The Mummies of Guanajuato: The Sad Story of the Cholera Epidemic in Mexico. Guanajuato Mummies Museum: Naturally Preserved Bodies (Mexico) Pharaoh's Son and Others

As I promised in the previous post, today I will tell you about the main attraction of the most beautiful city in Mexico -. It's about a truly shocking Mexican freak show - Mummies Museum(Museo de las Momias de Guanajuato). I warn you: impressionable people with a sensitive psyche, pregnant women and nursing mothers, it is better to refrain from viewing this post. There are many photographs in it bodies of people, those who left our mortal world about 100-150 years ago, and it will hardly do you any good. The rest are welcome, but preferably not looking at night

It all started with the fact that in mid 19th century city ​​authorities Guanajuato a burial tax was introduced. This meant that the deceased citizens were buried in local cemeteries not for thanks, but on the terms of a paid extension of their grave-place. Since the dead themselves, for obvious reasons, cannot pay for themselves, their relatives had to do it. If the relatives did not have the opportunity or desire to pay, and in some cases, in fact, the relatives themselves were not found, then the body of the deceased was exhumed. Imagine the surprise of the cemetery workers when, instead of a pile of bones, they had to extract from the graves almost brand new deceased, many of whom had their hair, teeth, nails, and even clothes! An explanation was quickly found for the surprising fact: it turned out that the unique composition of the soil and climate Guanajuato contributes to the natural process of mummification of the bodies buried here. And no mysticism.

The law obliging relatives to pay the cemetery tax was in force from 1865 to 1958, and it was during this time that the "fund" of the future museum was formed: 111 mummies buried during 1850-1950(according to some information, citizens who died during the cholera epidemic in 1833 year). The mummified dead were kept in a room at the cemetery, which gradually began to attract tourists who wanted to visit it for a few pesos. And so this one appeared, one of the scariest in the world, museum.

Now the museum exhibits 59 mummies, several of which are - mummies of children(at this point, think again if you want to scroll down). Some of them are equipped with tablets on which it is written in the first person: I am such and such, I gave my soul to God then and then, my fumigated earthly shell was extracted from the mother of damp earth then and then.

A visit to the museum begins with a corridor of mummies, behind the glass of which there are almost identical, especially unremarkable, deceased. All of them have preserved skin, soft and silky, which, of course, cannot be called, but still; some comrades stand with their hair and legs, and the one on the far right is sporting codpiece and boots, in which, obviously, he was sent to a better world.

Further, there are characters that are much more interesting. For example, this one, the best-preserved one, in a leather jacket. If there were some inconsistencies in the years, one would think that the guy was a rocker during his lifetime.

We go further and see no less interesting exhibits: someone from the dead has settled comfortably in a coffin, someone draws attention to themselves with a remarkably preserved toilet, and one of those who have departed into another world attracts museum visitors with her, almost to the waist, oblique.

Next, go to the gallery with the name Angelitos, in which, as you might guess, are stored baby mummies... According to local tradition, deceased children were dressed up with festive clothes - boys in the costumes of saints, girls in the costumes of angels, believing that this way their sinless souls would go to heaven faster.

But the photographs on the walls of this hall shocked me much more, telling about the tradition prevailing at that time - to be photographed for memory with already dead babies. I immediately remembered an episode from my favorite horror movie "Others", where the same thing was supposed to be done with the dead of any age. Creepy, in general.

In the next room is the mummy of a woman who died in late pregnancy, and her unborn child - the smallest mummy in the world.

The following hall with mummies of people produces a rather peculiar impression. dead not by their own death. Here, for example, is an exposition of a buried alive (left), a drowned man (in the middle) and one who died from a traumatic brain injury (right). With the third, everything is already clear, but how two other mummified comrades died later, their extremely unnatural postures speak. The mummy on the left is a woman who fell into a lethargic sleep and was buried by mistake, whose hand position indicates an attempt to get out of such an unfortunate situation for her. By the posture of the drowned man, one can judge that in the last seconds of his life he was greatly lacking in air.

