Mumije (Mummies; Frozen in Time)
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CreativityTranscript
00:00Some people look at mummies and see corpses. I look at mummies and see beautiful treasures from the past.
00:07Most of us consider them scary, but mummies also have a strong appeal.
00:12It's one thing to recognize a skull, but it's something else to recognize a face.
00:18They are links between yesterday and tomorrow, forever preserved, frozen in time.
00:31Through the ages, the powerful took everything to prevent the body from shrinking.
00:40With magic formulas, elaborate funeral rites and decorated skulls,
00:45they hoped to keep their mortal remains.
00:53But occasionally, ordinary people would reach that kind of eternal life.
01:00And today, mummies are found in places that are much smaller than pyramids.
01:10In a souvenir shop in Svetlo, right behind the snow in the glass,
01:14and exactly behind the antique vault, there is something that looks like a skull.
01:20But it's really made up of flesh and bone.
01:24This is a mummy, and it's called Sylvester.
01:30He seems to have died of a gunshot wound.
01:35Legend has it that two cowboys in the Arizona desert found him a century ago,
01:40but we don't know his true identity.
01:48Sylvester's skin is a little wrinkled, but he's almost perfectly intact.
01:54Nails on hands and feet, hair, pimples, scabs,
01:59all of this is preserved thanks to the dry heat of the desert.
02:07Sylvester is a naturally mummified person.
02:10It is said that he was killed, so he lies here on the desert floor.
02:15In this area, it is very hot, very dry, the humidity, the air is very low.
02:21He can be mummified, and that is a natural form of mummification
02:25due to heat and dehydration.
02:35Dr. Walter Burgby is a forensic anthropologist in Arizona
02:39and he knows mummies like Sylvester.
02:45We find them several times a year.
02:49It is a natural mummification of people who go out and die in the desert,
02:53so they dry up.
03:00Sylvester is not the only mummy in the market of unusual objects.
03:06A few meters away is Sylvia.
03:12They say she came from Spain at the beginning of the 19th century.
03:16She died of tuberculosis, which she got better from
03:19on a long voyage to the New World.
03:25Like Sylvester and Sylvia, her body was dehydrated.
03:29The desert can do that in a few weeks.
03:34And as her skin dried up and dried up,
03:37her mouth opened wide and froze into a silent scream.
03:42There is another mummy buried in the display case,
03:46but it is reduced.
03:48The twisted body does not tell us much about her history.
03:53The current owners of the market, Tammy and Andy James,
03:56got a sketch of her story, but it is all a little unclear.
04:02This is our mummy. We call her Gloria.
04:05She is female, probably between 25 and 35 years old,
04:09according to the information we have.
04:14We got it from a researcher who was exploring the cave and found it.
04:22If the Jameses want to know more about Gloria,
04:25they need the help of experts like Walter Burgby.
04:38They sent her to Dr. Burgby's lab in Tucson.
04:44He will conduct a series of tests, such as age determination,
04:47radioactive carbon and X-rays,
04:49to find out the truth about Gloria's past.
04:58Around the world, there are other mummies,
05:00which are also preserved by the game of fate.
05:04Many of them owe their existence not to the dry heat of the desert,
05:08but to snow and ice.
05:19One of the most famous was discovered by the mountaineers in 1991,
05:23at the top of a glacier that melted high in the Italian Alps.
05:28When they found him, they thought he was a mountaineer,
05:31like them, recently a victim of the cold.
05:38The truth is fascinating.
05:42We know him as the Ice Man,
05:45and he made a leap from 3300 BC to the modern age,
05:50simply because he was in the right place at the right time.
05:55He may have been caught in a sudden flood,
05:58his body was covered with snow and layers of ice,
06:01so he dried up, freezing.
06:06He would stay there for 5,000 years.
06:12Then suddenly, the Ice Man found himself among the living again,
06:16giving scientists a unique view of his world.
06:20From his skin, we can estimate that he was between 45 and 50 years old.
06:28His teeth show signs of hard wear.
