Manawatu Herald SATURDAY, AUGUST 27, 1921. AFTER 18 CENTURIES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2321, 27 August 1921, Page 2

Manawatu Herald SATURDAY, AUGUST 27, 1921. AFTER 18 CENTURIES.

SEVERAL tombs, dating back to the days of Roman Gaul, containing bodies in a remarkable state of preservation, and many articles illus•trative of the civilisation of that time, were discovered recently near Clermont-Ferrand. A party of men breaking up the ground with pickaxes struck something hard, which proved to be the cover of a GalloRoman stone coffin. The cover, when raised, revealed a beautiful woman, the flesh as perfect as it had been on the day of her death, and her long plaited black hair arranged around her head. In a few minutes the body exposed to the atmosphere crumbled to dust, and soon there was nothing left but a skeleton robed in a serge dress. The woman had lain in her stone coffin for eighteen centuries. Five other tombs were found, that of a young woman with fair hair, dressed in white, and wearing beautifully made leather sandals; that of an older woman, who with her own hair even in death wore an artificial plait; that of an old man with a beard, and finally two tombs containing the remains of a little girl and a woman. The objects found in the tombs are of the greatest interest; coins which determine the exact date; vases, crockery, baskets, many little toilet accessories, and women's

ornaments; linen, clothing, and shoes, all appearing to have been made only yesterday. There were even fruits scarcely shrivelled, and it branch of box which was still green. Scientists explain the apparent miracle by the circumstance that the carbonic acid gas from thq neighbouring springs, being heavier than air, had driven out all the'; air from the coffins, and while not mummifying the bodies, had conserved them and everything buried in the tombs in a perfect state of preservation for eighteen hundred years.