DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70267#0100
HUMAN BODIES.
82
longing to this city, of the reality of which nothing but
oceular demonstration could have convinced me. Under
the Cathedral church, is a vaulted apartment, supported
on pillars; it is near sixty paces long, and half as many
broad. The light and air are constantly admitted into it
by three windows, though it is several feet beneath the
level of the ground. Here are five large oak coffers,
each containing a corpse, which without being embalm-
ed, have suffered no corruption. I examined them se-
verally for near two hours. The most curious and per-
fect, is that of a woman. Tradition says, she was an
English countcss, who dying at Bremen about two hun-
dred and fifty years ago, ordered her body to be placed
in this vault uninterred, in the apprehension that her re-
lations would cause it to be brought over to her native
country. Though the muscular skin is totally dried in
every part, yet so little are the features of the face or skin
changed, that nothing is more certain than she was
young, and even beautiful. It is a small countenance,
round in its contour : the cartilage of the nose and the
nostrils have undergone no alteration : her teeth are all
firm in the sockets, but the lips are drawn away from over
them. The cheeks are shrunk in, but vet less than 1 ever
remember to have seen in embalmed bodies, The hair
of her head is at this time more than eighteen inches
long, very thick, and so fast, that I heaved the corpse
out of the coffer by it: the colour is a light brown, and
as fresh and glossy as that of a living person. That this
lady was of high rank seems evident from the extreme
fineness of the linen which covers her body; but I in vain
endeavoured to procure any lights into her history, her
title, or any other particulars, though I took no little
pains for that purpose. The landlord of the inn, who
se; red as my conductor, said he remembered it for forty
years
82
longing to this city, of the reality of which nothing but
oceular demonstration could have convinced me. Under
the Cathedral church, is a vaulted apartment, supported
on pillars; it is near sixty paces long, and half as many
broad. The light and air are constantly admitted into it
by three windows, though it is several feet beneath the
level of the ground. Here are five large oak coffers,
each containing a corpse, which without being embalm-
ed, have suffered no corruption. I examined them se-
verally for near two hours. The most curious and per-
fect, is that of a woman. Tradition says, she was an
English countcss, who dying at Bremen about two hun-
dred and fifty years ago, ordered her body to be placed
in this vault uninterred, in the apprehension that her re-
lations would cause it to be brought over to her native
country. Though the muscular skin is totally dried in
every part, yet so little are the features of the face or skin
changed, that nothing is more certain than she was
young, and even beautiful. It is a small countenance,
round in its contour : the cartilage of the nose and the
nostrils have undergone no alteration : her teeth are all
firm in the sockets, but the lips are drawn away from over
them. The cheeks are shrunk in, but vet less than 1 ever
remember to have seen in embalmed bodies, The hair
of her head is at this time more than eighteen inches
long, very thick, and so fast, that I heaved the corpse
out of the coffer by it: the colour is a light brown, and
as fresh and glossy as that of a living person. That this
lady was of high rank seems evident from the extreme
fineness of the linen which covers her body; but I in vain
endeavoured to procure any lights into her history, her
title, or any other particulars, though I took no little
pains for that purpose. The landlord of the inn, who
se; red as my conductor, said he remembered it for forty
years