Chile rushing to save oldest mummies on earth melting due to climate change

For thousands of years, the mummies lay buried beneath the sands of the Atacama Desert, a volcanically active region along the northern Chilean coast with virtually no rainfall.

When the first ones were discovered 100 years ago, archaeologists marvelled at the ancient relics, some of them fetuses, their little bodies amazingly intact.

But now the mummies, which are believed to be the oldest on earth, are melting.

Mariela Santos, curator at the University of Tarapaca museum in Chile, noticed a few years ago that the desiccated skins of a dozen of the mummies were decomposing and turning into a mysterious black ooze.

"I knew the situation was critical and that we'd have to ask specialists for help," said Santos, whose museum stores and displays the Chinchorro mummies, which date back as far as 5000BC and are among archaeology's most enigmatic objects.

Within weeks, university staff members had contacted Harvard scientist Ralph Mitchell, an Ireland native who specialises in finding out why relics are falling apart. A bacteria sleuth of sorts, Mitchell has taken on assignments that included identifying a mysterious microflora breaking down Apollo spacesuits at Washington's National Air and Space Museum, analysing dark spots on the walls of King Tut's tomb and studying the deterioration of the Lascaux cave paintings in France.

Mitchell launched an investigation of the mummies' deterioration, and this year issued a startling declaration: The objects are the victims of climate change. He concluded that the germs doing the damage are common microorganisms that, thanks to higher humidity in northern Chile over the last 10 years, have morphed into voracious consumers of collagen, the main component of mummified skin.