El Museo De Las Momias
The Guanajuato mummies were discovered in the cemetery of Guanajuato, a city northwest of Mexico City (near Léon). They are accidental modern mummies and were literally "dug up" between the years 1865 and 1958 when a local law required relatives to pay a kind of grave tax. You could pay the tax once (170 pesos) and be done with it; this option may have appealed to wealthier individuals. But you were also allowed to pay a yearly fee (50 pesos); this would have appealed to less wealthy families. However, if the relatives could not pay this yearly tax for three years, the body (which had, by the way, become accidentally mummified) was dug up from the cemetery and (if the fee still wasn't paid) placed on display in El museo de las momias. [Of course, what if the person's family had moved from town--or what if the person was the last person from their family? Well, it didn't matter; the law was the law!]
Fortunately, in 1958, the law was changed. Although no new bodies have been exhumed, the museum still displays the original mummies.
According to an article in the Arizona Republic (November 1, 2005), the mummies began attracting tourists in the early 1900s, "when cemetery workers began charging people a few pesos to enter the ossuary building where bones and mummies were stored. But business really took off after the 1970 movie Santo Versus the Mummies of Guanajuato, starring masked wrestler Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta."
NOTE: The first mummy was found on June 9, 1865; the man's name was Dr. Remigio Leroy. The museum opened in 1894
A combination of the soil conditions and a dry climate of the mountainous area caused the bodies in the local cemetery to dry out naturally before they could decompose. The bodies were placed in tombs, seven rows high; apparently, those in the middle row were more likely to have been naturally mummified. However, only those who failed to pay the grave tax were ever exhumed so information about mummification will always be incomplete.
No one is certain how many mummified bodies were removed from the crypts, but I found 119 mummies on display in Guanajuato's mummy museum when i visited. Possibly, many other natural mummies are lying in the cemetery...but no one will ever find out, since the law has been changed.
The Guanajuato mummies are some of the strangest ones ever placed on display. Some are clothed, some aren't. A few are wearing only their socks and/or shoes. Some are old, others are only infants. One tiny baby mummy is labeled, "La momia más pequeño del mundo"--the smallest mummy in the world. The baby and the mother (they died during a caesarean section) are in the museum, but they will not be found together.
The museum contains a few local legends as well. For example, one body was said to belong to a woman who had been buried alive. When the Mummy Road Show hosts researched the mummy, they concluded that two factors suggested this legend was correct: the woman's arms were raised over her face and her forehead had scratch marks.
The question is: given the circumstances of their exhibition, should they still be displayed? Or would the proper response be to arrange for a dignified and respectful burial? Or have the mummies become an essential component of the town's budget? They help the town earn a great deal of tourism dollars, since almost a million visitors come to Guanajuato each year to look at the mummies.
http://www.mummytombs.com/mummylocator/ ... ajuato.htm
Catacombe dei Cappuccini
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/ital ... -catacombs
For visitors to Palermo who enjoy the macabre and/or bizarre, the Catacombe dei Cappuccini (Catacombs of the Capuchins) are a must-see. Like most displays of human remains, a visit to the mummies can lead to reflection on the meaning of death. But it goes without saying that this "human library" of thousands of bodies is not for the faint-hearted or weak-stomached!
In 1599, Capuchin monks discovered that their catacombs contained a mysterious preservative that helped mummify the dead. As a result, more than 8,000 Sicilians from all walks of life chose to be buried here.
The corpses range in date from the late 1500s to 1920 and most were embalmed before their display. Giuseppe Tommasi, prince of Lampedusa and author of the famous Sicilian work The Leopard, was buried in the cemetery next to the catacombs in 1957.
In the 1940s, Allied bombs hit the monastery, destroying many of the mummies. The Capuchin Monastery (Convento dei Cappuccini) itself was rebuilt over the remains of the original medieval church in 1623 and was once again restored in the early 20th century.
Visitors can wander through the catacombs' dank corridors among the mummified bodies. The halls are divided into categories that include: Men, Women, Virgins, Children, Priests, Monks, and Professors (including the famous painter Velasquez).
The corpses are dressed in splendid clothes, now somewhat decayed, and occupy their own individual niches according to their social status. Many of the deceased wrote wills that specified the clothes in which to bury them, and some even asked to have their clothes changed over a period of time.
Many corpses are still remarkably preserved and some give the impression of enjoying a joke with their deceased friends. Others are not in such good shape, with horribly contorted, creepy faces and missing parts like jaws and hands.
The last corpse to be buried here was that of 2-year-old Rosalia Lombaro, who died in 1920. She is so well-preserved, she has been nicknamed "Sleeping Beauty."
