Ancient mummies turn into ‘black ooze’ because of climate change

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VERIA: The world’s oldest mummies, dating back to 5050 BC, are beginning to degrade and turn to black ooze due to climate change, says a study.
The decay was detected across a range of ancient relics including the walls of King Tutankhamen’s tomb, Apollo space suits, Chinchorro mummies and historic manuscripts, prompting a study led by Harvard into the cause.
It was first noticed among the 120 Chinchorro mummies housed in the University of Tarapacá’s archaeological museum in Arica, Chile.
“In the last 10 years, the process has accelerated,” said Marcela Sepulveda, a professor of archaeology in the anthropology department and the Archeometric Analysis and Research Laboratories at the University of Tarapacá, during a recent visit to Cambridge.Initial studies of the samples from the museum showed that the degradation was microbial.
“The key word that we use a lot in microbiology is opportunism,” says Ralph Mitchell, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Biology Emeritus at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) who was called in to solve the puzzle.
Mitchell says: “With many diseases we encounter, the microbe is in our body to begin with, but when the environment changes it becomes an opportunist.”