Deep in the forested heart of Southern Kentucky hides the several entrances to the largest discovered cave system in the world. That the Mammoth Cave was discovered many millennia ago comes as no surprise when you study any of the seven mummies that have so far been found interred in its echoing halls.
The Lost John mummy is the latest to be uncovered. Found in 1935, he is a male approximately 45 years old and about 5′ 3″. His remains had been preserved by the dryness of the Cave since about the fourth century B.C.E. when he appeared to have become lost in the maze.
Even older than Lost John and dating from before it is believed the Native American Indians inhabited the area, Little Alice has waited about 4,000 years to be seen. The Little Alice mummy is something of an enigma for more than just her place in time. She is small, barely three and a half feet tall when alive. The mummy had originally been thought to be of a young girl but later study indicated that it may have been a boy child of about nine. Looking at the mummy’s face and head though, appears to me that of a much older and more mature human. Little Alice was found over 9,000 feet below the earth and the artifacts found with the body, while unidentified by culture, showed the craft and workmanship of an intelligent and civilized race.
Scudder’s Mummy presents another strange mystery out of place in time. The dark, redheaded person had clear skin and good teeth. It had been wrapped in deer skin and buried under nine feet of earth in one of the cave passages. The enigma is in that the clothing the mummy wore is of a type that was found in the ancient cultures of the Figi and Sandwich islands.
And most unusual of all is the finding of what is called the Fawn Hoof Mummy. This enigmatic body was found in a small crypt roofed over with a large stone slab deep under one of the cavern passages. The Fawn Hoof mummy while wrapped in a sitting position inside two decorated deer skin was shrouded in a large woven sheet. While the hair was cut short on the mummy’s head, it was of a woman, almost six feet tall in life. Her teeth and nails were in perfect condition. Her skin was dark though not black and she wore a color makeup on her lips. She seems to have been someone of great status. Her feet were unusually small and the body overall had been preserved in excellent condition. It is a shame that modern technology cannot study her more deeply. The Smithsonian Institution lost her body after dissecting it in the late 1800’s.
Could it be that their finding disturbed the established history? Their report on the body shows that it had been preserved and mummified with a technique that was used by the Egyptians many thousands of years ago.