06:31Maybe he was a craftsman who put leather on his skin.
06:34The skin of the Ice Man and the internal organs are largely intact,
06:38and they can tell us a lot about his life.
06:41Grains and fiber in his intestines reveal that he ate mostly vegetarian food,
06:47but there are also traces of bone in the meat.
06:51X-ray images show weakened vertebrae from injury or arthritis,
06:56but he was treated standardly for that time.
06:59His blue tattoo was conceived as a defense against pain.
07:11We can only speculate about who the Ice Man was,
07:15but now, when more than 5,000 years have passed,
07:19we know a little more about how he lived.
07:28Like the high Alps and the high Arctic, he is ideal for preserving the body.
07:33Places like the western coast of Greenland, where the soil is permanently frozen.
07:46The most spectacular find here is the place called Kilakitsok,
07:51which was an Eskimo camp 500 years ago.
07:55In two graves, which are preserved as if they were balsamic,
07:59the bodies of six women and two small children were found.
08:06They were dressed in their best leather clothing,
08:10to warm them on their final journey to the Eskimo land of the dead.
08:19And on the faces of five adults, we can distinguish their tattoos,
08:24a sign that they were married.
08:33But their bodies tell a story about hard life,
08:37about bad food, broken bones, cancer.
08:44Although they have been silent for years,
08:47mummies like these can tell us about their hidden past.
08:53Now, Gloria will tell us some of her secrets.
08:58It's time to open this thing and see what we believed in.
09:03In Tucson, Gloria and her mummified remains
09:06arrived at Walter Bergby's laboratory.
09:09Research on her past is about to begin.
09:20It's so small.
09:26The teeth are such that when I look through this bag,
09:30I don't think we have a job with an adult.
09:33I think we need to take it out and look.
09:37Even a flight attendant can tell you a lot,
09:40if we know what we should look at.
09:46As far as teeth are concerned, they will be at least two years old.
09:50These are children's teeth.
09:53They do have a lot of wear.
09:55I haven't seen any tattoos.
09:57We probably won't see any tattoos on such a young person.
10:02A mummy like this could be from the desert in the southwest,
10:06could be from northern Mexico, could be from Chile, Peru.
10:11It's certainly not from a very dry environment.
10:14I don't think we can determine its gender.
10:17There's no way to determine its date just by looking at it.
10:22There's nothing that could give us that kind of information.
10:27We certainly don't have a job with a woman between 25 and 35 years old.
10:33The next order of business is to look inside.
10:36X-rays need to help answer the question,
10:39how old was Gloria when she died?
10:43But I'm going to do it in a different way.
10:46For a forensic expert like Walter Bergby,
10:49a mummified body can tell novels.
10:53If the bones and tissue are well-preserved,
10:56it can actually abduct someone who died a few hundred years ago.
11:02That can give an answer to the mystery of Gloria's life and death.
11:13Mummies are found wherever the climate is cold enough or dry enough.
11:19And they can help us solve old and modern mysteries.
11:26One of the most fascinating stories in the history of polar explorations
11:30concerns the fate of the Franklin Expedition.
11:33Sir John Franklin, members of the crew and officers
11:36sailed from England in 1845
11:39to find a northwest passage to the Pacific.
11:44Blocked by ice, they spent three years
11:47trying to return to civilization.
11:51No one survived.
11:54But why did such a well-equipped, well-organized expedition
11:58end in disaster?
12:03Here on an island about 1,600 kilometres south of the pole,
12:07researchers found the graves of three members of the expedition.
12:12In the woods filled with ice, there were mummified remains.
12:20150 years after their death,
12:23it was discovered that they were remarkably well-preserved.
12:30The permafrost acts as an icebox.
12:35The icebox is a kind of icebox,
12:38and the permafrost acts as an icebox.
12:41These bodies were in a box that kept the ground away from the surface of the bodies.
12:45They were in very good shape.
12:56Autopsies revealed that all three men died of tuberculosis,
13:00a disease that was common at the time.
