Illustration by Tim Bower

Issue: Summer 2006

Last Word

Living Dead

Taxes are unavoidable, but perhaps death isn’t quite so iron-clad... Cultures ancient and modern have paid tribute to the undead, and the tradition marches proudly on with intriguing new variations made possible by the high-tech tools of science. See if you know these timeless corpses and the men and women who made them famous.

1. Impressive in neither size nor historical significance, this ancient tomb – and its resident mummy – is nevertheless a wonder of the modern world. Discovered in 1923 by a tenacious British archeologist, the find captured popular imagination. There were rumors of a curse. And a tell-tale thickening at the base of the mummy’s skull fueled conjecture of murder and political intrigue. Recent CT scans, however, confirm the embalmed boy-king likely died of infection following a leg fracture.

2. Bath time comes infrequently for this spry revolutionary leader. Visitors to his ornate marble mausoleum can attest that, 82 years after his passing, the embalmed patriot looks terrific. His beauty secret? A month spent immersed in a vat of moisturizing solution every year-and-a-half.

3. Kept indoors during the snowy summer of 1816, a group of restless young writers and intellectuals vacationing by Lake Geneva decided to hold a ghost story writing contest. Inspired by a nightmare, one participant raised “hideous progeny” from death to everlasting life – as a staple of the horror genre.

4. In his desire to “democraticize anatomy,” this controversial German scientist has toured the world for a decade accompanied by 25 skinless cadavers. Thanks to a preservation technique called “plastination,” these living dead are forever frozen in such commonplace acts as riding a bike and dribbling a basketball.

5. For the past 70 years, guards from the 3rd U.S. Infantry have kept constant vigil – even through Hurricane Isabel – over four unmarked graves at Arlington Cemetery. Yet since 1998, one of those graves has lain empty. Grave-robbers? No. Mitochondrial DNA testing. The newly available technology led to the positive identification of the fighter pilot whose bones the soldiers had guarded since 1973; his remains were subsequently returned to his family in St. Louis.

6. What do a 38-year-old Texan murderer and a 58-year old Maryland housewife have in common? Their cadavers are the basis for a stunning federally funded project. He died by lethal injection; she of heart attack. Both were frozen and thinly sliced (at 1 mm and 0.33 mm intervals, respectively); then photographed and digitized. The resulting data – complete, detailed 3-D representations of the normal male and female homo sapiens – are now standard reference tools in the study of human anatomy.

7. Shakespearean actor Sir Henry Irving – renowned for his roles as refined, exquisitely mannered villains – served as the real-life model for the undead demon whose otherwise obscure Irish creator made his living managing London’s Lyceum Theatre.

8. In 1913, a one-legged hobo fell to his death from a freight train near Marlin, Texas. Unclaimed by next of kin, his embalmed remains were sold to a traveling carnival. Billed as “The Amazing Petrified Man,” he toured America for more than a half-century before finally being laid to rest in 1973. That year, a popular folk singer immortalized his name in an off-beat ballad.

9. Few who relished last year’s macabre feature animation film about a hapless young man who accidentally weds a zombie realize the plot comes straight from the quill of Rabbi Isaac Luria of Safed, a 16th-century mystic and founder of the Lurianic branch of Kabbalah.

›› Contest rules Identify the undead referenced in these clues and, where possible, the artist, scientist or government agency credited with “resurrecting” them. Up to five $30 gift certificates from Borders Books and Music will be awarded to the morbidly curious readers who correctly complete the puzzle. If more than five perfect entries are received, winners will be drawn by lot.

Send your entry by no later than September 15 to The Last Word c/o USC Trojan Family Magazine University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089-7790

Submissions by fax (213-821-1100) and e-mail <magazines@usc.edu> are also welcome.