Mummy to be reburied after bad dreams

A 430-year-old female mummy discovered in a southwestern town last year will be reburied in a decision by her descendants after recurring dreams of a cow they say is probably their ancestor, hospital officials said Monday.

The Joseon dynasty-era mummy was found in April last year during a graveyard relocation process by members of a Ryu clan at a mountain in Naju, 356 kilometers southwest of Seoul. The family accepted a request by Korea University Kuro Hospital in Seoul to donate the mummy for examination.

A family representative called the hospital, saying the descendants of the clan were having dreams of a cow, which in Korea's traditional interpretation is a family ancestor.

"It all seems to say that we should be returning our 12th-generation grandmother to her natural state," the representative was quoted as saying by the hospital. He could not be immediately reached.

The family has asked for the mummy's return, and the hospital has accepted, officials said. An endoscopic test was conducted and tissue samples were taken prior to the return, they said.

The mummy is believed to be that of a woman surnamed Lee who married into the Ryu clan. The Ryu family registry says she was born in 1544 and died at age 43. It was found in a wooden casket wrapped again in underground soil, a popular form of burial for aristocrats in the latter part of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910).

The cause of death is uncertain, but medical experts say she may have died while giving birth, based on what is supposed to be her placenta dislocated from the uterus, and the fact that she was biting her tongue.