According to a story in Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper, the mummy was discovered preserved in a box with a note.
Digital Desk: A 300-year-old mummy-shaped like a mermaid is presently being researched by a group of Japanese specialists, who are apparently perplexed by its characteristics.
Between 1736 and 1741, the strange 12-inch creature was purportedly caught in the Pacific Ocean off the Japanese island of Shikoku. However, it is presently housed at a shrine in Asakuchi.
According to a story in Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper, the mummy was discovered preserved in a box with a note stating it had been captured in a fishing net in the Pacific Ocean.
According to the tale, the 'dried mermaid' was maintained by one family and then passed on to another until being bought by a temple.
The mummy features sharp teeth, a grimace on its face, two hands, and hair on its brow and skull. In short, its top half has an uncanny resemblance to a person. However, it possesses fish-like traits on the lower half.
The bottom half of the body is covered in scales and has a tail-like tapering end.
Researchers from Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts have recently accepted funding for CT scanning in order to uncover its mysteries.
"Japanese mermaids have a legend of immortality. It is said that if you eat the flesh of a mermaid, you will never die. There is a legend in many parts of Japan that a woman accidentally ate the flesh of a mermaid and lived for 800 years " said Hiroshi Kinoshita of the Okayama Folklore Society, who came up with the project.
"This 'Yao-Bikuni' mythology is also kept near the temple where the mermaid mummy was discovered," he continued.
Some individuals who believed in the folklore, according to Kinoshita, used to ear the scales of mermaid mummies.
"There's also a folklore about a mermaid foretelling an infectious sickness," he said.
The letter kept with the mummy tells the narrative of how it came to be there. The message stated, "A mermaid was caught in a fish-catching net in the waters off Kochi Prefecture."
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