A virtual autopsy of a 17th century child mummy

By Soline Roy

Posted
yesterday at 5:53 p.m., Update yesterday at 5:53 p.m.

The size of the bones and the position of the teeth indicate that the child died around 1 year old. Andreas G. Nerlich/Institute of Pathology, Academic Clinic Munich-Bogenhausen, Munich, Germany/Frontiers

STORY – The remains of the baby were perfectly preserved by the climatic conditions of the crypt where he was buried in Austria.

Naked, the child is lying on his back, wrapped in a silk coat, his plump thighs, his left hand resting on his abdomen and resembling a leather glove. In the small village of Hellmonsödt, 15 km north of Linz, capital of Upper Austria, he died at the turn of the XVI^e and 17^e centuries. His identity? Unknown. But he was most certainly a member of the aristocracy: in addition to his expensive cape, he rests in the family crypt of the Counts of Starhemberg, great Austrian lords who, as early as 1499, buried their titled men there, mainly the firstborn. And his remains, naturally mummified by the temperature and hygrometry conditions of the crypt, offered German and Austrian researchers the opportunity for a special kind of investigation: they carried out a “virtual autopsy” of the little boy.

First step: find out who he was. The analysis of the remains and the carbon 14 dating, crossed with what we know of the history of the…

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