Story of the fake Fabyan mummy

Kane County Chronicle

Beyond suits of Japanese armor and a stuffed shark, it lies silently, wrapped in coffee-brown linen strips, clutching what appears to be an infant. A leg bone protrudes, and the Mummy of Fabyan Villa bares its teeth. However, unlike mummies from the movies, the Fabyan Villa mummy isn’t cursed and has never walked.

In fact, the Fabyan Villa mummy is a fake that contains one bone – from a dog.“For the time period, it was certainly a good fakery,” said Lynn Dransoff, director of the Fabyan Villa Museum, in the Fabyan Forest Preserve. “It was thought for many years to be real.”

In 1982, an expert examined the mummy, and an X-ray revealed the truth.

The fake mummy originally was owned by George Fabyan, a wealthy Chicago businessman who used the villa as a summer retreat.

There's a photograph of the fake mummy on the above page.