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Show -;a--4v-(j).r.')---cj)---:ip---- I HISTORICAL I 1 DEPARTMENT. ------S-----0 ---- ! Mummy of Pyrenees.: Ancient Human Body 1 Found in Cave (Indianapolis Sentinel.) The scientific and religious world are both a good' deal stirred up over a recent re-cent discovery in the Pyrenees. Some people who have been getting out building stone from a Pyreneean hillside hill-side came upon a shallow cavern. While exploring it they discovered what is by far the oldest relic of the human race extant. It is the mummy for want of a better name it is so calltd of the prehistoric man. The type clearly approaches Caucasian Caucas-ian in class. The body is extremely well preserved, as well it might be, seeing it has been preserved- absolutely from moisture or atmospheric deterioration deterior-ation for many thousand years. The body when first discovered was emei-oped emei-oped in what the great scientists who examined it, and they were the greatest great-est in all continental Europe, declared to have been the skin of the cave bear, a species of animal that became extinct ex-tinct with the last mighty convulsion that changed the face of this earth. This newly discovered mummy or preserved human body is at least 10,000 years old. It is the first authentic perfect per-fect human corpus known to the scientific sci-entific world, wliich accounts for the extraordinary interest taken in the find. It represents a man who was young, not beyond five and thirty years of age. He was about five feet eleven inches in stature and extremely well proportioned. propor-tioned. He evidently came to his death in battle or by violence, for there is a bad wound on the back of the head sufficient to have killed him. Having j been kept dry so long and cut off from I atmospheric effects, the body is won- derfully free from decay. 1 The French government wishes to I keep it so, and, therefore, as soon as tho Ipnflinp- snv.nnts of France had ! I carefully examined it the body was in-I in-I closed in an airtight steel case, with I a glass top of sufficient thickness to j endure the outward pressure of the air when that within the case had been carefully pumped out. The limbs of the body were well proportioned. From the appearance of the soles of the feet the man in life must have gone barefooted, bare-footed, for they were greatly calloused and hardened. In color the man was of a light brown, something between the Japanese and the Angio-Saxon. By his side there were 'a stone ax, a flint knife and what is declared to be a bark-formed drinking cup. ' Not far from where this remarkable preserved prehistoric man's body was found were parts of the skeleton of a woman. The pelvis and the other portions por-tions of the body clearly proved that it was a part of the skeleton of a woman, and one who was about five feet five inches in stature. Some finger joints, in an excellent state of preservation, preser-vation, indicated a hand small and delicately made. These remains must have been deposited where they were fcund, though the great natural convulsion con-vulsion which ensued about 10,000 years ago occurred very soon after or possibly pos-sibly contemporary with the placing of these, remains where they were found. These discoveries prove that the Pyreneean Py-reneean caves, some of which are very extensive, are extremely ancient, and were in use as human dwellings during the stone age, or from 10,000 to 20,000 j years ago. The Darw inian theory of I human development would seem to be somewhat jolted by these late discov- I eries of human beings, fully developed, nai existeu anyw nere irom W 10 ZUU I centuries ago. The French Royal Academy of Science Sci-ence intends next summer, and even this winter, as far as may be possible, to institute a thorough investigation and research all through the cave region re-gion of that mountain section of France. The government has appropriated appro-priated 200,000 francs" and the learned society above named will add 100,000 francs more. This will permit a very complete exploration of this heretofore practically unknown region being made. Up to this discovery the oldest human hu-man body, with all its members intact, that was known to exist was in the possession of the Egyptological society of France, a body created by the French government during the joint occupation of Egypt by France and England. It is the mummied body of an Egyptian princess, the daughter of King Pthtah, the great-grandfather of the ruler that so opposed the Israelites. Israel-ites. The writer w as present when this ycung princess' body - was first unwrapped un-wrapped .after beiiv brought from the north wing of the pyramid of Gizeh It had been discovered lying on a hidden hid-den shelf by the active modern Egyptians Egypt-ians working under De Lesseps and Chempallion, jr., as famous an Egyptologist Egypt-ologist as his great father was. Khedive Khe-dive Ishmail Pasha, then ruling the ccurtry, was present. We were all seated in a circle. The khedive. after Champallion had read from the Egyptian Egypt-ian characters on the mighty stone coffin the rank and dignities of the princess, gave the orders, and the attendants at-tendants began unwrapping the body. Each wrapping went around the body-five body-five times. Finally, with the air filled with the scent of bitumen, .myrrh and a dozen other ingredients blended, the last wrapping was removed, and the body of Pharaoh Pthtah's daughter was exposed to the eyes of a people-that people-that were cave dwellers when her father was king of all Egypt and Ethiopia. Ethi-opia. All the party, including the khedive, involuntarily removed their hats as they beheld the body of the ancient princess. j |