A study revealed that the mummified mermaid, which was worshiped by some in Japan, is nothing more than a fake installation consisting of cloth, paper and other things.
The British newspaper “Daily Mail” reported on its website, Saturday evening, that this artificial shape was produced due to the Japanese fascination with mermaids.
It was previously believed that this mermaid was found in the Pacific Ocean, specifically off the coast of the Japanese island of Shikoku between 1736 and 1741.
This alleged mermaid remained in a temple in Asakuchi, southwestern Japan.
Legend says that this mummy has the ability to grant immortality, and during the Corona pandemic, it was invoked to ward off the threat of the deadly virus.
But scientists doubted its authenticity, and initially believed that it was a fish tail that was placed under the body of one of the primates.
The mummified mermaid was subjected to a CT scan to find out the truth.
The study supervisors said that the final results surprised them. For example, most of the upper part of the supposed mummy was made of clothes, cloth and cotton.
“If you visualize it normally, you’ll think it’s a combination, the bottom part is a fish and the top part is a monkey,” says Hiroshi Kinoshita of the Okayama Heritage Society.
He adds, “But the examination showed that this was not the truth. What we know now is that the lower half of the body is a fish, but the upper half is not a mammal.”
He noted that most of the upper body was in fact made of cloth, paper and cotton, although blowfish skin was used on the arms, shoulders, neck and cheeks.
Not the first fake mermaid
It is noteworthy that this is not the first fake mermaid, there is another famous one known as the “Fiji Mermaid”.
The “Fiji Mermaid” was introduced to the world in August 1842 when an Englishman named Guy Griffin in New York claimed to own a real mermaid said to have been caught near the Fiji Islands.
After lengthy discussions with Griffin, he agreed to display it for only one week before displaying it in the British Museum, and then it was displayed in the American Museum for 20 years.
The fake truth of this mermaid was revealed and it was discovered that it was a monkey’s torso threaded with a salmon tail perfectly, but that did not stop crowds of people from going to see this mermaid even after discovering its fake.
