Quiz 21 - 10 Questions on pickled or embalmed bodies - Answer

1.In the 11th-century Spanish hero El Cid, was embalmed and his body was kept seated on an ivory chair in the monastery of San Pedro de Cardena for a decade before burial. Similarly which well known king was embalmed and seated on a marble throne, dressed in imperial robes, with his crown on his head, the Gospels lying open in his lap, and his scepter in his hand at Aachen in Germany after his death ?

Ans: Charlemagne

2. According to an Indian Epic, the body of which king was preserved in a Cauldron of oil, until the return of his son the crown prince ?

Ans: King Dasharatha, in the Ramayana.

3. After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. in Babylon, his body was embalmed and was on its way to Macedonia for burial. Ptolemy however had other plans- he organized an attack against Alexander's funerary procession and intercepted the body of his former master which he then buried in Egypt. During all these years of fighting and bickering over Alexanders body, what edible item, which is mostly consumed by us today, was used to preserve Alexander's body?

Ans: Honey

4. Which English word has its origin in Persian for 'wax' ?

Ans:  Mummy. The Persian translation of wax was mum,since Egyptians preserved the dead bodies of their royalty by first sealing them with bandages and then coating it with a mixture of wax, oil and salt.

5. He is one of the most widely recognized Russian physician, scientist and public figure. He is considered to be the founder of field surgery and was the first surgeon to use anesthesia in a field operation (1847). Other than inventing various surgical equipments, he also invented an amputation technique that is today named after him. As a tribute to his achievements a glacier in Antarctica and an asteroid are named after him and so were various medical colleges and Soviet Unions highest humanitarian award. Anatomically too he is well remembered and various tendons, nerves and veins are named after him. When he died in 1881 his body was preserved using embalming techniques he himself developed and rests today  at Vinnitsa in Ukraine at room temperature without requiring any maintenance. Which well known Russian figure?

Ans : Nikolay Pirogov.  Pirogoff angle; the Pirogoff aponeurosis, the Pirogoff triangle are named after him.

6.The Jivaro tribes of Ecuador and Peru took additional precaution to preserve the embalmed bodies of their chiefs, thus ensuring their immortality. What additional procedure, not practiced by any other culture did they follow ?

Ans: They roasted the embalmed body over slow fire.

7. The Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo is a macabre tourist attraction in Italy (The last I checked, Trip Advisor has given it a 'certificate of excellence' and  is Rated No 18 in Palermo.) There are shelves, rooms and cases of dehydrated mummified bodies going back to many centuries. There was a time when it was a status symbol to be entombed into the Capuchin catacombs. The most well preserved among all the bodies in the catacombs is that of Rosalia Lombardo an Italian child who died of pneumonia. Her body was one of the last corpses to be admitted to the Capuchin catacombs in 1920.  Alfredo Salafia, a noted embalmer, worked on the body which has now been revealed to be a mixture of Formalin, Zinc, Glycerin and Salicylic acid. But what nickname, straight from a fairy tale, is Rosalia known to the residents of Palermo or to the tourists visiting the catacombs ?

Ans: Sleeping Beauty of the Capuchin Catacombs  (Sleeping beauty will get points)

8.  In the Royal Navy, sucking the monkey, bleeding the monkey, or tapping the admiral was the practice of sucking liquor from a cask through a straw. This usually involved making a small hole with a gimlet in a keg or barrel and using a straw to suck out the contents. When this British hero died on board a ship, his body was preserved in a cask of brandy, or rum, to allow transport back to England. Upon arrival however, the cask was opened and found to be empty of brandy/rum. The pickled body was removed and, upon inspection, it was discovered that the sailors had drilled a hole in the bottom of the cask and drunk all the brandy/rum. Which personality ?

Ans: Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson. Shot fatally on board, during the Battle of Trafalgar, where his fleet defeated the combined might of the French and Spanish navies.  This tale also serves as a basis for the term "Nelson's blood" used to describe brandy/rum.

Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London

9. Grauballe man ,Tollund man and Lindow man are thousands of years old bodies, preserved in immaculate condition. Even the wrinkle on their skin are preserved. The preservation of these bodies is credited to which natural phenomenon?

Ans: Peat-bogs. Because of their highly acidic nature, wetness, low temperature, and absence of oxygen, they are a repository of past life. The Tollund man, a 2000 year old body was discovered in a peat bog in Denmark in 1952, and was dressed only in a pointed cap and belt. His body was castoff into the peatbog after being strangled.

10.During the Third Crusade, en-route to Jerusalem this well known Emperor drowned in the Saleph river (present day Turkey) sending his massive army into chaos. Some of the Emperor's men pickled his body in a barrel of vinegar to preserve it and eventually bury it in Jerusalem. But efforts to conserve his body in vinegar failed. Hence, his flesh was interred in the Church of St Peter in Antioch, his bones in the cathedral of Tyre, and his heart and inner organs in Tarsus. Which Emperor?

Ans: Frederick I or Frederick Barbarossa