13:03But the bodies also contained high levels of lead,
13:06which drove them out of the limestone used to store their food.
13:13This lead poisoning weakened the men,
13:16making them sensitive to cold and illness.
13:20It may also have affected their ability to think,
13:23causing them to make bad decisions in critical moments.
13:30Thanks to these mummies,
13:32which were kept in the permafrost,
13:35the mystery of Franklin's expedition can finally be considered solved.
13:44Today, some people freeze on purpose.
13:48This process is called cryonic suspension.
13:52It is actually the way in which meat freezes on the body
13:55with the use of a liquid soul.
13:59One of the industry's leaders is the Alcor Foundation
14:02for Extending Life in Scottsdale, Arizona.
14:10Alcor's clients mummify according to a contract,
14:13planning rapid freezing when they are on the brink of death.
14:19Theoretically, your chemically frozen body
14:22can be defrosted in a century,
14:25when a cure for your illness is found.
14:30At a price of $120,000,
14:33your body will freeze and be stored in a freezer
14:36in a container with a stainless steel container.
14:40If the price is a little steep, there is an economy plan.
14:45For $60,000, you will only freeze your head.
14:49But not everyone is convinced that it is such a good idea.
14:55You save money.
14:57Death is death. You shot at it.
15:00Why? When you want to buy something,
15:03do you think it will make you a better person
15:06or will you be able to contribute to society?
15:09You will be a rudiment of society.
15:12You could be a drag on society.
15:15You could be a vegetable.
15:19Of course, no one knows whether or not
15:22reanimation will be possible.
15:25But that has not prevented people
15:28from preparing for a great freezing.
15:38Most natural mummies are not frozen.
15:41They have dried out.
15:45The deserts of the western part of the United States
15:48are a chest with moisture for dried corpses.
15:53Dry winds and humid soil create a perfect environment
15:56to preserve the remains of everything
15:59that lies here and rests.
16:04Over the past three centuries,
16:07researchers and anthropologists
16:10have discovered hundreds of Indian mummies.
16:14Like these, which were photographed
16:17by a scientific expedition in 1900.
16:35One mummy found in these deserts
16:38is particularly interesting.
16:41It was found in 1940 by a man and a woman,
16:44archaeologists Sidney and Georgia Wheeler.
16:49Hiking through the hills of western Nevada,
16:52they came across an old tomb hidden under the rock.
16:55Surrounded by wind and humidity,
16:58on a sheet made of rabbit fur and hemp,
17:01there was a partially mummified male corpse
17:04with long brown hair and gray skin,
17:07resembling a parchment.
17:11He was also wearing leather boots,
17:14and his body was covered with a woven blanket.
17:17Wheeler's discoveries made him
17:20known as a serious man with a spirit.
17:23Because his corpse was so well preserved,
17:26they assumed it was buried here
17:29a few thousand years ago.
17:32Without sophisticated technology,
17:35they could not have guessed how old it really was.
17:38It was 50 years before the truth was revealed,
17:41and that raises the question
17:44of where the oldest inhabitants of North America came from.
17:48Anthropologist Amy Dancy knows very well
17:51the cave man and this hill and cave.
17:55This is a very similar place
17:58where the mummy of the cave man was found.
18:01It was in a stone slope towards the guard wall,
18:04and there was a small stone ring
18:07that was buried there.
18:10It was buried in this soft dust,
18:13and it was filtered and protected,
18:16so everything was perfectly clean.
18:19There was no sediment.
18:22It was completely new, and it was so impressive.
18:25The fact that the body was preserved
18:28was to be thanked to the environment.
18:31For over 40 years, the cave man
18:34had a small sample of his bones and skin for tests.
18:53Before the discovery,
18:56the oldest mummy found in the USA
18:59was exactly 3,000 years old.
19:03Due to respect for the old American,
19:06the cave man cannot be seen,
19:09but many of his objects can be seen.
19:13This was above the mummy,
19:16and it moved a little bit.
