Famous Mummified Bodies From Around the World

ITIGILOV—IVOKGINSKY DATSAN, BURYATIA

Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov was a Buddhist lama, or teacher, who died in 1927 while meditating in the lotus position. Itigilov had left instructions to be buried as he died, interred in a pine box, and exhumed several years later. Monks checked on his body over the years, but in 2002, he was officially exhumed and transferred to the Buddhist temple of Ivolginsky Datsan. It is unclear how the body was preserved for so long, but it is thought that monks applied salt to it over the years to dehydrate it.