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Mummy-Shaped Coffin Found While Moving Cemetery

Written by DeadGirl
Thursday, 31 August 2006
Archaeologists moving graves in an old cemetery discovered something that looks like it came straight out of ancient Egypt. Dan Allen, an archaeologist hired by developers, has seen it all over the years while clearing coffins and bodies. But, a discovery made Tuesday is rare. Allen and other archaeologists found a pre-Civil War cast-iron coffin shaped like an Egyptian mummy while moving a cemetery for developers at a site on Whites Creek Pike in North Nashville. “I've only seen three of these in my life,” Allen said. The headstone lay near the site. “It says her name was Mildred Casey, which was her maiden name,” Allen said. Casey was 54-years-old when she died in 1851. A more typical box-type casket was found next to Casey's, likely her husband. “The condition of the clothes is almost extraordinary. We normally don't get clothing at all like this in graves. This appears to be a frock coat or suit,” Allen said. The Casey's were likely wealthy. Cast-iron caskets, modeled after an Egyptian mummy, were expensive at the time. Allen estimates the coffin would have cost $60 to $100 in 1851. “That would have been a lot of money at that time,” Allen said. It's anyone's guess how well preserved the body is inside. Buzzards circling overhead may wonder, but Allen won't open the casket. He worried about something he called coffin liquor. “They used a lot of early strange products to embalm people. They experimented with lots of things like arsenic, mercury and copper sulfate,” Allen said. Mildred Casey and her casket will be carefully moved and reburied intact nearby, 155 years after she died. Developers often need to move old cemeteries, but rarely do they find such well-preserved caskets or remains. No one from the Casey family has come forward to claim the remains, but they said that's not unusual. SOURCE: http://www.newschannel5.com/content/news/21680.asp

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Taphophilia?

taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)

ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"

DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries