Fingerprints from mummified body

[Danny L. Harness]

I am attempting to recover fingerprints from a mummified body. No ridge detail is visible at this time. Are there any suggestions or techniques that could be useful in this situation?

[David Fairhurst]

Danny,

Just a couple of tips.
If the skin is discoloured and dark you can coat it lightly with white or aluminium powder and photograph them. I've had particularly good results with this myself.
Once you've tried this you can try to rehydrate the skin by imersion in boiling water for 10 seconds.Examiners returning from working on the international team identifying tsunami victims in Thailand have reported particularly good results from this technique: I know one who now swears by it.
Remember, though, that any such attempt is likely to be destructive to the tissue. So do all that you can beforehand and take it easy. You can always go further but can never go back.

Good luck.

[Les Bush]

Hi Danny,

I've done a couple of skeletons with mummified skin and found that the Walker solution was ideal for rehydration while maintaining friction skin constitution. It was developed for archeologists (physical anthropologists) so their experience is definitely safety first. Reference is Am J. Phys Anthropol 1987;72:43-8. See how ya go. Les

[sandra wiese]

Hope it isn't too late to join in, but I wanted to strongly encourage you to try Mikrosill or a similar product first. Just dust the fingers/palms with any powder in a contrasting color of the Mikrosill. Then apply the Mikrosill to the fingers, let cure, peel off and VOILA! Gorgeous happy prints suitable for scanning/photographing. If you try this, use only enough Mikrosill to do 3-4 fingers at a time, otherwise it gets hard too fast. I think this very technique was just written up in a recent JFI or similar. In any event, it words wonders.

Good luck and please let us know whatever you found that was successful.

Sandra

[David Tivin]

I was reading in "The Science of Fingerprints" a method of removing the skin to view a "reversed" image on the underside of the skin. Can this technique be used after the boiling technique that Dave described?

[Ricardo Tomboc]

If after trying all the suggested techniques your are still unsuccessful, you might want to try a backlight photographic technique. If you can peel off the layer of skin and place it in front of a strong light source, the light going through the skin might reveal usable ridge detail. I’ve tried this technique in combination with several other techniques, as a backup; but found photographs taken of the skin using this backlighting technique much more useful for identification and/or an AFIS search.

[guest]

I agree with Sandra. I have used the mikro sill technique as well. I dusted the fingers with magnetic powder and then used mikro sill. I got some really great prints. I was able to identify the deceased man.