therefore buried with organs . In most of the cases in which the preservation was carried out using formaldehyde, organs were not removed from the House of Habsburg at that time either.
The Austrian anatomist Ferdinand Hochstetter (1861–1954) worked with paraffin and formalin . In the "paraffin impregnation" method he developed, the specimen or the corpse is first fixed by injecting formalin with chlorine-zinc added through the arteries, and then completely dehydrated by treatment with alcohol with the addition of a dehydrating substance (annealed copper sulfate ). This part of the procedure is performed with increasing concentrations of alcohol and can take several months. The alcohol in the corpse is then displaced by an alcohol-soluble liquid, which must also be paraffin-soluble and anhydrous, and replaced by resins such as turpentine , xylene , benzene or chloroform . Instead of an infusion that remains liquid, paraffin liquefied in the heat is introduced and the tissue of the corpse is soaked in such a way that, after the paraffin has cooled and solidified, an indefinitely durable body is created. This method even allows the tissue to be examined histologically after any time. In addition, a corpse treated in this way is protected against the effects of weathering.
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The corpse of the Russian politician Lenin , who died in 1924, was also preserved with the help of formalin and paraffin. After his death, the body was autopsied and the brain and internal organs removed. The soft tissues were then soaked evenly with preservative substances by creating a well-thought-out system of interconnected cuts in the corpse. The surface of Lenin's body was treated with a special solution of secret composition, whereby the skin got a more or less natural color and became elastic again. Formaldehyde was used to stop tissue breakdown and give the body its rosy color back, and glycerine to restore the body's elasticity. The corpse preserved in this way was then visibly laid out under glass in the Lenin mausoleum and made accessible to visitors. When Lenin's coffin was relocated in 1942 due to the Second World War, it became apparent that the preservation methods used in 1924 were not permanent. Subsequently, the application of the apparently only temporarily effective chemicals was repeated at regular intervals in order to guarantee the long-term preservation of Lenin's corpse. This includes regular baths in a formaldehyde solution, repeated every 18 months. Shortly after his death, responsibility for the preservation of Lenin's corpse was transferred to the "All-Russian Research Institute for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants", which was founded for this purpose. Today, Lenin's body in the mausoleum is checked twice a week by a group of twelve scientists from the institute. At the end of 2003, the body was again placed in a tub with a special solution 'made from glycerine and potassium acetate ', and cosmetic retouching was also carried out. Lenin was initially dressed in a uniform. Before the Second World War, these were replaced by civilian clothes. Now every three years Lenin is dressed in a new suit and tie. Over the years, decayed body parts have been repeatedly replaced by replicas made of wax, so that today Lenin's corpse is said to consist of 60% wax.
Following the example of Lenin, the corpses of other communist politicians were later preserved and exhibited in mausoleums , such as Georgi Dimitrov († 1949) in Bulgaria, Chorloogiin Tschoibalsan († 1952) in Mongolia, Stalin († 1953) in the Soviet Union, Klement Gottwald ( † 1953) in Czechoslovakia , Hồ Chí Minh († 1969) in Vietnam, Mao Zedong († 1976) in the People's Republic of China , Kim Il-sung († 1994) and Kim Jong-il († 2011) in North Korea . In the course of the de-Stalinization, Stalin's body was removed from the Lenin mausoleum on the evening of October 31, 1961 and buried in an earth grave by the Kremlin wall ; Gottwald's body was even cremated in 1962 . Dimitrov was buried in the central cemetery in Sofia in 1990 , and his mausoleum was blown up in 1999. The body of Evita Perón († 1952) in Argentina was kept in shape for decades through regular baths and follow-up treatments. Her body was first dipped in acetate and nitrate , then slowly sprayed with wax. This process resulted not only in the preservation of the internal organs, but also in the fact that their skin became transparent. Evita Perón's body was on public display in Buenos Aires from 1953 to 1955 , in 1956 it was secretly flown to Milan , in September 1971 it was brought to Madrid . In 1974 he was returned to Argentina and buried in Recoleta Cemetery in October 1976 . The Spanish pathologist Pedro Ara (1891–1973) was responsible for Evita's conservation.
