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300-Year-Old Mummified Mermaid With Creepy ‘Human Face’ And Tail Leave Scientists Baffled
Findings will be published later this year.
Researchers from the Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts have taken a newly discovered creature – a mummified mermaid for CT scanning to unravel some secrets. The creature has a grimacing face, pointed teeth, two hands, and hair on its head and brow. It indeed has an eerily human appearance except for its fish-like lower half.
The Mummified Mermaid is said to have granted immortality to whosoever tastes its flesh.
However, the mysterious 12-inch creature had been allegedly caught in the Pacific Ocean, off the Japanese Island of Shikoku between 1736 and 1741 – it’s also now kept in a temple in the city of Asakuchi.
Hiroshi Kinoshita of the Okayama Folklore Society, who brought forth the project, said the bizarre creature could have religious significance. According to The Sun, he had explained: “Japanese mermaids have a legend of immortality. It is said that if you eat the flesh of a mermaid, you will never die. There is a legend in many parts of Japan that a woman accidentally ate the flesh of a mermaid and lived for 800 years.”
“This Yao-Bikini legend is also persevered near the temple where the mermaid mummy was found. I heard that some people, believing in the legend, used to eat the scales of mermaid mummies. There’s also a legend that a mermaid predicted an infectious disease,” Hiroshi added.
A historic letter dated 1903 was found alongside the mermaid, and it gives a story about its provenance.
The letter reads as translated read: “A mermaid was caught in a fish-catching net in the sea off Kochi Prefecture. The Fisherman who caught it did not know it was a mermaid but took it to Osaka and sold it as unusual fish. My ancestors bought it and kept it as a family treasure.” It’s unknown how or when the mummy came to the Enjuin temple in Asakuchi, but chief priest Kozen Kuida said it was put on display in a glass case 40 years ago and now kept in a fireproof safe.
Hiroshi strongly believes the mummified mummy had been manufactured during the Edo period – an era of Japanese history stretching from 1603 to 1867. He didn’t think it was a real mermaid and had been made for export to Europe during the Edo period or spectacles in Japan. He insisted: “I think it is made from living animals, and we would like to identify them by CT scans or DNA testing. It looks like a fish with scales on the lower body and a primate with hands on a face on the upper body.”
In Japanese folklore, there exists a creature named the ningyo, described as having a monkey’s mouth with fish-like teeth and a body covered in golden scales.
On the other hand, a similar specimen had exhibited by P.T Barnum – whose life inspired the 2017 blockbuster The Greatest Showman at his American Museum in New York before it burned down in 1865. This specimen, created from the torso and head of a monkey sewn onto the back half of a fish, was purportedly captured off the coast of Fiji and later purchased from Japanese sailors.
