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Mummies formed as a result of naturally occurring environmental conditions, such as extreme cold (Ötzi the Iceman), acid (Tollund Man) or desiccating dryness have been found all over the world. Some of the best-preserved mummies formed under natural conditions date from the Inca period in Peru.
Natural mummification is fairly rare, requiring specific conditions to occur, but it has produced some of the oldest known mummies. The most famous ancient mummy is Ötzi the Iceman, frozen in a glacier in the Ötztal Alps around 3300 BC and found in 1991. An even older but less well preserved mummy was found in Spirit Cave, Nevada in 1940 and carbon-dated to around 7400 BC.
The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden
and Denmark have all produced a number of bog bodies, mummies of people deposited in sphagnum bogs apparently as a result of murder or ritual sacrifices. In such cases, the acidity of the water, the cold temperature and the lack of oxygen combine to tan the body's skin and soft tissues. The skeleton typically disintegrates over time. Such mummies are remarkably well preserved, with skin and internal organs surviving ; it is even possible to determine what their last meal was by examining their stomach contents.
In 1972, eight remarkably preserved mummies were discovered at an abandoned Inuit settlement called Qilakitsoq, in Greenland. The "Greenland Mummies" consisted of a six-month old baby, a four year old boy, and six women of various ages, who died around 500 years ago. Their bodies were naturally mummified by the sub-zero temperatures and dry winds in the cave in which they were found.
Some of the best-preserved mummies date from the Inca period in Peru some 500 years ago, where children were ritually sacrificed and placed on the summits of mountains in the Andes. The cold, dry climate had the effect of desiccating the corpses and preserving them intact.
In the state of Guanajuato, Mexico mummies were discovered in a cemetery of a city named Guanajuato northwest of Mexico City (near Léon). They are accidental modern mummies and were literally "dug up" between the years 1896 and 1958 when a local law required relatives to pay a kind of grave tax. The Guanajuato mummies are on display in the Museo de las momias high on a hill overlooking the city.
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