When the sarcophagus of the last Austro-Hungarian monarch Charles I († 1922) was opened in 1972 to gain an insight into the condition of the remains, the body turned out to be remarkably well preserved. Although the body of the former emperor, who died in exile on Madeira , was only hastily embalmed before the burial on April 4, 1922 (death occurred on April 1, 1922 at noon, the embalming took place on the evening of the same day, followed by the exposure of the deceased in a field uniform with the golden fleece ) and moist air could enter through a broken coffin window, the body was in good condition. After completing the investigations, Charles I was dressed in a new uniform and reburied in a new coffin. Before the burial in Madeira , Empress Zita had the heart removed for a separate burial and took it with her to her different places of residence for almost fifty years. Since 1971 it has been kept in a stele behind the altar of the Loreto Chapel in Muri Monastery (Switzerland).
After the death of Pope John XXIII. (1963) his body was preserved by a team led by Ernesto Signoracci from the famous Roman taxidermist family, who in 1978 also cared for the corpses of Pope Paul VI. and Pope John Paul I was responsible. In 1963 the team also included Gennaro Goglia, a young anatomy expert from the Catholic University of Rome. On the occasion of the reburial of the Pope from the Vatican Grottoes to St. Peter's Basilica , Goglia described the burial preparations in 2001. At that time, he and the other experts took a private elevator to the papal apartments. There the group had to wait an hour for the sculptor Giacomo Manzù to finish the bronze death mask . Using a pump, Goglia then pressed around five liters of a mixture of ethanol , formalin , sodium sulfate and potassium nitrate into the body through a cannula in the dead man's wrist . Because John XXIII. had died of stomach cancer , another five liters had to be injected directly into the stomach to stop the putrefaction there. The procedure took about six hours. No blood was drawn from the Pope because it was feared that it might fall into the wrong hands and be sold as a relic. After the conservation, the corpse was enclosed in an airtight triple coffin made of cypress wood, lead and oak and buried in the Vatican grottoes under St. Peter's Basilica. Since his reburial in the interior of St. Peter's Basilica, John XXIII has rested. in a glass coffin that is bulletproof and ventilated with a toxic mixture of nitrogen that kills bacteria and mold. The face and hands of the Pope are covered with thin wax masks (as is the case with Bernadette Soubirous and King Ludwig II, for example ). A cooling system also ensures that temperatures above 36 degrees Celsius cannot cause any damage. In 2005, mortuary taxidermist Massimo Signoracci declared that the preservation method used by his family was essentially the same today as it was decades ago, except that the pumps are now stronger: “You open the arteries in the neck and the crook of the thighs, draw the blood out and inject at the same time A preparatory liquid, a 15 percent formalin solution, through the veins. ” With good treatment, a body can last for twenty or thirty years. With Pope Paul VI. However, the formalin was not distributed sufficiently in the body: “One leg started to decompose. My father did what he could, but without much success. "
In the case of Pope Pius XII. († 1958) the conservation of the corpse failed dramatically due to an unsuitable procedure. Formalin had been used routinely since Pope Pius X († 1914) in order to be able to exhibit the corpses of dead popes for several days and to preserve them for posterity . At Pius XII. but his personal physician Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi did not follow the tried and tested method, but used a procedure developed by him and Oreste Nuzzi from Naples, for which the body was not opened. The preservation should be achieved with the help of herbs and essential oils that had to act for several hours. In order for the active ingredients to be absorbed more effectively, the corpse in Castel Gandolfo was temporarily wrapped in cling film, which gave the ceremony an unworthy appearance. Galeazzi-Lisi's and Nuzzi's method of preservation soon proved to be a complete failure. The papal corpse began to decompose and there was a strong odor of decay. At the public laying out of Pius XII. numerous guardsmen of the honor guard fainted and had to be replaced at ever shorter intervals. During the transfer from Castel Gandolfo to Rome in the papal hearse, decomposition gas leaked from the body. In St. Peter's Basilica, Pius XII. laid out on a high pedestal so that the mourners could not see the discoloration of their face and hands up close. In the end, even the nose should have fallen off. Galeazzi-Lisi had to justify his preservation method at a press conference . When it later became known that he had given the press details from the medical history of Pius XII. and secretly taken photos of the dying Pope for sale, he was expelled from the Vatican and the Italian Medical Association revoked his license.