Two of those killed still had their shoes on. But what are their shoes compared to these exquisite examples of the shoe industry of the time ?!

Many of you will probably want to ask the question: Was it scary to walk around the museum? The answer is - not scary. There were moments when I was completely alone in any room from the living: my husband, barely crossing the threshold, galloped out of the museum, and there were so few other visitors that we did not interfere with each other at all. I felt myself absolutely unperturbed, and only one single thought haunted me from beginning to end: and THIS is all over! Maybe sounds loud, but from the museum of death I came out with a slightly changed outlook on life.

Surely many of you who read this post will think that Mexicans are crazy. Anticipating your surprise, indignation, perhaps even indignation, I cannot but put in a word for them. The fact is that Mexicans generally have a rather peculiar attitude to death: they perceive it not just calmly, but, one might say, optimistically. What is absurd and even shocking for us, people of a different culture, is a natural part of their life for Mexicans. The tradition not to be afraid, but even to "be friends" with death goes back to the beliefs of their ancestors. The ancient Indians believed that death is the beginning of something greater, and it is much more important than life. V Mexico even a holiday is appropriate - when they pay tribute to death and even flirt a little with it. If you try to look at things through the eyes of a Mexican, then even this museum does not look so terrible.

In general, as you might guess, this is not the last post on the topic of Mexicans and death .. And now some useful information for those who want to visit the museum of mummies.

Where is the Mummy Museum:

The Mummy Museum (Museo de las Momias de Guanajuato) is located in the city of Guanajuato. How to get to Guanajuato, I wrote. The museum is located next to the cemetery - Panteón. Signs lead to the Museum of Mummies from absolutely anywhere in the city.

How much does it cost to visit the Mummy Museum in Guanajuato:

The entrance ticket to the Museum of Mummies costs 52 Mexican pesos, photography is paid - 20 pesos.

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They are very popular with tourists. Sunny beaches, ancient cities that still remember the conquistadors, amazing nature, colorful customs of the local population and, of course, open-air archaeological museums with the unique architecture of Mesoamerica - all this awaits those who come to a warm country.

Cities

A trip to Mexico is worth making in order to personally be convinced of the incredible power and greatness of civilizations, the memory of which is still kept by the ancient stones of the Temple of Quetzalcoatl. Mexico's cities such as Mexico City and Cancun are a vivid example of how amazingly the history and culture of different civilizations and peoples are intertwined.

Eternally young Acapulco will whirl in a whirlwind of entertainment and amaze the daredevils who, in La Quebrada Bay, plunge into the waves of the Pacific Ocean from a height of 35 meters. The old cities of Mexico, such as Guadalajara and Tequila, have the hallmarks of the Spanish colonial era, not only in architecture. There is still a bullring there, where exciting performances are held, but the Tequila Museum is of particular interest to tourists.

Luxurious white sand beaches and ocean depths promise heavenly delight. In this regard, beach tours to Mexico are worth mentioning. The Riviera Maya resort will not leave indifferent, even the most discerning public, with excellent service and comfortable hotels, from the doors of which you can get directly to the beach. The nature and architecture of amazing beauty will leave unforgettable memories.

Description

The city of Guanajuato deserves special attention, its extraordinary beauty and sights amaze even experienced tourists. It was founded in the sixteenth century by the Spanish colonialists, who discovered deposits rich in silver there. So the history of the city began, the first settlements of miners arose, and later the settlement of Santa Fe was built. The eighteenth century gave the city prosperity, it was at this time that new, richest silver veins were found. The owners of deposits and mines began active development, and money poured into the treasury of the Spanish crown. The newly minted Spanish nobility did not skimp on the construction of palaces, churches and temples in the city of Guanajuato. Mexico has become a second home for them. They even called it New Spain.

