The artifact, created with animal parts and metal pinned to a doll stuffed with cloth, is one of 13 “mermaids” found in Japan.
The Legend
Legend has it that it has the power to grant immortality, and it was worshiped continuously to ward off the virus. For years, the locals have worshiped the creature, believing that anyone who eats its flesh will live forever. The priests of Japan’s En Juin temple strongly believed in its healing powers. However, scientists suspected it was the tail end of a fish grafted onto the upper body of a primate and sent the artifact for CT scanning to confirm their suspicions.
Myths, Busted
If you imagined it normally, you’d think it was a cross between a fish’s lower body and an ape’s upper body. The survey results, however, show that this is not the case. According to what we now know, the lower half of the body is fish, but the upper half is not. Most of the upper body was composed of cloth, paper, and cotton, with pufferfish skin used on its arms, shoulders, neck, and cheeks.
Features of The Mermaid
This 12-inch creature has a grimacing face, pointed teeth and hands, and hair on its head and forehead, giving it a human-like appearance, but its lower half clearly resembles a fish. Pufferfish skin, unidentified mammal hair, and the fins and bones of several sea creatures: the origins of a 300-year-old “mermaid” mummy, have finally been revealed by researchers.
Composition of The Mermaid
The creature’s hair is mammalian, its nails are made of animal keratin, and its jaws are from an unknown carnivorous fish. There is no internal skeleton, but there are metal needles in the back of the neck and lower body. Meanwhile, the bottom half was created using croaker fish scales. The teeth are all conical, with slightly curved backward tips (inside the mouth).
The jaw is that of an unknown species of carnivorous fish. The creature has five fingers and flat claws on both arms. The lower body is covered in scales and has dorsal fins, tailfins, and caudal fins. Mermaid mummies were most likely created in various parts of Japan for display or export to other countries.
Scientists discovered that the creature was entirely artificial, created in the late 1800s, and that it has no skeleton and is made entirely of paper, cloth, and cotton. Quite a revealing discovery, don’t you think?