"Salt man" mummy found in Iran

I knew they preserved food in salt, but this is the first time I've heard of people being mummified by salt. They're leaving him at the place where he died for now (he died in a salt mine rockfall) :


www.dailyindia.com...

Here's the National Geographic article with a picture. I wonder if the salt yellowed his hair:
news.nationalgeographic.com...

That's cool! The article says that a few people have been found like this, and in all cases (so far) they were naturally preserved. It makes me wonder if there are any cultures that ever used salt to purposely mummify people, like the Egyptians mummified their dead. There was also some culture somewhere in Peru, if I recall correctly, that mummified their dead, but I don't remember how they did it.

As far as I know, mummifying the dead in salt was not a practice of any cultural death rites. Sometimes criminals/executed leaders were preserved in brandy or may have been preserved in salt. However, this would be pretty rare.

Salt was a valuable commodity in the ancient world (Roman soldiers were often paid in salt in the provinces.) There are salt mummies from areas with salt deposits (like Austria) but as faf as I can tell, they're folks who died in mine cave-ins and not carefully preserved royalty.

Byrd - I thought the first step in mummification was to leave the body incased in salt for a period of time? Where the hell did i see that now...

Yep, Byrd is wrong here. SO LISTEN TO ME AND NOT HER! BELIEVE IN ATLANTIS, BELIEVE!!!

Nah, haha, just messin'

But she is wrong...the Egyptians did use natron, which was part sodium chloride (aka table salt) to preserve their dead.

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by donk_316
Byrd - I thought the first step in mummification was to leave the body incased in salt for a period of time? Where the hell did i see that now...

That was natron... but not sodium chloride. Natron is a "salt" ... as we chemically define salt. To a chemist, "salt" means an ionic compound composed of both positive and negative ions, and the end product is a neutral substance. Iron disulfide, magnesium sulfae, monosodium glutinate, nickel oxide, and manganese dioxide are examples of salts.

here is an article relating the Salt Man to early inspiration for the Satyr myth.source