The beautiful baroque temples of La Compagna and San Cayetano de La Valenciana are undoubtedly the architectural masterpieces of colonial Mexico. Silver deposits have depleted over time, and silver mining has ceased to be a priority branch of the city's economy. But tourism and education have become the basic directions, and the city is also the capital of the state of the same name. Guanajuato (state) has a developed economy, which is based on the extraction of gold, silver, fluorine and quartz. The petrochemical industry, food industry and pharmaceuticals are well developed.

Name and nationality

The history of the name of the city of Guanajuato is quite interesting. Mexico was then inhabited by indigenous peoples: Purpecha is one of them, and it is to him that the city owes its name. "Quanaxhuato" means a mountainous habitat of frogs. Today, the national component consists of Khonas, mestizos and whites.

Mine

The historical part of the city is located in a winding gorge. Development took place along the spurs and slopes, and on the outskirts in the Santa Rosa mountains are the famous mine and the village of La Valenciana. The mine works to this day, but, despite this, it accepts excursion groups. For a small fee, you can go down 60 meters and get an idea of ​​the hard work of miners.

Narrow streets

Narrow streets often turn into steps and rise high along the slope, so getting around by car would be quite difficult if there were few tunnels and underground roads. Probably one of the most popular narrow streets is Kisses Lane. An urban legend says that once rather wealthy people lived on this street, their daughter fell in love with a simple local mine worker. The lovers, of course, were forbidden to meet, but the resourceful guy rented a room with a balcony in the house opposite. And thanks to the narrow lane, the lovers, each standing on their own balcony, could exchange kisses.

The Basilica of the Collegiata de Nuestra Señora de Guanajuato, undoubtedly one of the most important city attractions, is located in the city center on PlazadelaPaz, which means Peace Square.

No less attractive tourist sites are the Teatro Juarez, made in neoclassical style, the buildings of Alhondiga de Granaditas and the Old Town Hall.

The city of Guanajuato (Mexico) - the birthplace of the famous artist. His home now serves as a museum. The bird's-eye view of the city is delightful, the view opens from the hill of San Miguel, on top of which there is a monument in honor of the rebel Pipila.

Mummy museum

An interesting and at the same time eerie place is the Museum of Mummies. The history of its formation goes back to the distant 1870. Then the law was introduced on the payment of the tax for eternal burial. If the relatives of the deceased were unable to pay the tax sums, the buried remains were dug up and sent for public viewing in a building near the cemetery. Most of the remains belong to ordinary people, workers and their families. Everyone could go into the store and gawk at the mummy for a fee. In 1958, the law was repealed, and a new museum was built in 1970, and all the mummies are now kept under glass.

Viewing took place by candlelight, visitors often tore pieces from the exhibits, leaving them as souvenirs. In total, the museum's collection contains 111 mummies of people who died in the period from 1850 to 1950. The eerie exposition is accompanied by inscriptions on the tablets in the form of a presentation, the story is told in the first person and tells the sad story of the mummies taken from their graves and exhibited in the museum. Characteristically, all bodies are naturally mummified. There are several versions of this phenomenon. But the most likely, scientists believe, is the influence of the climate, thanks to the hot and dry air, the bodies dried out and mummified quite quickly.

Monuments to Miguel Cervantes

The residents of the city have a rather interesting feature: they adore the work of Miguel Cervantes. Although the famous author of Don Quixote himself never visited Guanajuato, this did not prevent the residents of the city from erecting many monuments dedicated to his work and organizing the Cervantino festival in honor of their favorite writer. This event was held for the first time in 1972.

Since then it has been held annually. The festival is one of the most significant cultural events in Mexico. Guanajuato turns into a large theatrical stage for the duration of Cervantino, the artists surprise and delight residents and guests of the city with their creativity, and the music and singing coming from all sides create a feeling of general rejoicing.

