Has anyone tried mummifying human skin to compare it to ancient mummy skin for colour?

Question

I just thought, maybe you could count melanocytes per mm sq under a microscope to give an accurate guage of skin tone, using the recently mummfied skin as a colour guide.

Answer 1

There are three possibilities of testing this. There have been experiments in reproducing the results of Egyptian mummification. There are also a number of modern mummies located in Mexico and Italy.Finally there are modern business that produce mummies.

The Summum Organization reportedly does modern mummification. Body Worlds creates and maintains a traveling show of preserved remains.China operates a similar display use the same technology.There are questions about the China operation concern where and how the bodies were obtained:

"Here in China, determining who is in the body business and where the bodies come from is not easy. Museums that hold body exhibitions in China say they have suddenly “forgotten” who supplied their bodies, police officials have regularly changed their stories about what they have done with bodies,,,,may be using the bodies of mentally ill people and executed prisoners.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/08/busine...

Finally there's the experimental archeology attempts to replicate the process. However, even the skin color of King Tut isn't known and is being debated with some emotion. It would seem that while this suggested procedure hasn't been tried.

Answer 2

ahh, hmmm HITLER?

Answer 3

wouldn't the results not be overly helpful,because you wouldn't know what the effects of 3000 yrs of aging would do to the mummified skin?

Answer 4

The only human skin I have is my own and right now I'm using it, so no, I haven't.

Answer 5

Mine just went that way naturally!

Answer 6

nope