Today's procedures
The solutions used today for the preservation of corpses are very similar in their composition to the chemical substances that were used around the turn of the century before last , e.g. B. by Alfredo Salafia . Only zinc is no longer used because it is difficult to handle, and formaldehyde is used in lower concentrations. As a 35 to 37 percent solution, as it was for corpses in the 19th century, it is now almost only used to preserve tissue samples for anatomical studies. The formaldehyde solutions commonly used in funerals today contain between 5 and 35 percent of the carcinogenic substance. The dosage can vary depending on how long the body is to be kept. In most cases, formalin is used today in a 4 to 8 percent solution.
In order to temporarily preserve a corpse, for example for the purpose of longer laying out or for transport abroad, thanatopractors now use a "preventive treatment" known in the USA and Great Britain as " modern embalming ". In Great Britain in particular, there are particularly advanced taxidermists due to the colonial era, when the deceased had to be repatriated on long journeys home. In the USA, the temporary preservation of corpses through "modern embalming" is even more widespread. It is applied to the majority of all deaths today. In "Modern Embalming", a disinfecting solution containing formaldehyde is pumped into the arterial system using a cannula and a hose , for example via the carotid artery. It is practically a short-term preservation in the dialysis process . A mixture of alcohol, formalin and water-based lanolin is supplied through the dead man's arterial system . In exchange, the blood is drained out via the veins. Large blood vessels such as the femoral artery are best for exchanging body fluid. Since important blood vessels are often severed during autopsies, the preservative fluid must be introduced at several points in such cases, either on the arms or on the cervical artery. The vascular system of the dead body is ejected with pressure and a volume of about eleven liters of formalin-containing liquid, for which electric pumps are used. A dead body can be completely preserved for laying out in about two to two and a half hours. The fluid spreads throughout the body through the cell walls. Depending on the strength of the solution, the decomposition process can be held up for four to six weeks.
Using this method, for example, the body of Raissa Gorbatschowa, who died in Münster , was prepared for transfer to Russia in 1999 , and in 2005 Giovanni Arcudi, head of forensic medicine at the Tor Vergata University in Rome, was supposed to use this method to remove the body of Pope John Paul II . have prepared for several days in public laying out in the Vatican. Decay can be postponed for a long time through "Modern Embalming", but this method alone cannot completely prevent it. However, through a higher concentration of chemicals and the regular repetition of the process (such as with the corpse of Lenin, see above), a longer preservation can be achieved.
The previous removal of the internal organs and the airtight storage of the chemically preserved body in a cool, dry environment also promote conservation. Before the funeral of Zitas von Bourbon-Parma in 1989, the modalities of the conservation were first discussed between her son Rudolph Habsburg-Lothringen and the pathologist Walter Widder, whereupon Widder opened the body together with an autopsy assistant in the Cantonal Hospital of Graubünden : “We placed a cannula in the leg artery through which we introduced formalin into the body. ” In the body, formalin replaced the blood within an hour. One effect of this procedure was that the putrefaction process stopped almost entirely and the collapsed soft facial tissues of the dead became fuller again. The heart was also removed from the body and preserved. It was later picked up by an employee of Rudolph Habsburg-Lothringen and placed in a silver container that had been specially made for a separate burial. The preserved body was then placed in a cedar made of cedar wood with a metal inner lining and laid out for almost half a month in the Muri monastery , then transferred to Austria and buried in the Capuchin Crypt in Vienna . Several months later, on May 8, 1991, the coffin was placed in a copper sarcophagus, which was hermetically sealed and soldered.
