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'Accidental' Siberian Mummies Part of Mysterious Ancient Arctic Civilization

Posted by samzenpus on from the who-are-you-who-who-who-who? dept.

concertina226 (2447056) writes "Russian archaeologists are trying to discover the origins of a group of 800-year-old bodies found just 29 km from the Arctic Circle, which were accidentally mummified by copper when they were buried. The mummies were discovered at Zeleniy Yar in Siberia, in 34 shallow graves, and 11 of the bodies found in the medieval burial place had either smashed skeletons or missing and shattered skulls. They may have been damaged by their peers deliberately to prevent spells emanating from them. There is only one female, a child, who is buried with her face masked by copper plates, and three male infant mummies, who wear copper masks and were bound in four or five copper hoops that each measure several centimetres wide."

8 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Or... by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 5, Funny

    Putin is going to claim they were Russian speakers, and therefore Russia has a natural right to everything north of the Arctic circle.

  2. Uh oh by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Informative

    I sure hope they're not stupid enough to remove those copper restraints. They were put there for a reason...

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...

  3. Ancient? by C0R1D4N · · Score: 4, Informative

    800 years is not ancient. It is medieval. If they meant to say 8000 thats really damn impressive they kniw about the religious beliefs about spells emanating from skulls.

    1. Re:Ancient? by C0R1D4N · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I see they are truky 800 years old, so ancient is a pretty dumb term to use. Ancient is generally reserved for BCE.

  4. Bet On Vikings by JimSadler · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The age of the remains makes them about perfect for Vikings exploring the area.

    1. Re:Bet On Vikings by Zedrick · · Score: 4, Informative

      My ancestors were very cool and died in all kinds of crazy places, but can't take credit for this. The viking age ended around 1050, and the jewelry pictured is not Scandinavian.

  5. Wasn't this a film with Lee and Cushing? by sandbagger · · Score: 3, Informative

    Terror Train has Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing as archeologists bringing back a mummy from China via train through Siberia. Then, it wakes up.

    --
    ---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
  6. How about some better links, with more pictures? by gnunick · · Score: 2

    As soon as I see an "ibtimes" domain, I know better than to RTFA. I don't understand why /. ever posts links to their crappy sites unless they're getting kickbacks on click-throughs.

    So how about looking for some alternate sources? Googling "Zeleniy Yar mummies" suggests that this isn't some ibtimes hoax after all.

    This Siberian Times article seems to have the most information with lots of great pictures, the fewest ads, and other sites credit it as their source:
    http://siberiantimes.com/scien...

    --
    I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein