Mummified remains of a boy buried in a copper box between 1617 and 1814.
The greenish, mummified remains of a teenager buried in Italy between 200 and 400 years ago have shed new light on the preservative properties of copper.
A boy, buried nearly three centuries ago in a copper box in northern Italy, has become the only almost complete and completely green mummy ever known.
As detailed by , the left leg, for example, was almost entirely green, from the skin to the bone.
The mummy was discovered in the basement of an ancient villa in Bologna in 1987 and sent for forensic analysis at the University of Bologna.
Experts determined that it was the body of a boy aged between 12 and 14 years old. Since then, it has been carefully stored at the university.
Apart from a study now in Journal of Cultural Heritageresearchers performed multiple detailed chemical and physical analyzes of the mummy. Radiocarbon dating placed the boy’s death between 1617 and 1814.
Furthermore, the mummy showed no obvious signs of trauma or illness.
What did the copper do?
The copper helped preserve hard and soft tissues – as would be expected, given his acquaintances antimicrobial properties.
In addition, it also reacted with the acids that were released from the body and corroded the box. This generated copper corrosion products that interacted with chemical compounds present in the bone.
Little by little, the Copper ions replaced the calcium in the boy’s skeleton, solidifying the bone structure over the long term, while also dyeing the affected areas various shades of green..
As for the skin, it was covered by a crusty film of copper corrosion products, called patina – the light green coating that forms on copper and bronze statues.
The patina developed when the copper reacted with water and carbon dioxide as the body decomposed.
“This completely changes our perspective on the role of heavy metals, as their effects on preservation are more complex than we might assume”, he told New Scientist, the leader of the research, Alabiso Alabisoconservation scientist at the University of Rome.
