Decomposition of the bodies in the cool, damp soil had been slowed by saponification.
Grave wax, the bodies fluids etc turning into soap.
Really funny as I’m just watching a German mini series on Netflix called Parfum & has saponification as part of it as they were trying to make scents, perfume, using this type of method, but also buried bodies where this naturally happened to them, causing the bodies to be near perfectly preserved
