Korea had mummies? Apparently so.

Until recently, no one even knew that mummies existed in Korea. Korea's ancient tradition of ancestor worship and the belief that at death, the soul rises up and the body has to go back to its natural components, without interference by external elements, meant that mummification was in fact anathema in Korean culture. However, with the take-over of the neo-Confucianist Joseon Dynasty in 1392, changes were made to the former Buddhist burial practices.

The burial process involved laying the body on ice for three to thirty days during mourning, placing the body inside an inner and an outer pine coffin, surrounded by the deceased's clothes, and the covering he coffin in a lime soil mixture. "In some cases, this inadvertently resulted in extremely good natural mummification," says Spigelman.


Handong Mummy – One of the mummies being excavated in South Korea. Credit: Photo courtesy of Seoul National University

The building boom in South Korea has meant that many cemeteries have had to be relocated. It is this process which led to the discovery of the mummified bodies.

Now researchers have discovered Hepatitis B in the liver of a 500 year old child, the first time that samples of hepatitis B have ever been found on a mummified body.

Hebrew University Prof. Mark Spigelman of the Kuvin Center for the Study of Infectious and Tropical Diseases at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is known for his pioneering studies of ancient diseases (palaeoepidemiology) found on mummified bodies and travelled to Korea to investigate.

"Five hundred years ago, was it hepatitis B? Could it be that later on, it split from 'X' and became A and B? Was it already evolved" That's what we don't know," he says.

"This is a 'know your enemy' expedition to see if we can get information that can help today's - and tomorrow’s - sufferers," says Spigelman. He believes that knowing what a virus did 500 years ago helps us understand what it will do as it continues to evolve, and will ultimately alter the practice of public health officials in combating it.

Hepatitis B causes liver problems and can lead to liver cancer or liver failure, killing approximately one million people each year.

In South Korea, the need to manage the virus is particularly significant, as twelve percent of the population are hepatitis carriers (compared with a world average of five percent). In China, the virus is one of the leading causes of cancer.

Source: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem