The mystery of the 300-year-old mermaid-mummy will be solved soon (VIDEO-PHOTO)

The mummy was worshiped in the temple by pilgrims, but for the last 40 years it has been sealed in an airtight chamber to prevent its decomposition.

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Legend has it that in 1736 near Shikoku Island in Japan, a fisherman caught a scary mermaid in his net and sold it to a wealthy family. The belief was that whoever ate a piece of the mermaid's body would live forever. In a way that remains unknown, the mummy mummy ended up in a box in a temple in Okayama Prefecture, Japan, where it was worshiped for centuries because of its supposed healing properties. 

Now, Takafumi Kato, a paleontologist at Kurashiki University, and his colleagues managed to convince the priests of the temple to investigate this unusual creature.

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The creature is 30.5 cm long. He underwent a computed tomography scan and the researchers also took DNA samples to determine which creatures he belonged to. The first impression is that it is the body of a small monkey which has been sewn into the tail of a fish, while human hair and nails have been added to it. The researchers will announce the results later this year.

The mummy was worshiped in the temple by pilgrims, but for the last 40 years it has been sealed in an airtight chamber to prevent its decomposition. However, it is not uncommon for locals to try to deceive western visitors. The most famous case is the 91 cm long Feejee mermaid which was first sold to Dutch travelers in Japan in 1810 and later to English merchants to end up in the famous PT Barnum collection in the USA. It is considered to have an orangutan body and a salmon tail.

Source: Unboxholics.gr