While Zita's body has been resting in a metal sarcophagus since its burial and nothing is known about its state of preservation, the chemically preserved corpse of the Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who also died in 1989, was visibly laid out in a chilled glass coffin by his wife Imelda until 2016. Since Imelda Marcos' return to the Philippines in 1993, the glass coffin on the Marcos family property in Batac has been open to the public in a mausoleum. After the Philippine government had refused to interred Marcos in the "National Heroes Cemetery" in Manila for years, the body was finally buried there on November 18, 2016.
In contrast, the case of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013, showed the limits of even modern conservation methods. After his death there was a nine-day laying out in the Fuerte Tiuna Military Academy in Caracas , for which his body was prepared using " modern embalming " and was visible through a pane of glass in the coffin. Chavez was then transferred to a military museum in Caracas, where he was to be permanently displayed. The permanent preservation necessary for this was to be carried out by the "All-Russian Research Institute for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants" in Moscow, following the example of Lenin, for which the body of Chavez was to be brought to Russia for seven to eight months. However, after an examination of the body by Russian and German experts, the Venezuelan government abandoned the plan, as the experts believed that Chavez's body was already too old for permanent preservation and that the process would have been correspondingly difficult due to the already gradually beginning decomposition process . The decision to preserve Chavez's body in this way should have been made much earlier in order to have any chance of success.
In addition to the funeral industry, formaldehyde is also used for preservation in biology and medicine , especially pathology . The fixatives used to preserve histological or anatomical specimens are dependent on the further use of the specimen.
In the second half of the 20th century, plastination , another preservation process, was developed in which the cell fluid is replaced by plastic in a vacuum . The long-term preservation of entire corpses is now also possible with this method. It is controversial whether the cryopreservation of human bodies - which enjoys great media attention especially in the USA (see cryonics ), but is extremely rarely used due to the high costs - is to be counted as a method of corpse conservation in the narrower sense.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Cf. Barbara Hartl: Schön für die Ewigkeit ( Memento from March 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), PM Magazin (accessed on November 4, 2012)
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Christopher R. Seddon: Dissected and sewn up. Considerations on the preservation of corpses as part of the courtly ceremonial of the Habsburgs , Linz 2005, special edition pp. 12–18.
- ↑ a b Cf. Alexander Glück / Marcello LaSperanza / Peter Ryborz: Unter Wien: In the footsteps of the third man through canals, tombs and casemates. Christoph Links Verlag 2001, p. 44 ( limited preview in Google book search)
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Barbara Hartl: Schön für die Ewigkeit ( Memento from March 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), PM Magazin (accessed on November 4, 2012)
- ↑ a b Cases in which conservation measures are prohibited , accessed on August 24, 2014
- ^ W. Reiss , A. Stübel : The dead field of Ancon in Peru. A contribution to the knowledge of the culture and industry of the Inca Empire. 15 volumes. Asher, Berlin 1880–1887.
- ↑ http://www.myanmars.net/myanmar-culture/myanmar-monk-cremation.htm
- ↑ http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/2070/ Kabayan Mummy Burial Caves. May 16, 2006
- ↑ Woman from the Guanche culture (sic! Separated without a hyphen). (pdf) Press information on the special exhibition "Mummies of the World". Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum, 2015, accessed June 28, 2018 .
- ↑ Complete excavation of the Arzhan 2 Kurgans with an undisturbed princely grave (late 7th century BC) ( Memento from April 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ The Gold of Tuva . Interactive thematic complex of the ZDF production Schliemanns Erben , 2006
- ↑ In the sign of the Golden Griffin. Royal Tombs of the Scythians , exhibition in the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin ( Memento from March 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah Magdalena Hawlik-van de Water: The beautiful death. Ceremonial structures of the Viennese court at death and burial between 1640 and 1740 , Freiburg / Wien 1989, pp. 203–211 (on "The methods of embalming from antiquity to modern times").
- ^ Johann Franzl, Rudolf I. The first Habsburg on the German throne , Verlag Styria 1986, pp. 60, 201-204; see also here
- ↑ The Odyssey of a Dead Queen
- ↑ After the earthquake of 1356 the grave was moved to the left side of the choir of the Basel Minster. In 1510 the tomb was opened by the Basel canons, and the royal crown, a ring and a necklace were removed. Another opening of the grave followed in 1770 in the course of the ceremonial translation of the imperial-royal-also-ducal-Austrian highest corpses to the monastery of St. Blasien in the Black Forest.
