Interesting documentary (done in conjunction with Discovery, Speigel TV, etc. so if it hasn't been shown yet in other countries ti will be eventually) which touches on a few themes discussed here and in related threads.
I made some notes:
Victor Mair:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?VictorMair
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/faculty.html
was the lead on this and recruited a team:
Margaret Cox - Forensic Anthropologist who appears on Time Team:
http://www.channel4.com/history/timeteam/biog_margaret.html
http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/conservation/staff/Staff CoxM.html
Bruno Tonello - radiographer who does work with foresnic arahceologists in places like Bosnian and he has some fancy kit for taking digitial X-rays in difficult circumstances.
Basically in 1975 an earthquake hit the Spiti Valley up in the borders with Tibet and India and two soldiers clearing up found a mummy in the rubble and a note (which crumbled to dust). The team travel up into the valley to study the mujmy but are under strict time restraints as it is so close to the border.
The ivestigation took two interesting paths - a study of the physical remains and a religious study into the background of meditation practices, etc.
Bruno got the X-rays looked at and the mummy was a healthy man aged 40-45 but the curvature of the spine suggested long periods of meditation.
Margaret took a sample from the body and from the scarf off to the radiocarbon lab at Oxford (I had a guideed tour many moons ago - all very impressive) and a Dr Higham gave her the results that both scarf and body were probably 500 years old. Interestingly the results also showed high levels of nitrogen which suggested he had been fasting for months before death.
This confirmd that it was more than liely a monk and meanwhile Victor was speaking to monks and doing some globe trotting to look at the religious aspects to see if there were any clues. Although my spelling might be off but if anyone knows the better one speak up
Essentially he found that the fabric belt or strap found wrapped around the mummy's neck might have been a meditation belt and these gumta might help monks maintain rishis (mediatioan poses) for long periods of time. He invetigtaed tantric meditation and discussed zorkshun/zokeshun an extreme and secret form of meditation only passed down from master to one student. Also he touched on the fact that some form of controlled suffocation might help reach enhanced levels of perception during meditation (like auto erotic asphyxiation).
He visited Boston and Herbert Benson from the Harvard Medical School who is one of the few people looking into the physcial changes around meditation (which include 64% reduction in respiration and icnreased body temperature - they showed monks drying blankets dipped in ice cold water with their bodies):
http://www.mbmi.org/pages/bio1.asp
They did suggest briefly that he might have somehow increased his tempreature so far that he managed to mummify himself that way but luckily they dodged that one and jumpe don another plane to Japan where they visited Yamagata where they visited a monk called Tetsumoko who had become mummified (but has also emplying Duyoku, the taking on of others suffering by yourself, and poked his won eye with a knife, etc.). They moved on to another monk Butki who, 100 years ago, had eaten tree bark and leaves and then been placed inaide a box meditating and lowered into the ground. When they dug him up much later they found his body was mummified.
Their conclusion was that the monk may have bound himslef deliberately (Victor recreates it) so that if he stopped medidating his leg would relax and choke him. He then sacrificed himself (possibly to avert a natural disaster) and the cold and arid environment added to the redcution in stoamch bacteria from the fasting (along with I'm sure redcued insect activity) resulted in him being mummified. It appears Tibet was full of hundreds of similar mummies but rather than have them desecrated in the Cultural Revolution the Tibetans cremated them all. This one was saved by just being over the border (they did claim it was due to his being buried but that possibly didn't happen until later). Its interesting as there are numerous other mummies emerging at the moment from this region so we should get a better picture of things over time.
There was also an interesting aside on kudung which are the preserved bodies of high ranking Buddhist monks but are often mummified (removal of intestines and repacking with cotton and sometimes dipped in butter - yum) and/or gold plated.
Emps