Guanajuato can also be proud of its university, not only in architectural terms, although the new monumental building adds credibility to the city's panorama, but also of its students. There are many of them here, so it seems that the inhabitants of the city are forever young. The sounds of music and laughter are heard from all directions, countless bars and discos of the city are always glad to their indefatigable visitors.

Conclusion

The beautiful and contrasting city of Guanajuato. Mexico never ceases to amaze with its inconsistency. On the one hand, almost the entire population of the country is zealous Catholics, regularly attends churches and honors Christian saints, on the other hand, they magnificently celebrate the Day of the Dead, donning terrible costumes symbolizing Death.

Guanajuato, striking with the beauty of architecture, the colorfulness of the houses and the cheerful disposition of the inhabitants, evokes, on the one hand, the warmest feelings, but plunges into horror with the history of the emergence of the Museum of Mummies.

Avid travelers say that Guanajuat needs to be felt, and then it will be simply impossible not to fall in love with him. And Mexico itself receives the most flattering reviews from tourists, no one is indifferent. Everyone takes with him a piece of her big soul, seething with passions.

There are many cities that are famous for their museums. Tiny small town Guanajuato in Mexico also world famous. But there are no ancient artifacts or famous paintings in it. The exhibits of this museum are the dead. And it is located at the local cemetery of Santa Paula.

The town of Guanajuato is located in Central Mexico, 350 kilometers from the capital. In the middle of the 16th century, the Spaniards recaptured these lands from the Aztecs and founded Fort Santa Fe. The Spaniards had every reason to hold fast to the town: the land was famous for its gold and silver mines.

Where metal is mined

Before the Aztecs, Chichimecs and Purépecha lived here and mined precious metals, the name of their town was translated as “the place where metal is mined”. Then the Aztecs came, set up gold mining on an almost industrial scale and renamed the town Quanas Huato - "the dwelling of frogs among the hills." In the Columbian era, the Aztecs were replaced by the Spaniards.

They built a powerful fortress and began to mine gold for the Spanish crown. By the 18th century, gold in the mines was depleted, and silver began to be mined. The town was considered rich. Spanish settlers built it in order to overshadow the beauty of their native Toledo. And they succeeded - beautiful cathedrals, palaces, tall fortress walls.

The city, located in a green valley, climbed the "frog hills", the streets going up were built like stairs - with steps. The palaces, however, were adjacent to tiny houses, adhered to the slopes of the hills one above the other. It was a paradise for the rich in New Spain - and a hell for the poor. All these poor people worked in the mines.

Most of the poor dreamed of throwing off the colonial yoke. This succeeded by the middle of the 19th century. Mexico gained independence. A new time and new order began. However, it turned out that the rich were still there. The beggars continued to work in the mines. Taxes continued to rise.

And since 1865, local gravediggers have introduced an annual payment for a place in the cemetery. Now, if no payment was received for the burial for 5 years, the deceased was taken out of the crypt and placed in the basement. Disconsolate relatives could return the body to the grave ... if they paid the debt.

Alas, not everyone could do it! The first victims of the new law were the dead, who had no relatives. The next are the bankrupt dead. Their bones lay in the basement until the enterprising owners of the cemetery began to show everyone their dead compatriots. Of course, secretly and for money. And then - no longer secretly. Since 1969, the cemetery basement has been refurbished and received the status of a museum.

Scary exhibits

There were a lot of dead people to be expelled from the crypts. But not all "exiles" were honored with a place in the museum. There were just over a hundred of them. And the reason for placing these dead in the glass showcases of the museum was not trivial: during their stay in the crypt, the bodies of the dead did not disintegrate, as it should be for dead flesh, but turned into mummies.

These were mummies of natural origin - they were not embalmed after death, they were not anointed with special compounds, but simply placed in a coffin. And if what usually happens to corpses happened to most of the dead, then these bodies were naturally mummified.