- ↑ a b Christine Pernlochner-Kügler: Heart burial: Backgrounds of a bizarre Habsburg tradition , online ( Memento of the original from August 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed November 14, 2012)
- ↑ See also Anja Gröber, The Boiled Kaiser (January 30, 2009, online )
- ↑ Knut Görich, Die Staufer: Herrscher und Reich , 2. durchges. and actual Edition, CH Beck, Munich 2006 (= C.-H.-Beck-Wissen, 2393; ISBN 3-406-53593-3 ), p. 67
- ↑ Magdalena Hawlik-van de Water, The Capuchin Crypt. Burial place of the Habsburgs in Vienna , 2nd edition Vienna 1993, p. 72.
- ↑ For an early example see Romedio Schmitz-Esser and Elena Taddei: The death of Duke Severin of Saxony in Tyrol - An autopsy report by the Habsburg court doctor Georg Tannstätter from 1533 , in: Virus 5 (2005) pp. 9-21.
- ↑ a b ´Alexander Glück, Marcello LaSperanza, Peter Ryborz: Unter Wien: In the footsteps of the third man through canals, tombs and casemates. Christoph Links Verlag 2001, pp. 43–44 ( limited preview in Google book search).
- ↑ http://geschichtsverein-koengen.de/Habsburger.htm (accessed on September 9, 2012)
- ↑ The repeatedly read statement that the body of Rudolf IV was supposedly cooked in red wine is likely to be due to a confusion between the preservation method using red wine and the method of mos teutonicus , the use of which was forbidden by Pope Boniface VIII as early as 1299 .
- ↑ Annemarie Fenzl: 5th Catechesis 2004/05: Paths to prayer - images of grace and donors (see full text online ) writes: “Duke Rudolf IV., The donor died shortly afterwards, on July 27, 1365 in Milan and was, wrapped in a precious shroud and a black cowhide, brought across the Alps, to Vienna, to his St. Stephen's Cathedral, where he found his eternal resting place. "
- ↑ Markus Ritter: Art with a message: The gold-silk fabric for the Ilchan Abu Sa'id of Iran (Rudolf IV's grave robe in Vienna) - reconstruction, type, medium of representation. In: Contributions to Islamic Art and Archeology , Vol. 2, Ed. M. Ritter and L. Korn, Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2010, pp. 105–135, has worked out that the precious shroud of Duke Rudolf IV was a precious gold-silk fabric with Arabic inscriptions that was originally in Iran 1319–1335 was made for the ruling Muslim Ilchan Sultan there and is now exhibited in the Cathedral and Diocesan Museum (Vienna) .
- ↑ Source: Salzburg today , article on February 21, 2009.
- ↑ grave Mayer John: illness, dying and death in the early 16th century. In: Albrecht Classen (Ed.): Religion and Health. The healing discourse in the 16th century. Berlin / New York 2011, pp. 49–78, here 69-70 ( limited preview in Google book search)
- ↑ a b c Magdalena Hawlik-van de Water: The methods of embalming from ancient times to modern times. In: Die Kapuzinergruft - Journal of the Society for the Rescue of the Capuchin Crypt (1/1988), p. 2.
- ↑ cf. Julius Pagel: Sebisch, Melchior I . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 33, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1891, p. 508 f.
- ↑ The embalmed heart of King Louis XIV was brought to the Jesuit church on Rue St. Antoine in Paris after his death to rest next to his father's heart. During the restoration period , like all the heart burials of the members of the royal family, it was brought to the Abbey of Saint-Denis, where it is still located in the restored burial place of the French kings in the crypt .
- ↑ Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Kerckring, Theodorus. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 732.
- ↑ Elisabeth Hösl, The Capuchin Crypt in Vienna: Sarcophagi made of tin alloys , diploma thesis from the field of conservation - restoration, Vienna (University of Applied Arts) 2005, p. 58.