19:19This end was above the head,
19:22and the other above the knee.
19:25These are the moccasins
19:28that were on the feet of the cave man.
19:31They were not connected,
19:34showing how his feet were close.
19:37They were folded several times.
19:40This is the smaller cover
19:43that was above the mummy's head,
19:46and this protrusion shows where the head was.
19:49It was not connected to the mummy,
19:52so we could separate it.
19:55This is the model of the digging.
19:58During the digging of the cave man,
20:01the team of EMIDENCY
20:04was able to reconstruct his face.
20:07The results were astounding.
20:10The general characteristics
20:13that stand out the most
20:16about the cave man's spirit
20:19is that he has a very small beard.
20:22According to some forensic anthropologists,
20:25his beard is more like that of a white man
20:28than that of an American native.
20:31Around the upper part of the face,
20:34he looks like an American native.
20:37Comparing all his dimensions
20:40with those of living people,
20:43anthropologists came to the conclusion
20:46that he is most similar to Ainu people
20:49who live in northern Japan.
20:52They still produce fabrics and textiles,
20:55like the covers found in his grave.
20:58What may be more important,
21:01Ainu people are different from people
21:04in East Asia and Siberia,
21:07for which it is generally assumed
21:10that they are ancestors of all American natives.
21:13Anthropologists have long believed
21:16that the ancient Siberians
21:19spread the bridge across the Bering Sea to Alaska.
21:22Now a new theory has emerged.
21:25Migrations probably began much earlier
21:28from different locations in East Asia.
21:31The people of the cave man
21:34probably sailed on boats
21:37to the ancient coast of California.
21:40Since the Ainu are fishermen and sailors,
21:43this should not be surprising.
21:46The migration of the cave man
21:49raises many more questions than answers.
21:52He was like a door to a culture
21:55that we do not even know existed here.
21:58He is very important.
22:01Perhaps even many thousands of years ago,
22:04North America was a mixture of many ethnic groups.
22:07And there are other mummies in other deserts
22:10that can help solve the riddles of the old world.
22:16Near the border of Chile and Peru,
22:19high in the Andes,
22:22the Atacama Desert gets less than 1 cm of rain per year,
22:25so it is the driest area on Earth
22:28and a perfect place for preserving human remains.
22:37In some parts of Atacama,
22:40bones are scattered around the landscape.
22:43You will see white bones,
22:46pieces of textile, white scales,
22:49teeth, pieces of hair.
22:52Many of the ancient inhabitants of this land
22:55are still here.
22:58For scientists like Bernard Arias,
23:01Chilean archaeologist,
23:04Atacama is a gold mine.
23:07Sifting the desert sand,
23:10his colleagues can find valuable evidence of their lives.
23:16One group, called Chinchorro,
23:19lived here from 6000 to 1500 BC.
23:24They left behind mysterious traces,
23:27such as those samples of sludge at the bottom of the desert.
23:33But their greatest wealth
23:36lies beneath the surface.
23:39They were created not by the dry wind in the desert,
23:42but by the Chinchorro people themselves.
23:51These are the oldest artificially preserved mummies in the world,
23:54many centuries older than the ones in Egypt.
24:04It was interesting for this cultural group
24:08to practice artificial mummification.
24:11This means that they deliberately tried to preserve the dead.
24:16I am amazed how clearly and artificially mummified
24:19and prepared the dead are here.
24:22So different from everything else, and so old.
24:25They are a real surprise to me as a professional anthropologist,
24:28because they are so carefully and artificially prepared.
24:31Chinchorro were brilliant in preparing the mummies.
24:34They knew how to separate the body
24:37and then put it back together again.
24:40In some cases, they peeled the skin and the flesh
24:43and then reinforced the skeleton with sticks.
24:49Then the corpse was rewound in its own skin
24:52and covered with a layer of paint.
24:55Other mummies did not peel the skin at all,
24:58they simply took the corpse out and dried it.
25:01They covered the face with mud and put a hair on the head.
