Did you know there are mummies in Korea? I didn’t, until I found
this article from 2007 on National Geographic. (Apparently,
archaeologists didn’t, either, until the bodies started showing
up, as old cemeteries were moved to make way for new houses in
the recent construction boom.) This person lived about 500 years
ago and was found in South Korea. According to National
Geographic, the mummification is perhaps the result of a burial
practice that evolved in 14th-century Korea: “The people
believed the body should dissolve in a natural manner, without
external factors such as worms,” said Mark Spigelman of the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who is known for his pioneering
studies of ancient diseases found on mummified bodies around the
world. “This is why they developed a special burial custom.” The
method involves laying a body on ice for 3 to 30 days during
mourning, placing the corpse inside an inner and an outer pine
coffin surrounded by the deceased’s clothes, and covering the
coffin in a lime soil mixtu