How long can a preserved human body last before turning to dust?
Some Context
The setting is a fantasy world with lots of magic where Liches exist.
A Lich is "born" through a series of complex, dangerous and horrific rituals that a mage casts upon himself over the course of years, decades even. In order to become a Lich, the mage has to do two things:
- Cast several spells to protect his physical body from decay;
- Transfer his "essence" into a vessel, which he will keep with him always.
The main objective of this ordeal is eternal life - or, at least, to greatly expand one's life expectancy.
While a human lives about 70 to 80 years in this setting, a Lich's lifespan is counted in hundreds of years.
A Lich's body will still age, but at a much slower rate. It will eventually decay and turn into a living skeleton, until the anti-decay spells can't stop him from turning into a pile of dust. As the decay advances, he continuously uses magic to keep himself together and "emulate" whatever he needs to (like his voice).
The Question
What I want is to determine a Lich's lifespan based on actual facts about the decay speed of a preserved human body through existing means, like embalming.
So... how long can a human body be preserved before turning to dust?
Side Note
I've come across two pieces of information before writing this question:
- I've seen a rough estimate that a human body will completely decay in about 8 years without any kind of preservation;
- Some older questions pointed out that a correctly preserved body might stay preserved indefinitely.
I'm not interested in either of these options - the first is too short and the second is way too long. The ideal answer is not the perfect preservation technique, but one that will keep it alright for a considerable amount of time. I will, then, use this number as an estimate to state how long my Liches' bodies last.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/136115. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1 answer
There are a variety of preservation techniques with different results. Obviously you want to avoid ones where the body is not free to move around. Extensive wrapping, immersion, etc won't work unless the techniques are temporary.
Desiccation. Drying the body in a warm arid place will preserve it for a long time. Moving the body around after that, and exposing it to humidity, will slowly weaken it, which may give you your sweet spot of a few hundred years.
Coastal hunter-gatherers in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile and southern Peru, known as the Chinchorro culture, were among the first to perform artificial mummifications. Under a scenario of increasing population size and extreme aridity (with little or no decomposition of corpses), dead individuals may have become a significant part of the landscape, creating the conditions for the manipulation of the dead that led to the emergence of complex mortuary practices as early as 5000"“6000 BC. (ref)
Salt can help preserve while keeping the body from becoming too dried out (which makes it brittle).
Prior to the introduction of carbolic acid, or phenol, and later of formaldehyde, the main preserving agents used in anatomies were alcoholic solutions of arsenic and/or alumina salts in different concentrations....Coleman & Kogan (1998) used almost the same chemicals (they replaced alcohol by isopropyl alcohol), but added a vast amount of sodium chloride. They argued that the high salt content retained in the tissues prevented any further significant desiccation. Salts have also been used...and 1% of anhydrous calcium chloride...and 5% of potassium nitrate. (ref)
There are multiple preserving agents and different combinations of them preserve tissue in different ways. You will want something that allows the body to move and look sort-of normal. Given that you will be using the body and exposing it to bumps and motion and stretching, plus air and humidity and maybe even rain, it will not last as long as it would in a tomb.
0 comment threads
0 comment threads