Fet-Mats ("Fat Mats" real name: ''Mats Israelsson'') (died 1677) was a

natural mummy A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay furt ...

found in Sweden in 1719. In 1719, miners in the Falun copper mine found an intact dead body in a water-filled, long-unused tunnel. When the body was put on display, it was identified by his former fiancée, Margaret Olsdotter, as Fet-Mats Israelsson, who had disappeared 42 years earlier.

Discovery

On December 2, 1719, miners discovered a dead man in the water-filled shaft known as Mårdskinnsfallet, in a part of the mine that had not been used for a long time. Both legs of the dead man were amputated and missing, but neither clothes, hands nor face showed signs of decay, which made it appear as if he had recently died; the find became a mystery because no person was reported as missing. When the body was raised to ground level, it began to dry and became "hard as wood" according to a contemporary description. According to others, the body had rather turned into stone, giving rise to the epithet "the petrified miner". After the body was put on display in Stora Kopparberget, Margaret Olsdotter identified it as belonging to Fet-Mats Israelsson, her fiancé who disappeared in March 1677. Local oral historians say a second woman also claimed to be his fiancée, but this could have been motivated by the benefits paid to miner's widows. When the naturalist

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, ...

visited, he noticed that Fet-Mats was not petrified but just covered with

vitriol Vitriol is the general chemical name encompassing a class of chemical compound comprising sulfates of certain metalsoriginally, iron or copper. Those mineral substances were distinguished by their color, such as green vitriol for hydrated iron(II ...

, a substance now commonly known as the pesticide

copper sulfate Copper sulfate may refer to: * Copper(II) sulfate Copper(II) sulfate, also known as copper sulphate, is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It forms hydrates , where ''n'' can range from 1 to 7. The pentahydrate (''n'' = 5), a brigh ...

. Linnaeus stated that as soon as the vitriol evaporated, the body would begin to decay. That proved to be correct. However, Fet-Mats Israelsson's body remained on display for 30 years, until he was buried in Stora Kopparberg Church on December 21, 1749. During renovation of the floor in the early 1860s, the remains of Fet-Ma