after death how long does it take the human body to completely decompose?

Question

and how long if imbalmed??

the reason i ask is because I was told that because of all the preservative we eat when we die our bodys take a long time to decompose even without imbalming . do you think thats makes a differance

Answer 1

That entirely depends on the environment in which the body is maintained. If it's embalmed it can be thousands of years e.g. Egyptian mummies..

This is a very interesting question and one that has been answered in many different circumstances down at the Body Farm. This is a place where cadavers have been deposited in various environments to see eactly what insect and decomposition is happening over a period of time. Some go very quickly weeks or less and some take years.

Answer 2

It dependents of the environment:humidity,temperature, windy or if there is light or dark
For slowing the process:low temperatures, low humidity and a good ventilation.In the water is the fastest way for decompose the body.
The way things are going:1-there are the aerobic bacterias, they are actioning until they are using all the air,2-the anaerobe bacterias, 3-there are some worms which are eating from the body-the worms are in different stages of evolution, from a worm to that green fly.There is a science who study this thing.
Anyway all this things can last from 6 months to some years.
The same thing is available for embalmed bodies

Answer 3

That depends on too many things to give an exact answer. Depending on temperature, humidity, oxygen or not, predators ....If you think about it, mummies are thousands of years old, and the bodies are still quite intact. Crime victims are sometimes nothing more than a skeleton in a year or so...If you do some web searching about the "body farm" (I think it's in Georgia) you might find something more specific. The body farm is where the FBI studies what happens to bodies as they decay.

Answer 4

50 years