The first exhibit is considered to be a once well-to-do deceased, Dr. Remigio Leroy. The poor fellow simply did not have relatives. It was dug up in 1865 and given the inventory number "storage unit 214". The doctor even has a suit made of expensive fabric.

Costumes and dresses on other exhibits either hardly survived or were confiscated by museum workers. According to one of them, things smelled so bad that no amount of sanitation would have helped. So most of the decayed clothes were stripped from the corpses and destroyed. That is why many of the deceased appear naked in front of curious tourists. True, the socks and shoes were not removed from some of them - the shoes were not so badly damaged from time to time.

Among the exhibits there are those who died during the cholera epidemic in 1833, there are miners who died from occupational diseases, who inhaled silver dust every day, there are those who died of old age, there are those who died as a result of an accident, there are strangled people, and there are drowned people. And among them there are much more women than men.

Scientists have managed to identify few exhibits. Among them is a woman with her hands pressed to her mouth, her shirt pulled up and her legs spread apart. This is Ignasia Aguilar, quite a respectable mother of the family. The strange posture is explained by many simply: at the time of the burial, Ignacy was in a deep swoon or fell into a lethargic sleep. She was probably buried alive.

The woman woke up already in the coffin, scratched its lid, screamed, tried to escape from captivity. When she began to run out of air, she tried to tear her mouth apart in pain. Blood clots were found in my mouth. Scientists are going to investigate the substance extracted from under her nails: if it turns out to be wood or the lining of a coffin, then a terrible guess will be confirmed.

The fate of another museum exhibit, also a woman, is no less sad. She was strangled. There is still a piece of rope around her neck. According to the museum legend, the head of the executed man on display belongs to the strangler husband.

Another curious exhibit is a screaming woman. The mouth of this mummy is open, although its arms are folded over its chest. Faint-hearted people, when they first see the screaming mummy, recoil in fear. Despite the calm position of the hands, the expression on the face of this exhibit is such that even some experts suspect that the woman was also buried alive ...

Pharaoh's son and others

However, distorted facial features and open mouths in a silent scream are not always an indicator that a person was buried alive. There is a well-known story that happened in 1886 with the Egyptologist Gaston Maspero. He found the mummy of a young man with his hands and feet tied, with a face that was probably distorted from pain, and his mouth wide open.

In addition, the mummy was nameless and wrapped in the skin of a sheep, which is not typical for Egypt. The archaeologist decided that the unfortunate man was buried alive. The terrible expression on his face suggested that the conspirator had not even been mummified.

However, these days, forensic doctors scanned the body and found all signs of mummification. Consequently, he was not buried alive. And the terrible expression on his face is due to the fact that this is, most likely, the eldest son of Pharaoh Ramses III, worthy of oblivion, who was allowed, after an unsuccessful attempt on his father's life, to commit suicide with the help of poison.

But an open mouth may not at all speak of terrible agony. Even a calmly deceased person can get the frightening expression of "silent scream" if the jaw of the deceased is poorly tied. In the exposition of the Mexican museum there are at least two dozen mummies with "screaming" mouths. Among them there are men, women, and even children.

The bulk of Guanajuato mummies, of which there are 111, do not reach not only 200, but even 150 years. These are the youngest naturally occurring mummies. Only a few children, the so-called "angels", have traces of post-mortem intervention - internal organs have been removed from them.

In general, the bodies were mummified by themselves. In the 19th century, when the first such bodies were found, the question “why” did not arise for people. The mummified remains were looked at with awe - this was considered a miracle and evidence of a sinless life. But nowadays, scientists still decided to solve the riddle.

It is known that the mummified bodies were not buried in the ground. All of them were in the crypts, going to the cemetery "in floors". The crypts are made of limestone. Guanajuato is located 2 kilometers above sea level and has a hot and dry climate.

The conclusion of scientists is this: mummification is not associated with either the lifestyle of the dead, nor with age, nor with food, but depends solely on the time of year when the body was placed in the crypt, and on the structure of the crypt. If the burial took place in dry and hot weather, lime slabs reliably block the air access and perfectly absorb moisture emanating from the body.

