Conditions in the glacier bed as well as the body’s reaction turned the bodies of the Swiss couple into mummies for 75 years.
Last week, during a routine inspection trip, a ski lift technician at the Glacier 3000 resort in Switzerland discovered a collection of black rock formations near the Tsanfleuron glacier in the western Bernese Alps. York Times. Upon closer inspection, the technician discovered that the stones were actually mummies.
DNA testing helped confirm the mummy belonged to the couple Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin , who disappeared after leaving their home to feed their cattle on August 15, 1942.
The Tsanfleuron Glacier kept the mummies of the couple for 75 years. (Video:YouTube).
The possibility of the Dumoulins falling into a rift remains a mystery, but it’s possible a blizzard covered them, preventing the search team from seeing the pair. No matter what happens, eventually the water in their bodies freezes. However, the ice crystals in their tissue are certainly not stationary, said Dan Fisher, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Michigan who was not involved in identifying the remains.
“Tissues have a high amount of water at first, but that water freezes, and in many cases, under freezing conditions, when surrounded by air with a low amount of water vapor, ice crystals in the tissue can rise. flowers,” Live Science quoted Fisher. Sublimation is the process in which hard ice transforms directly into water vapor without turning into liquid. In other words, the tissue dries out, according to Fisher.
In this case, both the cold and dry conditions that inhibit the activity of bacteria and molds and the chemical processes that break down human tissue contribute to the perfect preservation of the victim’s body.
In addition, the two bodies are still relatively intact because the Tsanfleuron glacier is quite stable, although the slow-moving glaciers are often moved. They move forward when more new ice is formed than snow is lost and retreat in the opposite case, according to Martin Callanan, an associate professor of archeology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Mummified couple Dumoulin exposed under the glacier. (Photo: Telegraph).
The retreat of the glacier allows researchers to look back into the past. In 2003, at the Schnidejoch glacier less than 32km from the Tsanfleuron glacier, researchers discovered coins, leather, a piece of wooden bowl and a set of bows and arrows. Those objects date from as far back as the Middle Ages and as far back as the Neolithic period almost 4,500 BC.
Callanan suggested that the increase in the number of objects discovered in the glacier bed is the result of global warming . Global temperatures in 2014, 2015 and 2016 continuously set the hottest record on the planet since 1880, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This warming causes glaciers worldwide to shrink.
The discovery of the Dumoulins’ bodies brought great consolation to their daughter, Marceline Udry-Dumoulin. Udry-Dumoulin, one of seven Dumoulins children, was only four years old when her parents went missing. After they disappeared, the local rescue team searched for more than two months to no avail.