Scientists have found out what the terrifying "mermaid" from a Japanese temple actually was

This unusual artifact has aroused the curiosity of visitors to the temple for several centuries.Although in the explanatory

According to the note, the marine origin of the "mermaid" was indicated, few people believed in the possibility of the existence of an ape-fish in fact.The body of the "mermaid" is about 30 cm long, covered with fur and hasAt the same time, the hands of this "chimera" are very similar to those of a human.The "water monkey" has pointy small teeth in its mouth, and its entire body is carefully mummified.

Analysis of the materials from which the "mermaid" was made

In Japanese mythology, creatures made up of fish and human body parts are referred to as ningyo, which were aquatic creatures less attractive than Western mermaids, though no less popular in myths and legends. 

There is a note in a wood storage box at the temple that says the "mermaid" was caught off the coast of what is now Kochi around 1740.

Since February 2022, scientists from the Kurashiki University of Science and Arts (KUSA) have been working with the temple to figure out what the strange animal might be.

Mummy "water monkey"

Now they have revealed whether it was a hoax, a scam or a work of art: it turned out that the “water monkey” is not an animal at all, but a work of human art.

A number of mummified ningyo can be found throughout Japan, many of them in the possession of temples and museums and mostly dating back to the Edo period (1603–1868). 

To disassemble the "construction" of at least one ofsamples, the team of scientists used a non-destructive method. The examination included imaging, radiography, X-ray computed tomography, optical and electron microscopy, X-ray fluorescence analysis, DNA analysis, and radiocarbon dating.

The most conspicuous, except for the lower jaw,ningyo lacks skeletal architecture entirely, so it's not even a creepy Frankenstein of monkey and fish corpses sewn together, as in the case of the Fijian mermaid.

The scan showed that the object representsseveral body parts of different organisms mixed with each other. To create it, they used fabrics, cotton and paper, coated with a substance obtained by mixing powdered charcoal or sand with a special paste. The head is mostly cotton and covered with a plaster-like substance.

The hair on the head is animal hair, and the scales are fromtwo types of fish. The upper part of the body is covered with the skin of puffer fish, and the lower part of the body is covered with the scales of one of the species of croaker. The nails on five fingers are made of animal keratin, probably from horn. The jaw was from some kind of carnivorous fish.

3D tomography of the "mermaid"

Meanwhile, radiocarbon dating of some of the scales refutes the handwritten note in the mermaid box, the creature was fabricated a century later, in the late 1800s.

How the mermaid ended up in the possession of the Enju-in Temple still remains a mystery. 

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