It is dry and hot inside such a crypt, like in a stove. The body in such a "house of death" is perfectly dried and very soon turns into a mummy. True, this process does not always have a beneficial effect on the expression on the face - the muscles also dry out, tighten, the facial features are distorted, and the slightly open mouths become twisted and open in a desperate silent scream.

Nikolay KOTOMKIN

Probably all of you have watched horror films about revived mummies attacking people. These sinister dead have always excited the human imagination. However, in reality, mummies do not carry anything terrible, representing an incredible archaeological value. In this issue you will find 13 real mummies that have survived to our time and are among the most significant archaeological finds of our time.

A mummy is a body of a dead creature specially treated with a chemical substance, which slows down the process of tissue decomposition. Mummies are stored for hundreds and even thousands of years, becoming a "window" to the ancient world. On the one hand, mummies look creepy, some have goosebumps from one glance at these wrinkled bodies, but on the other hand, they are of incredible historical value, keeping in themselves interesting information about the life of the ancient world, customs, health and diet of our ancestors ...

1. Screaming mummy from the Guanajuato Museum

The Guanajuato Museum of Mummies in Mexico is one of the strangest and most terrible in the world, it contains 111 mummies, which are naturally preserved mummified bodies of people, most of them who died in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century and were buried in the local cemetery " Pantheon of Saint Paula ".

The exhibits of the museum were exhumed between 1865 and 1958, when a law was in force that obliged relatives to pay tax so that the bodies of their relatives were in the cemetery. If the tax was not paid on time, the relatives lost the right to the burial place and the dead bodies were removed from the stone tombs. As it turned out, some of them were naturally mummified, and they were kept in a special building near the cemetery. Distorted facial expressions on some of the mummies indicate that they were buried alive.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, these mummies began to attract tourists, and cemetery workers began to charge fees to visit the premises where they were kept. The official date for the establishment of the Museum of Mummies in Guanajuato is 1969, when the mummies were exhibited in glass shelves. Now the museum is visited annually by hundreds of thousands of tourists.

2. The mummy of a boy from Greenland (Kilakitsok market town)

Near the Greenlandic settlement of Kilakitsok, located on the west coast of the largest island in the world, an entire family was discovered in 1972, mummified through low temperatures. Nine perfectly preserved bodies of the ancestors of the Eskimos who died on the territory of Greenland during the Middle Ages reigned in Europe, aroused a keen interest of scientists, but one of them became famous throughout the world and outside the scientific framework.

Belonging to a one-year-old child (as established by anthropologists who suffered from Down syndrome), it looks more like a doll and makes an indelible impression on visitors to the National Museum of Greenland in Nuuk.

3. Two-year-old Rosalia Lombardo

The Catacombs of the Capuchins in Palermo, Italy are an eerie place, a necropolis that attracts tourists from all over the world with many mummified bodies of varying degrees of preservation. But the symbol of this place is the baby face of Rosalia Lombardo, a two-year-old girl who died of pneumonia in 1920. Her father, unable to cope with his grief, turned to the famous physician Alfredo Salafia with a request to save his daughter's body.

Now it makes the hair on the head of all visitors to the Palermo dungeons, without exception, move - amazingly preserved, peaceful and so alive that it seems as if Rosalia only dozed for a short time, it makes an indelible impression.

4. Juanita from the Peruvian Andes

Either still a girl, or already a girl (the age of death from 11 to 15 years is called), named by Juanita, gained worldwide fame, being included in the rating of the best scientific discoveries according to Time magazine due to its preservation and terrible history, which, after finding the mummy in the ancient the settlement of the Incas in the Peruvian Andes in 1995, scientists told. Sacrificed to the gods in the 15th century, it has survived to this day in almost perfect condition thanks to the ice of the Andean peaks.

