I would not be doing justice to my visit to Nuuk if I didn't mention the Mummies of Qilakitsoq the treasured archaeological remains exhibited at the Greenland National Museum on the waterfront in the Old Colonial District of the city.
The museum holds the mummies of three women and a six-month-old child dating to the mid-15th-century - the subject of the photo.
Qilakitsoq is an abandoned settlement and an important archaeological site in Greenland. It became known as the discovery location of eight mummified corpses from the Thule period.
A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay further if kept in cool and dry conditions.
What follows is a summary of information from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qilakitsoq#/media/File:Qilakitsoq_I-1.jpg
This site contains photos of the mummies which I was unable to obtain during my visit to the Museum,so I have borrowed the photo of the six-month old boy to give you some idea of how perfectly preserved these Mummies are.
Qilakitsoq is located in West Greenland near the city of Uummannaq on the northern coast of the Nuussuaq peninsula (Greenlandic: Big Cape) in a sheltered cove of the Karrat Fjord. The Greenlandic name means "that which has very little sky, which probably refers to the steep cliffs which surround the area as well as its frequently occurring fogs.
Nuussuaq is where we have been located for the last few days and I can certainly vouch for the frequent presence of fog!!
There are several gravesites in Qilakitsoq and, even today, one can find human remains under piles of stones. On October 9, 1972, two hunters, Hans and Jokum Grønvold from Uummannaq, discovered a grave containing several mummies while they were out hunting for rock ptarmigans. They covered the graves up again, and immediately alerted the authorities. It was not until 1978 that the first scientific investigations of the gravesites took place and soon thereafter, the mummies were transferred to Copenhagen for further research.
In 1982, the mummies were brought back to Greenland as part of a repatriation of Greenlandic cultural assets. In their current home at the Greenland National Museum, the four best-preserved mummies are publicly exhibited.
There are mummies from four graves, the best preserved of which was initially thought by its discoverers to be a doll. The especially good conservation can probably be attributed to a faster loss of body heat due to its smaller size. It is considered possible that, after the death of his mother, the boy was either buried alive or suffocated, which was typical for children younger than two years of age in order to spare them a slow death by starvation. It was a small community of around 30 people and they were entirely dependent on hunting for survival in cold, harsh conditions.
The Mummies on display are all thought to be related. A more detailed analysis of how each Mummy died can be found at: https://www.ulethbridge.ca/lib/digitized_collections/ourheritage/Great_Adventures/Marine_Expedtions/Northwest_Passage/Uummannaq/Mummies.html#:~:text=They%20are%20natural%20mummies%2C%20produced,they%20were%20studied%20as%20found.
Briefly, and I quote from the above website " One woman had a malignant tumour near the base of her skull which most likely caused her death. The older child had Calvé-Perthes disease, which afflicts the hip joint and which would have made him vulnerable to other life-threatening", another showed signs of Downs Syndrome and I have already mentioned that the baby may have been suffocated or buried alive.
Forgive me since seeing these amazing Mummies it has become an indulgence for me to find out more but I hope you will share my interest if you follow up on the links above.
As a fellow guest commented to me "It felt like if you dribbled water on to the baby it would have come alive!" Once seen never forgotten an amazing experience.
| Qilakitsoq | |
| Mummy I/1: a six-month-old boy | |
| Discovered | 1972 |
| Present location | |
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