- ↑ a b Elisabeth Hösl, The Capuchin Crypt in Vienna: Sarcophagi made of tin alloys , diploma thesis in the field of conservation - restoration, Vienna (University of Applied Arts) 2005, p. 57.
- ^ The Habsburgs' Heart Crypt ( Memento from February 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on November 5, 2012
- ↑ Description ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. the funeral ceremony for Archduke Leopold Johann († 1716), which was worked out after the funeral ceremony for Archduke Ferdinand Wenzel († 1668).
- ↑ Quoted from the court protocol from Magdalena Hawlik-van de Water: The Capuchin Crypt. Burial place of the Habsburgs in Vienna. 2nd edition Vienna 1993, p. 149.
- ↑ a b Magdalena Hawlik-van de Water: The beautiful death. Ceremonial structures of the Viennese court at death and burial between 1640 and 1740. Herder, Vienna 1989, ISBN 978-3-210-24945-2 , pp. 99–105.
- ↑ Gerhild HM Komander: Sophie Charlotte - Portrait of a Prussian Queen. Lecture on February 18, 2005 at Urania Berlin (online)
- ^ Burial ceremonies of the Habsburgs . http: //maria-theresia-hofburg.antonprock.at.+ Retrieved July 14, 2019.
- ↑ Walter Koschatzky (Ed.): Maria Theresia and their time. On the 200th anniversary of the death , catalog for the exhibition May 13 to October 26, 1980 Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace, Salzburg-Vienna 1980, pp. 188–189.
- ↑ Ernst Gurlt: Leber, Ferdinand Joseph Edler von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, p. 93 f.
- ↑ From the court protocol quoted from Magdalena Hawlik-van de Water, Die Kapuzinergruft. Burial place of the Habsburgs in Vienna , 2nd edition Vienna 1993, p. 56.
- ↑ Walter Koschatzky (ed.), Maria Theresia and their time. On the 200th anniversary of death , catalog for the exhibition May 13 to October 26, 1980 Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace, Salzburg-Vienna 1980, p. 202.
- ↑ Stefan von Bergen: "Nine places are still available." The family crypt of the House of Habsburg in the Muri monastery , in: Die Presse , Spectrum - Zeichen der Zeit (May 26, 2001), p. 3.
- ↑ a b www.profil.at
- ^ P. Waldemar Posch: The Michaeler Crypt in Vienna , Vienna 1981.
- ↑ Friedrich Leeb: The Altöttinger Gnadenkapelle as the final resting place , in: Ostbairische Grenzmarken 4 (1960), pp. 20-25.
- ↑ Magdalena Hawlik-van de Water: The beautiful death. Ceremonial structures of the Viennese court at death and burial between 1640 and 1740 , Freiburg / Wien 1989, p. 68.
- ↑ Father Eberhard Kusin, The Imperial Crypt at the PP. Capuchins in Vienna , Vienna 1949, p. 71.
- ↑ Tom Hickman, Death - A User's Guide , London 2002, p. 98. There was a similar incident in 1927 at the funeral for Adolphus Cambridge, 1st Marquess of Cambridge , when decomposition gas came out of the body with a bang during the conduct ( see ibid.).
- ↑ Father Eberhard Kusin, The Imperial Crypt at the PP. Capuchins in Vienna , Vienna 1949, p. 58.
- ↑ The wooden coffin of Maximilian Franz of Austria remained in the niche of the " Maria Theresa Crypt ", where it was walled in in 1801, until the 20th century . It was not until 1960 that the wooden coffin was embedded in a metal sarcophagus and placed in the newly built "New Crypt" as part of the expansion of the Vienna Capuchin Crypt. See also Magdalena Hawlik-van de Water, The Capuchin Crypt. Burial place of the Habsburgs in Vienna , 2nd edition Vienna 1993, p. 254.
