https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunther_von_Hagens
He has a method of plastination that he has used for decades to preserve corpses, notably as the exhibition Body Worlds.
Growing up in that area, I never understood how unique this exhibition was. We've been there multiple times with school classes, and it weirdly scared the shit out of me and stunningly fascinated me at the same time.
I didn't know that he reopened the Koerperwelten exhibition in 2017 again. Can fully recommend going there. It's not for the light stomach, and your head will be busy processing what you saw for weeks afterwards.
The best analogy I can give someone else about this exhibition: It's something in between geniusness and madness, and it will question your authority on learned morality and ethical standards. But it's so much accessible biological/medical science in one place, it's hard to find anything else that comes close to the impressions it leaves behind.
Seems like the books based on the exhibition are still available through Bezos' webshop and second hand, the one I've got is quite nice, really good colour print.
They didn't stop at human cadavers, they've also done at least one horse and at some point a giraffe, apparently a massive undertaking. His and his teams' work is in a really interesting space, somewhere between science, ethics and art.
> and after this [the Persian spies] saw last of all their receptacles of dead bodies, which are said to be made of crystal in the following manner:—when they have dried the corpse, whether it be after the Egyptian fashion or in some other way, they cover it over completely with plaster 21 and then adorn it with painting, making the figure as far as possible like the living man. After this they put about it a block of crystal hollowed out; for this they dig up in great quantity and it is very easy to work: and the dead body being in the middle of the block is visible through it, but produces no unpleasant smell nor any other effect which is unseemly, and it has all its parts visible like the dead body itself.
Epoxy resin.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/alberta-legislature-bu...
This is the kind of stuff that indie horror movies are made about.
Case in point: Body Worlds art exhibit by Dr. Gunther von Hagens, and the film Anatomy:
Careful. The literal meaning would be "White Ruthenia" (Ruthenia != Russia). In general this etymology is complex, and politically charged[1], but deriving it from "Russia" is most certainly wrong.
But I agree with your main point - ethnicity and nationality gets more confusing the further back past we go.
> and politically charged[1]
I wanted to read the link but looks like it was accidentally left out.
But it's pretty obviously politically charged, as in "White Russia" strongly suggests a Russian heritage and maybe even implies they're rightfully a part of Russia. This narrative is very beneficial for some, of course.
On the other hand, "Ruthenia" is a historical region, with no clear connection to any existing country. Thus "White Ruthenia" sounds much more like an independent country. English doesn't make it clear, but in many slavic languages it's just "Rus". Historically there was also, for example, Black Ruthenia[1]. Similar controversies were related to Macedonia for example, and Greeks objecting to that name.
There's a bunch of "hush-hush" stuff about it, but it appears to just be very well-done standard mortuary stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin%27s_Mausoleum#Preserving...
(The patent is only 2 pages, and the 1pg text description doesn't address the question of anaerobic bacterial decay or the removal of water to solve decay that way, but it also only claims 'indefinite' preservation, so it's not necessarily claiming perpetual preservation. It could just be intended for a few months or years, and who knows how well it'd work?)
> All these methods of sealing the body into airtight contraptions ignores the fact that decomposition comes from within. When the heart stops, the autolysis, or self-digestion, of the flesh begins, through its enzymes consuming cell membranes. Trapping a body in with its own bacteria means it is producing gas that has nowhere to go.
One thing worth noting here is that this was the era of germ theory and vitamin-ization and initial success in blood/organ transplants (eg. https://www.amazon.com/Immortalists-Charles-Lindbergh-Alexis... ). There had been such huge gains in health that some of the projections and assumptions are hard to recognize (and are part of why science fiction from before the 1950s can be so strange to read). For example, given how pervasive germs turned out to be, and how deadly, but also how beneficial things like vaccination or pasteurization were, there was something of a vogue for imagining a future germ-free world: https://gwern.net/doc/genetics/microbiome/germ-free/2012-kir... This would help lead to greatly reduced sickness and mortality, and help extend lifespans to centuries. (After all, the contemporary fad of 'microbiome'-everything aside, mammals like mice or humans get along pretty well without any microbes, as we now know from the later germ-free animal research and bubble boys.)
You might ask how they imagined this working in practice, as sterilizing the entire world seems infeasible? Well, one idea was... Perfectly-sealed glass cubes, using similar techniques as germ-free animal or bubble boy environments. For example, the 1927 "The Machine Man of Ardathia" https://freeread.com.au/@RGLibrary/FrancisFlagg/Ardathia/The... imagines a far future germ-free man traveling back in time in his glass cube to inspect us short-lived disease-plagued primitives who wander around naked. So it's not a big step to imagine sealing them into a block for indefinite preservation post-mortem.
HPsquared•9mo ago
yummypaint•9mo ago
Retric•9mo ago
Samsung deliberately aimed for imitation and it bit them.
Retric•9mo ago
But don’t let the truth get in the way of a rant.