As part of the exposition of the Museum of the Andean Sanctuaries in the city of Arequipa, the mummy often goes on tour, exhibiting, for example, at the headquarters of the National Geographic Society in Washington, or at many sites in the Land of the Rising Sun, which is generally distinguished by a strange love for mummified bodies.

5. Knight Christian Friedrich von Kalbutz, Germany

This German knight lived from 1651 to 1702. After his death, his body turned into a mummy in a natural way and is now on public display.

According to legend, the knight Kalbutz was a great fan of using the "right of the first night". The loving Christian had 11 children of his own and about three dozen bastards. In July 1690, he claimed his "first night right" regarding the young bride of a shepherd from the town of Buckwitz, but the girl refused him, after which the knight killed her newly-made husband. Imprisoned, he swore before the judges that he was not guilty, otherwise "after death his body will not crumble to dust."

Since Kalbutz was an aristocrat, his word of honor was enough for him to be acquitted and released. The knight died in 1702 at the age of 52 and was buried in the von Kalbutz family tomb. In 1783, the last representative of this dynasty died, and in 1794 a restoration was started in the local church, during which the tomb was opened in order to reburial all the dead of the von Kalbutz family in an ordinary cemetery. It turned out that all of them, except for Christian Frederick, had decayed. The latter turned into a mummy, which proved the fact that the loving knight was still an oath-breaker.

6. The mummy of the Egyptian pharaoh - Ramses the Great

The mummy shown in the photo belongs to Pharaoh Ramses II (Ramses the Great), who died in 1213 BC. NS. and is one of the most famous Egyptian pharaohs. It is believed that he was the ruler of Egypt during the campaign of Moses. One of the distinctive features of this mummy is the presence of red hair, symbolizing the connection with the god Set, the patron saint of royal power.

In 1974, Egyptologists discovered that the mummy of Pharaoh Ramses II was rapidly deteriorating. It was decided to immediately take her by plane to France for examination and restoration, for which the mummies were issued a modern Egyptian passport, and in the column "occupation" they wrote "king (deceased)". At the Paris airport, the mummy was greeted with all the military honors due to the visit of the head of state.

7.Mummy of a girl 18-19 years old from the Danish city of Skrydstrup

Mummy of a girl aged 18-19, buried in Denmark in 1300 BC. NS. The deceased was a tall, slender girl with long blond hair styled in an intricate hairstyle reminiscent of a 1960s Babette. Her expensive clothes and jewelry suggests that she belonged to a local elite family.

The girl was buried in a herb-lined oak coffin, so her body and clothing are surprisingly well preserved. The preservation would have been even better if the layer of soil above the grave had not been damaged several years before this mummy was discovered.

The Similaun man, whose age at the time of discovery was about 5300 years old, which made him the oldest European mummy, received the nickname Ötzi from scientists. Discovered on September 19, 1991 by a couple of German tourists while walking through the Tyrolean Alps, stumbled upon the remains of a resident of the Chalcolithic era, perfectly preserved thanks to natural ice mummification, he made a splash in the scientific world - nowhere in Europe have they found ideally extant bodies of our distant ones ancestors.

Now this tattooed mummy can be seen in the archaeological museum of Bolzano, Italy. Like many other mummies, Ötzi is allegedly shrouded in a halo of curse: over the course of several years, under various circumstances, several people died, one way or another connected with the study of the Iceman.

Girl from Ide (Dutch. Meisje van Yde) - this is the name given to the well-preserved body of a teenage girl, found in a peat bog near the village of Ide in the Netherlands. This mummy was found on May 12, 1897. The body was wrapped in a woolen cape.

Around the girl's neck was a loop of woven wool, indicating that she was executed for some crime or sacrificed. In the area of ​​the collarbone, there is a trace of injury. The skin was not affected by decomposition, which is typical for marsh bodies.