25:04Often the eyes and mouth were open
25:07to make the mummy look alive.
25:13Preservation of artificial mummies shows care,
25:16human attention.
25:19You know, something that people are interested in.
25:22If you deliberately mummify someone,
25:25it also includes a lot of energy in the sense of community effort.
25:28Who is being mummified?
25:31Who are those who mummify?
25:34Which elements are placed in the corpse?
25:37How much time is needed for that?
25:40And all those ceremonies.
25:43After the process is over,
25:46the mummies are simply buried and forgotten.
25:49The Chinchorro simply take them out
25:52There is evidence that they were damaged during handling.
25:55Some mummies were repaired and painted again.
26:04Rich and poor,
26:07weak and powerful,
26:10almost everyone in the Chinchorro society was mummified,
26:13even those for whom life had just begun.
26:16This is a replica of a small Chinchorro mummy.
26:19In this case,
26:22it was most likely a human embryo.
26:25The idea was that the Chinchorro
26:28were not only mummified adults,
26:31but also children and fetuses.
26:34As you can see here,
26:37even the eyes are open,
26:40the mouth is open,
26:43and in the back they have hair.
26:47Perhaps the mummies
26:50gave comfort and inspiration,
26:53helping the living to overcome the process of suffering.
26:56Very often the ceremonies are not for the dead,
26:59but for the living.
27:02Now they serve a different purpose,
27:05allowing scientists like Bernard Arias
27:08a space in the long-lost culture.
27:11They really achieve the meaning of immortality,
27:14some of which are already 7,000 years old.
27:18In the faces of these mummies
27:21we can feel the spirit of the Chinchorro people,
27:24their close relationship with their loved ones,
27:27and their faith in the continuation of life and death.
27:37Mummies are not only created by deserts and ice.
27:40You can find them in humid climates,
27:43such as in Northern Europe.
27:52The peat bog is a common feature
27:55of the peat bog areas,
27:58where peat is slowly compressed
28:01into a dense black mass,
28:04a precursor to coal.
28:08Since the Middle Ages,
28:11the English and Irish have collected peat
28:14and used it as fuel.
28:17They could heat their homes with it
28:20and use it for cooking food.
28:23But something happens in the peat bog.
28:29Deep in the mud,
28:32the water reservoirs are rich in tannic acid
28:35that comes from the rustling of the forest,
28:38which is a natural process.
28:42If a body is trapped in the rubble,
28:45the natural process of rustling slows down.
28:49The skin is tamed, like animal skin,
28:52creating the most wonderful and unusual mummies in the world,
28:55some of which are thousands of years old.
29:03They are also a rich source of research
29:06by scientists like Michael Gebur.
29:09You look in their faces and hope
29:12that you will find some last thoughts
29:15that may have moved them.
29:18You look for what is similar to us
29:21and what they differ by.
29:25The great mummies are fascinating
29:28when you look at them,
29:31but some of them can tell a dark story.
29:34Some of the mummies are upside down,
29:37narrow, wrapped around their necks,
29:40cut off, slid, some have even been decapitated.
29:47In 1950, in northern Germany,
29:50the operation to collect the rubble was stopped
29:53when the workers discovered the mummy.
29:57The girl Vindeby was found
30:00with her hair cut short,
30:03her eyes closed,
30:06her eyes closed.
30:10She would become one of the most famous
30:13swamp mummies,
30:16and her appearance
30:19contributed to speculations
30:22about her origins.
30:26Many thousands of years ago,
30:29swamps in northern Europe
30:32were full of mummies.
30:43The story about the girl Vindeby
30:46has been told in books and documentaries
30:49like this one on German television.
30:52The story is told based on available evidence
30:55and a lot of evidence.
31:02The story is based on available evidence
31:05and a lot of evidence.
31:24The elaborate preparations
31:27suggest that this was not a normal burial
31:31Many believe that the girl Vindeby
31:34and other bodies from the swamp
31:37were the victims of ritual murders
31:40sacrificed to merciful gods.
