 Guanajuato mummies like this will eat your soul if you look into their eyes.
December 12, 2008 10:16 PM
Guanajuato mummies by Robin Emmott
MONTERREY - A set of macabre mummified corpses, some with their mouths eerily agape or wearing the boots they were buried in, has captivated Mexico and will soon be off to tour the world.
Unlike Egypt's centuries-old swaddled pharaohs, the more than 100 mummies of the city of Guanajuato are relatively youthful bodies that were unexpectedly preserved in the mild, dry conditions of central Mexico between 1865 and 1907.
The corpses have their nails, teeth, genitals and body hair intact, the sealed limestone tombs of Guanajuato's city graveyard having protected them from the microorganisms and maggots that cause bodies to rot.
"The mummies bring us face to face with death," said Felipe Macias, director of the Guanajuato mummies' museum, at a traveling exhibition of 24 of the mummies in the northern city of Monterrey.
A larger showing of around 60 mummies will open in Mexico City in January and after requests from several foreign museums, organizers hope to take them to Chicago, Los Angeles and New York in 2010 and eventually to Europe.
Ghoulishly preserved details of the mummified Mexicans, who died natural deaths or from diseases like smallpox and cholera, give clues to their lives and fascinate visitors.
One 50-year-old woman died while pregnant and the outline of her eight-month-old fetus is visible beneath her coffee-colored, papery skin. Another mummy has a large tumor in its abdomen. The tiniest mummy is a 6-month-old baby.
"It is as if they are telling us to make the most of our
lives before we follow them," said Macias.
CELEBRATING DEATH
The mummies were discovered accidentally at the
end of the 19th century when cemetery workers
opened the tombs of corpses whose families had
stopped paying grave taxes on their plots.
More were dug up over the years and for decades
they were stacked against a wall in the catacombs of
Guanajuato's Santa Paula graveyard where clumsy
visitors damaged them with candles, snapped off
fingers and let in rodents and insects.
Growing interest led to a museum being opened in
the 1970s with the bodies laid on velvet pillows, but
a lack of space saw curators send groups of the
mummies across Mexico from 2005.
"It is a meticulous process to move and safeguard
the mummies. A drop of sweat from a handler could
start the decomposing process by letting in bacteria,"
said Macias.
Some half a million visitors have flocked to the
creepy displays since 2005, prompting the plan to
send them abroad.
Why Guanajuato has the perfect conditions for
mummification is something of a mystery, but experts
cite a combination of mild temperatures and a dry
climate that allows bodies encased in tombs to dry
out before they start decomposing.
Bodies buried in Guanajuato still occasionally
mummify. Two children who died in 1984 were added
to the collection in late 2005. One, a 5-year-old boy
dug up in 1989, is wrapped in a faded white burial
gown, his face like a mask without eyes.
Macias said natural mummification could occur within
five years of burial, but often humidity and
microorganisms manage to get in. "It's not a
controlled process," he said.
The exhibition highlights a fascination with mortality
that goes back to the ancient Aztecs and Mayas
who saw death as an honor and a reprieve from
life's pain.
Mexicans still celebrate the Day of the Dead each
year at the start of November, flocking to cemeteries
to lay marigolds and the favorite foods of the
deceased on tombstones.
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