82 • Arthur C. Aufderheide and Mary L. Aufderheide 



reconstruction until a building to house them permanently 

 has been completed (Mainardis 1983). 



When the cathedral was reconstructed and expanded in the 

 14th century the new floor level was raised 1 .5 m. Most of 

 the tombs 1 1 through 1 7 are constructed between the original 

 floor level and that of the new. current one; the bottom of 

 these tombs, therefore, is sealed by the original stone floor 

 (Anonymous 1971:96). Tombs 1 through 10, however, were 

 constructed under the floor level of the new, expanded por- 

 tion and the bottom of these tombs consists only of soil. 

 Interestingly, while skeletonized bodies were present in all 

 tombs, mummies were found only in tomb numbers 1 

 through 10. 



During periods of heavy rainfall and high stream levels, 

 standing water has been observed in the tombs containing 

 mummies, and such an occasion led the residents to remove 

 the mummies from the tombs when they found some of the 

 wood coffins flooded and a white fungus partially covering 

 the surface of many of the mummified bodies within them. 

 About 1829, B. Biasoletto, director of the Botanical Garden 

 at Trieste, examined the mummies and identified the fungus 

 as Hypha hombycina Pers., suggesting that the fungal 

 growth, by extracting water from the bodies, may have been 

 responsible for the process of natural mummification in these 

 cadavers. Except for Marcolini's (1831) suggestion of the 

 action of an acid gas from the soil and some adipocere forma- 

 tion. Biasoletto's suggestions have remained the locally ac- 

 cepted explanation of their mummification. 



MATERIALS AND METHODS 



Having obtained permission to view the mummies from the 

 proper local authorities, the authors visited Venzone, Italy on 

 13 December 1983. No permission to biopsy or dissect the 

 bodies was requested and no such procedures were carried 

 out. Local archeologists. naturalists, historians, and re- 

 sidents with knowledge about the mummies and their tombs 

 were interviewed. The mummies were inspected and two 

 (numbers 1 and 8) were cultured for fungi by swabbing their 

 facial skin and exposed leg muscle surface with sterile cotton 

 and streaking these on slants of Sabouraud's agar tubes. 

 These were incubated at room temperature for up to .several 

 months. Material from growth was transplanted into individ- 

 ual Sabouraud's agar tubes and onto slide cultures. Micro- 

 scopic examination of slide cultures and wet slide prepara- 

 tions, together with gross culture characteristics, provided 

 evidence for identification. A sample of light-gray sand and 

 fine gravel soil from a recent building excavation adjacent to 

 the cathedral was procured after scraping away 5 cm of soil 

 from the vertical face of the excavated pit wall at a depth of 22 

 cm from the ground surface level. 



The roofs of many of the tombs in the front of the church 

 had collapsed during the earthquake and were sealed with 

 cement slabs for safety reasons, but the cavity of tomb 9 was 



filled with debris, exposing only a part of its intact roof. 

 Samples of wood and brick were removed from the exposed 

 roof of this tomb in the cathedral. Access to tomb 15 was 

 possible by removing its temporary wooden cover and de- 

 scending cement steps leading to its interior. This was oc- 

 cupied by a jumble of disintegrated and collapsed wooden 

 coffins. Individual human bones were scattered throughout 

 this conglomeration, mixed with a damp, powdery material 

 which also lined the floor under the coffins. Only soil at the 

 foot of the steps, away from the coffms, was dry and light 

 grey, similar to the soil in the excavation pit adjacent to the 

 cathedral. No stone floor was identifiable. Coffin wood and 

 floor soil were sampled from tomb 15. These samples were 

 also weighed, then dried to constant weight and their mois- 

 ture content calculated. Soil specimens were analyzed for 

 lead content by graphite furnace atomic absorption spec- 

 trometry (Wittmers et al. 1981), and for mercury, arsenic, 

 copper and cobalt by neutron activation analysis (the latter 

 by Technical Services Laboratory, Mississauga, Ontario, 

 Canada). Soil pH was determined by suspending the soil in 

 distilled water and measuring the pH of the mixture with a 

 Coming pH meter (McLean 1980). Swabs of the coffin 

 boards in tomb 1 5 and of the soil samples were also prepared 

 for fungus cultures as described above. 

 Analytical results are itemized in Table 1 . 



DISCUSSION 



The geological structure of the Venzone area is almost en- 

 tirely that of calcareous rocks (Mainardis 1976: 16). The high 

 carbonate content of the soil adjacent to the church and that 

 composing the floor of tomb 15 (Table 1) is consistent with 

 limestone. Surface and ground waters of such areas normally 

 are quite alkaline. The pH values of samples listed in Table 1 . 

 however, range from neutrality to 6.0. This is probably a 

 local phenomenon secondary to industrial and other an- 

 thropogenic acidic products affecting the soil sampled out- 

 side of and adjacent to the church, while that of the tomb 

 floor was undoubtedly contaminated with acidic tissue prod- 

 ucts from multiple degenerating bodies. The neutral or 

 slightly acidic values in these particular samples do not ex- 

 clude an alkaline pH effect on tissue enzymes resulting from 

 periodic tomb flooding by ground water seeping through 

 limestone. 



Similarly, moisture content of the "dark" soil sample from 

 the tomb floor is high. Since the normal soil color of this area 

 is light grey, the dark color of this soil sample from beneath 

 the collapsed cotTins undoubtedly reflects substantial con- 

 tamination with degenerating human tissue. The relatively 

 low moisture content of the boards and that of the bricks in 

 the tomb roof probably more accurately reflect the normal 

 state of humidity in an empty tomb lined by normally hydro- 

 philic dolomite rock and soil, as suggested by the nearly 



Zagreb Pult'opalholofiy Symp. I9fi8 