31:43But there is a problem with this theory.
31:46How can we explain the large number of scars
31:49that we find on swamp mummies?
31:53We see so many traces of violence
31:56on those bodies.
31:59Each body was killed in different ways
32:02and this creates a misunderstanding
32:05that was the cause of all this.
32:08Dr. Gebur believes that there is another explanation
32:11that many of these people died a natural death
32:14and were simply buried in the swamp.
32:17In ancient cultures where people lived in fear of death,
32:20they may have decided to isolate their burial sites
32:23far from their homes.
32:26Further down, there are swamp mummies.
32:32Anyone who found such well-preserved bodies
32:35after many years, surely had been frightened
32:38by their appearance.
32:41Maybe they even believed that the mummies were still alive.
32:44Maybe they forced the bodies to believe
32:47that they were really dead.
32:50Now that the swamp mummies have been discovered,
32:53it is time to find out the truth about their origins.
33:01In his laboratory in Tucson, Walter Bergby
33:04discovers several facts about Gloria
33:07based on X-rays.
33:12As he suspected, she was still a child when she died.
33:15She was about two years old.
33:19The skull is completely intact.
33:22There are no signs of fractures.
33:25There is no obvious area of injury
33:28from the blow or any of these bones.
33:31The ribs are intact and in good condition.
33:34So there were no fractures here.
33:37There are no signs of abuse,
33:40discomfort or anything like that.
33:43Nothing that would lead to a cause of death
33:47that would not surprise a child.
33:53But there is another question about Gloria.
33:56How old is this mummy?
33:59When did Gloria live and when did she die?
34:05Try to take some muscles under your arm
34:08on the right side, on this spot.
34:11It looks like a dry muscle.
34:14I think that is bad.
34:18If we use radioactive carbon
34:21to determine her age,
34:24we could find out how long she lived.
34:28But these types of tests take a lot of time.
34:31It will take weeks before the results come
34:34and Gloria can tell us more about her fate.
34:37She is going to be a mystery for now.
34:45If every mummy tells a different story,
34:48this room in the College of Colorado
34:51is like a library.
34:54It contains one of the largest mummies in the world.
34:58Anthropologist Dennis Van Gerwen
35:01takes care of them and that is a job
35:04that not everyone would enjoy.
35:07I am asked a lot about it.
35:10I am told that walking through Central Park
35:13at night was more uncomfortable.
35:16This is peaceful, these people left.
35:19No, I find this place very peaceful.
35:22I enjoy working with this city in the laboratory.
35:26Van Gerwen helped to exhumate
35:29this army mummy of 1971
35:32from the old Kopskoye Christian cemetery
35:35in northern Sudan.
35:38He brought them back to Colorado after 8 years
35:42The room in which they are stored
35:45is kept at a constant 7% humidity
35:48which corresponds to the amount of soil
35:51in which they were buried.
35:54We have about 420 corpses in the warehouses.
35:57Some of them are bones, some are mummies.
36:00All these bones are corpses
36:03and we have two corpses.
36:06These mummies can provide a lot of information
36:09Van Gerwen slowly puts the pieces together.
36:12All these people are preserved
36:15precisely because of the natural dry climate.
36:18Natural mummies are not the same as Egyptian mummies.
36:21They are all preserved in the same way
36:24as nature preserved them.
36:27So we have a mixture of bones,
36:30we have a hand here that is well preserved.
36:33Tendons, fingernails are not touched yet.
36:36Muscle tissue, skin tissue.
36:39It's all pretty much here.
36:42It is the ultimate detective job.
36:45It means reading clues.
36:48This body is a story and I read it like a text.
36:51This individual had a broken leg
36:54which healed.
36:57I can see the scars in the eyes.
37:00The person above me has a broken skull.
37:03This is the entire history of life.
37:06The entire history of stress and burden
37:09in the life of that young man who died at 17.
37:12It's endless reading.
37:18Van Gerwen certainly does not read that story himself.
