A Falun copper miner vanished in 1677, his body came out of the mine 42 years later, his old fiancée named him, and he was put on show

Mats Israelsson, from Boda in Svärdsjö, worked in the Falun copper mine. In 1676 or 1677 he went down to light a fire used in the mining work and did not come back. On 2 December 1719 miners found a body in a long-abandoned shaft. It had lain in water containing vitriol. The face, arms, hands and clothing were intact; only the legs were broken off. At the mine court on 10 December the body was identified as "Fet Matts" or "Stor Matts" Israelsson. Margareta Olsdotter testified that she had been engaged to him and that their banns had once been read. A local historian has reported that a second woman also claimed to be his fiancée, possibly to gain a widow's rights^†. The mining college ruled that the body should stay in Falun as a curiosity. It was put in a light-blue cabinet with a glass front. In the air it blackened and crumbled. Linnaeus is reported to have said the man was pickled, not petrified^†. He was buried inside Stora Kopparbergs church on 21 December 1749. His remains were later moved to the churchyard, kept from 1862 in the sacristan's attic and shown again, and buried in the churchyard on 18 November 1930. In 1934 the mining company, Stora Kopparbergs bergslags AB, put a memorial on the grave.