Human beings have always had a morbid fascination with death. Something about life, or rather what comes after it, seems to affect us in ways we cannot quite comprehend. Could it be because death reminds us of the transient nature of everything and especially ours, that we are compelled to study it so closely? Here is a list of 5 of the world’s best preserved bodies that will launch you into an existential crisis.
Juanita, the Ice MaidenSacrificed by the Inca priests to their Gods as appeasement, 14-year-old Juanita the “Ice Maiden” remained frozen in a volcano’s crater for nearly five centuries. In 1995, archaeologists Jon Reinhard and his climbing partner Miguel Zarate unearthed her body at the base of Peru’s Mt.Ampato. Lauded as one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the time, the body remained remarkably intact and survived the ages in spectacular fashion.
Vladimir LeninResting in the heart of Moscow’s Red Square is the most spectacularly preserved mummy you will ever find – Vladimir Lenin’s. Following the Soviet leader’s untimely death in 1924, Russian embalmers channelled the collective wisdom of the centuries in order to breathe life into this dead man.
Evita PeronArgentinian politician Evita Peron’s body disappeared three years after her death 1952, right when her husband President Juan Peron was deposed. As it was later revealed, Anti-Peronists in the Argentinian military stole her body and sent it on an odyssey through the world that lasted nearly two decades. When it was eventually returned to ex-President Peron, Evita’s corpse had mysterious marks of injury all over. Peron’s then-wife Isabella reportedly had a strange fascination with Evita – she perched her corpse at their kitchen table, combed her hair every day with the utmost reverence and even climbed into the coffin from time to time when she needed to “soak up her magic vibrations”.
Ötzi The IcemanDiscovered in the Schnalstal glacier by Italian hikers in 1991, this 5000-year-old mummy has an arrow embedded in its chest. Nicknamed after the Ötztal Alps where he was found, the well-preserved body actually belongs to a man who lived 53 centuries ago. Oetzi rests in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in northern Italy today and holds the title of Europe’s oldest natural human mummy.
Dashi-Dorzho ItigilovThis Russian Buddhist monk left his mortal coil in 1927 while in deep meditation. As was his wish, his students and fellow monks buried him the way he died – sitting upright in the lotus position. Years later when the body was exhumed and removed from its pine encasement, it was found to be well-preserved and still the way it had been left. Itigilov was eventually re-interred in a salt coffin.