37:21His collection of mummies
37:24is an important tool for research and collecting.
37:28This is what we call a work collection.
37:31I don't exhume those people
37:34because they are lying around the museum
37:37and people are watching them.
37:40I exhume them to tell us stories,
37:43to help us learn things,
37:46to teach young people.
37:492.38 centimeters.
37:52Look at the other one.
37:55With such a wealth of material
37:58Denis Van Gerwen needs all possible help.
38:01His students learn the most sophisticated techniques
38:04to discover the hidden life of mummies.
38:10I got them in 1979
38:13which is now the year 1999
38:16and there is certainly a lot of stories told.
38:19Tomorrow a student will come to me
38:22and I've never seen it before
38:25and I don't know what it is.
38:28But it's not always fun to read.
38:31For the people of that dry region
38:34life is still a struggle
38:37as it was for their ancestors.
38:40The mummies show signs of bad nutrition and disease.
38:43In the women, the loss of bones
38:46means that they were almost always hard
38:49Even young women in their twenties
38:52suffered from osteoporosis.
38:55We know they wore their teeth out
38:58because they ate food prepared in the sandy environment.
39:01The grit in their food damaged their teeth
39:04so that old people won't have teeth.
39:07Well, that's not trivial.
39:15In spite of practical research
39:18we never lose sight of the fact
39:21that those mummies were once alive.
39:30One of the risks we face as citizens
39:33is to somehow become careless
39:36forgetting that it's a human being.
39:39It's a dead human being
39:42but it still deserves a certain amount of respect.
39:46It is not more than a human body
39:49but it is not less than a human body.
39:58In one ancient country
40:01death was always treated with respect.
40:05The Egyptians were masters of mummification.
40:10They were motivated by the belief
40:13that preserving a dead body
40:16would guarantee a successful journey to another world.
40:20Instead of simply letting the desert dry their corpses
40:23they developed precise methods of preparation
40:26carefully removing organs
40:29and filling the voids with exotic smells and salts.
40:35In the Egyptian society
40:38everyone was mummified
40:42but the most sophisticated techniques
40:45were preserved for the elite.
40:48We know about their techniques
40:51because their procedures are recorded
40:54on the holy lights and walls of their tombs.
40:57And so their secrets were preserved
41:00along with their corpses for the next burial.
41:03Now, after a thousand years
41:06one German scientist has continued
41:09his research in Italy.
41:12In a laboratory his team processes the body
41:15by using new mixtures
41:18such as acetone and silicone
41:21instead of the old smells and salts.
41:26He calls his method plastination
41:29and the end product is high-tech mummification
41:32that the world has never seen before.
41:40With his team of assistants
41:43anatomist GĆ¼nther von Hagens
41:46developed this technique
41:49as a way to preserve a human body
41:52by showing his way of working.
41:58His language is German
42:01and his body language is English.
42:05His laboratory is part workshop
42:08part operating room
42:11and part gallery.
42:20Though some may find it disturbing
42:23or even disgusting
42:26von Hagens' prepared bodies
42:29are not made to shock
42:33Everyone wants to know
42:36what his body is like from the inside
42:39not only by pictures and models.
42:42Authentic original is fascinating.
42:45His creations are reminiscent
42:48of classical anatomical drawings
42:51from the 15th century
42:54but the difference is in three-dimensionality.
42:57And these mummies are equally authentic
43:00and voluntarily gifted to science.
43:05Body donors come from all interests
43:08and all age groups.
43:11Their motives are complex.
43:14Most of them want to be sure
43:17that their body won't go waste after they're dead.
43:23Another reason is that
43:26they want to achieve a certain eternity
43:29in the process of cremation.
43:34Von Hagens has taught the criticism
43:37of church leaders and politicians
43:40that they should work with real bodies
43:43and that they should expose them.
43:47They say he shows no respect for the dead
43:50but there's nothing careless about that process.
43:53It's done carefully and precisely.
43:57Each muscle and liver
44:00must be separated
44:03in order for the body to be reconstructed
44:06as Von Hagens wanted.
