You learn something new everyday! Yesterday I had no idea that during the Middle Ages high-ranking members of society, after they had died, had their corpses partitioned and symbolic organs preserved for future generations to admire! King Richard 1st, or Richard the Lionheart, was a key player in the 3rd crusade, but died in 1199 fighting the French. After his death Richard's heart was embalmed and sealed in a lead box. Chemical analysis of the remains showed that mercury was a key component of the embalming process. The presence of pollen from myrtle, daisy and mint suggests these were used to make the heart smell nice...
During the Middle Ages, the partition of the cadaver of the elite members was a current practice, with highly technical treatment given to symbolic organs such as the heart. Considered mostly from a theoretical point of view, this notion of dilaceratio corporis has never been biologically explored. To assess the exact kind of embalming reserved to the heart, we performed a full biomedical analysis of the mummified heart of the English King Richard I (1199 A.D.).
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