- ↑ Information from Adolf Rudolph, Hechingen, in: The homecoming of the king - The transfer of Frederick the Great (1991, ARD documentation by Guido Knopp ), online interview at 0:12:10 min
- ^ Heinrich Lange, 204th anniversary of death: Friedrich Wilhelm II. Adventurous story of a royal sarcophagus. Part I , in: The Ostpreußenblatt. Landsmannschaft Ostpreußen eV (November 10, 2001) online ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Tom Hickman, Death - A User's Guide , London 2002, pp. 100-101.
- ↑ On Egyptian Mummies and French Campaigns - On the History of Embalming
- ↑ a b Magdalena Hawlik-van de Water, The Capuchin Crypt. Burial place of the Habsburgs in Vienna , 2nd edition Vienna 1993, p. 269.
- ↑ Father Eberhard Kusin, The Imperial Crypt at the PP. Capuchins in Vienna , Vienna 1949, p. 60.
- ↑ Josef Ziegler, Leonhard Stramitz: Report of the Restorers , in: "The Capuchin Crypt - Journal of the Society for the Rescue of the Capuchin Crypt" (1/1988), p. 3.
- ↑ Der Spiegel: The Adventurous Prince , accessed August 10, 2015
- ↑ Die Zeit: The Maximilian Files , accessed on August 10, 2015. For the history of the chamber chapel in the Leopoldine wing of the Hofburg, see here .
- ↑ Arthur C. Aufderheide, The Scientific Study of Mummies ( limited preview in the Google book search); Christine Quigley, Modern Mummies: The Preservation of the Human Body in the Twentieth Century ( limited preview in Google Book Search)
- ^ A b Undertaker weblog: Embalming
- ^ Mary Roach, The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers , WW Norton & Company 2004, p. 79
- ↑ David A. Poirier, Kenneth L. Feder, Dangerous places: Health, Safety and Archeology , Greenwood Publishing Group 2001, p. 127
- ↑ Tom Hickman, Death - A User's Guide , London 2002, p. 102.
- ^ Archduchess Elisabeth. In: New Free Press. Abendblatt, February 16, 1903, p. 7, top right.
- ↑ a b Pope Pius XII. The bizarre death of the deputy , Der Spiegel Online (accessed November 11, 2012)
- ↑ a b c d e f Angelika Franz: Researchers solve the riddle of the flawless mummy , Der Spiegel Online from May 11, 2009 (accessed on November 4, 2012)
- ↑ After the blessing in St. Michael's Church, the mahogany coffin was carried into the princely crypt. In the crypt in the delimited chancel, an already opened brownish, gilded zinc coffin was ready to receive the mahogany coffin with the corpse. After the last prayers had been performed in the middle of the altar area of the crypt, the mahogany coffin was placed in the zinc coffin and, in accordance with a protocol of June 19, 1886, the head and foot of the coffin were double-sealed by Minister of State Friedrich Krafft von Crailsheim and locked with two locks; later the zinc coffin was soldered airtight. On October 22nd, 1886, after completion of the necessary structural work in the royal crypt, the bed was transferred to the pewter sarcophagus created by J. Rößler . The magnificent sarcophagus has a total weight of approx. 20 quintals, a length of 2.75 m, a width of 1.18 m and a height (without the royal crown, 50 cm) of 1.25 m. - Werner Schubert, The sarcophagus of King Ludwig II of Bavaria , online (accessed October 31, 2012)
- ↑ Werner Schubert, The sarcophagus of King Ludwig II of Bavaria , online (accessed October 31, 2012)
- ↑ Information from Werner Schubert, Der Sarkophag König Ludwigs II. Von Bayern , online (accessed on October 31, 2012). Schubert writes that the specified recipe comes from the Charité Berlin , but was also known to the institutes in Bavaria at the time and it can be assumed that the corpse of King Ludwig II was also preserved using this method (possibly with a few deviations). In the Pathological Institute of the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main , corpses are still preserved according to this recipe.