44:09They only have one chance to get it right.
44:12Once the silicone grinder is hardened
44:15the position will be permanently fixed.
44:18Plastination is more than a craft
44:21it's an art.
44:24It's a way to exhibit, not just preserve.
44:32At museums, such exhibitions attract
44:35a record number of visitors.
44:38Wherever you go, people stare face to face with the mummies.
44:41They instill a fear of respect
44:44and maybe even more.
44:47Everyone has a body.
44:50That's why everyone is interested in plastic surgery.
44:55Not because they're pretty
44:58but because they inspire us to think about ourselves.
45:16In Mexico, at the beginning of the cold year
45:19people gather in cities and villages
45:22to celebrate Los Dios de los Muertos
45:25the Day of the Dead.
45:29It's a festive day, a time for fun and games
45:32but it's also one of the holiest times of the year
45:35when young and old pay tribute to the dead.
45:47Throughout the country
45:50the streets are decorated with flowers
45:53and hand-painted altars
45:56as people pay tribute to their dead.
46:06The prayers and singing continue until late at night.
46:15Here, they believe that the souls of the dead
46:18are equally concerned as those of the living.
46:30But there is one cemetery in Guanajuato
46:33where they never treated them so tenderly and lovingly
46:38because the space here was so valuable
46:41that the dead were not left alone.
46:44Those who had no relatives or friends
46:47were exhumed within a few years
46:50and transferred to another cemetery above the ground.
46:58Many of the bodies were buried here
47:01in the Museo de las Mumias.
47:05It's one of Mexico's most popular tourist destinations
47:08especially around this time of year.
47:11Ironically, those who were abandoned at the cemetery
47:15now have all the strength of a visitor.
47:27In its many museums
47:30dozens of mummified bodies have been displayed.
47:35They may be anonymous and dry as dust
47:38but here they found a new life.
47:44Men, women, children and infants.
47:47The mummies are a reflection of the lives of the inhabitants.
48:15Today, the museum is considered a sacred place
48:18a place where believers and connoisseurs
48:21can see death in the eyes.
48:27For the tourists, these mummies are more than a sensation.
48:31They remind us that we are all mortal
48:34and that our time on Earth is short
48:37unless we manage to become mummies.
48:45Back in Sietla, in the market of old curiosities
48:48Gloria returned to her field.
48:52Walter Bergby's finds are complete
48:55and they've confirmed that he is 600 to 700 years old.
48:58We know that she was a child when she died
49:01and we know that she didn't die
49:04as a result of some kind of mental trauma.
49:07But beyond that, it seems that her ancestry
49:10and her family history will remain a secret.
49:14MUMMIES LIKE GLORIA
49:17Mummies like Gloria will always pose questions
49:20and sometimes they will provide answers.
49:23For scientists like Dr. Bergby
49:26there will be more and more mummies
49:29and more and more mysteries.
49:32That's going to continue, that's never going to stop.
49:35Mummies will always be around us.
49:38Maybe that's why they intrigue us
49:41because in every mummy there is a puzzle
49:44that is waiting to be solved.
49:56From the ice-covered Alps
49:59to the sun-burnt South African deserts
50:02from the stone monuments of ancient Egypt
50:05to the modern glass-and-steel laboratories
50:08we will continue to search
50:11for our terrifying remains
50:14in the abyss of all fears.
50:17All people are fascinated by the dead
50:20and we like to be scared.
50:23People can see a mummy, they are afraid of a mummy
50:26but they can see it.
50:29Mummies reflect our eternal desire
50:32to go into the next world.
50:39Every mummy is a special story.
50:42There are so few of them and that's why they are so incredibly important.
50:47It's a terrible clichƩ
50:50but dead men tell stories
50:53just like dead women and dead children.
50:56All of them tell stories.
50:59Some of them are natural or intentional
51:02shaped by ice, wind or water.
51:05Mummies serve as a bridge to the past
51:08and to the future.