- ^ A b Paul Koudounaris, The Immaculate Corpses of Dr Alfredo Salafia at the Palermo Catacombs (Palermo, Sicily, Italy) , accessed November 5, 2012
- ↑ Book - New Release: EURAC Researcher Unveils Techniques of the Famous Sicilian Embalmer. ( Memento of December 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) On: eurac.edu , accessed on March 13, 2012
- ↑ Dario Piombino-Mascali, Arthur C. Aufderheide, Melissa Johnson-Williams, Albert R. Zink: The Salafia method rediscovered . In: Virchow's archive . Vol. 454, No. 3, March 2009, pp. 355-7. doi : 10.1007 / s00428-009-0738-6 . PMID 19205728 .
- ↑ Information from Heda Samanek, Sarajevo, in: Das Assentat von Sarajevo ( ORF documentary), online interview at 03:55 min
- ↑ a b c d e f If the dead should live longer ( memento of the original from August 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Report on www.springermedizin.at , March 28, 2007 (accessed on September 7, 2012)
- ^ Colonel Rudolf Brougier (born April 13, 1877 in Graz, † December 13, 1944 in Vienna), the wing adjutant of Emperor Karl I.
- ↑ Edmund Glaise-Horstenau in Peter Broucek (ed.), A General in Twilight. The memories of Edmund Glaise von Horstenau. Vol. 1: K. uk general staff officer and historian . Wien, Böhlau 1980, pp. 383–384 ( limited preview in Google book search)
- ^ Karl Vocelka , Michaela Vocelka: Franz Joseph I. Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary 1830-1916. A biography. Munich (CH Beck) 2015, ISBN 978-3-406-68286-5 , page 365.
- ↑ Hans Werner Scheidl, The Emperor's personal physician Dr. Kerzl was powerless , in: Die Presse , November 19, 2016 (online)
- ↑ Fabian Schmid: The separate burial of hearts and viscera , derStandard.at, July 15, 2011 ( online )
- ↑ a b c d Tom Hickman, Death - A User's Guide , London 2002, p. 103.
- ↑ a b c Christian Esch, Hugo Chavez - No man for eternity , in: Frankfurter Rundschau of March 15, 2013 ( online ), accessed on March 23, 2013
- ↑ See the list in Giovanni Moretto, Lenin and his body: A case of Soviet religiosity , p. 290 ( limited preview in the Google book search), accessed on November 10, 2012
- ↑ See also Radio Prague: Exhibition at Vitkov Memorial highlights the Klement Gottwald personality cult , 08-03-2012 , accessed on November 9, 2012
- ↑ Tom Hickman, Death - A User's Guide , London 2002, p. 105.
- ↑ Santa Evita . In: Der Spiegel . No. 35 , 1995 ( online ).
- ^ Elisabeth Kovács: The fall or salvation of the Danube monarchy? Volume 1: The Austrian Question. Emperor and King Charles I (IV.) And the reorganization of Central Europe. Böhlau, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-205-77238-5 , Chapter XXV (online)
- ↑ No celebrations in front of Charles I's Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Funchal , www.kath.net (August 17, 2016), accessed on July 10, 2017
- ↑ Beatification of Emperor Karl I .: A process lasting more than 50 years (religion.orf.at) , accessed on August 10, 2015
- ↑ Mythensturm from the Imperial Crypt , accessed on August 10, 2015
- ↑ Illustration of the heart urn stele in the Loreto Chapel (grid closed) , accessed on August 10, 2015
- ↑ Illustration of the heart urn stele in the Loreto Chapel (grid open) , accessed on August 10, 2015
- ↑ a b c Alexander Smoltczyk: Popes for Eternity , Der Spiegel Online from April 5, 2005 (accessed November 5, 2012)
- ↑ Tom Hickman, Death - A User's Guide , London 2002, p. 111.
- ^ Embalming replaced by modern methods , Die Welt, April 7, 2005, accessed March 2, 2013
- ↑ a b from Zita's heart. Report on Vorarlberg Online, July 18, 2011 (accessed on September 6, 2012)
- ↑ Magdalena Hawlik-van de Water, The Capuchin Crypt. Burial place of the Habsburgs in Vienna , 2nd edition Vienna 1993, p. 311.
- ↑ Last trip: Chavez's body in the military museum , in: Die Presse from March 16, 2013 ( online ), accessed on March 23, 2013