The results of a radiocarbon analysis carried out in 1992 showed that she died at the age of about 16 years between 54 BC. NS. and 128 A.D. NS. The head of the corpse was half shaved shortly before death. The surviving hair is long and has a reddish tint. However, it should be noted that the hair of all corpses that got into the swampy environment acquires a reddish color as a result of the denaturalization of the coloring pigment under the influence of acids in the swampy soil.

Computed tomography determined that during her lifetime she had a curvature of the spine. Further studies led to the conclusion that the cause of this, most likely, was the defeat of the vertebrae with bone tuberculosis.

10. Bog Man Rendsvuren

A man from Rendswühren, who also belongs to the so-called swamp people, was found near the German city of Kiel in 1871. At the time of his death, the man was between 40 and 50 years old, and body studies showed that he died of a blow to the head.

11. Seti I - Egyptian pharaoh in the tomb

The magnificently preserved mummy of Seti I and the remains of the original wooden coffin were discovered in the Deir el-Bahri cache in 1881. Seti I ruled Egypt from 1290 to 1279. BC NS. The mummy of this pharaoh was buried in a specially prepared tomb.

Seti is a minor character in the science fiction films The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, where he is depicted as a pharaoh who fell victim to the conspiracy of his high priest Imhotep.

12. Mummy of Princess Ukok

The mummy of this woman, nicknamed the Altai princess, was found by archaeologists in 1993 on the Ukok plateau and is one of the most significant discoveries of archeology at the end of the 20th century. Researchers believe that the burial was made in the V-III centuries BC and belongs to the period of the Pazyryk culture of Altai.

During excavations, archaeologists found that the deck in which the body of the buried woman was placed was filled with ice. That is why the woman's mummy is well preserved. The burial was walled up in a layer of ice. This aroused great interest of archaeologists, since very ancient things could be well preserved in such conditions. In the cell, they found six horses under saddles and with harness, as well as a wooden block of larch, nailed down with bronze nails. The contents of the burial clearly indicated the nobility of the buried person.

The mummy was lying on its side with slightly tucked legs. She had numerous tattoos on her arms. The mummies were wearing a silk shirt, a woolen skirt, felt socks, a fur coat and a wig. All these clothes were made of very high quality and testifies to the high status of the buried woman. She died at a young age (about 25 years old) and belonged to the elite of the Pazyryk society.

13. Ice Maiden from the Inca tribe

This is the famous mummy of a girl aged 14-15 years, which the Incas sacrificed more than 500 years ago. It was discovered in 1999 on the slope of the Nevado-Sabankaya volcano. Next to this mummy, several more children's bodies were also found, also subjected to mummification. The researchers suggest that these children were chosen among others for their beauty, after which they walked many hundreds of kilometers across the country, were specially prepared and sacrificed to the gods at the top of the volcano.

Perhaps, everyone has seen some horror movie at least once in their life, in which the revived dead attack people. These sinister corpses excite the human imagination. But in fact, mummies do not pose any danger, but have incredible scientific value. In our review, one of the most incredible archaeological finds of our time - the mummies of Guanajuato.

Guanajuato mummies are a collection of naturally mummified bodies buried during a cholera outbreak in Guanajuato, Mexico in 1833. These mummies were discovered in the city cemetery, after which Guanajuato became one of the main tourist attractions in Mexico. True, the attraction is very creepy.

Mummies at the Guanajuato Museum

Scientists believe the bodies were exhumed between 1865 and 1958. At that time, a new tax was introduced, according to which the relatives of the deceased had to pay a tax on the place in the cemetery, otherwise, the body was exhumed. As a result, ninety percent of the remains were exhumed, because there were few willing to pay such a tax. Of these, only two percent of the bodies were naturally mummified. The mummified bodies, which were kept in a special building in the cemetery, became available to tourists in the 1900s.

Mummy child

Cemetery workers began to let visitors in for a few pesos to enter the building where the bones and mummies were kept. The site was later turned into a museum called El Museo De Las Momias ("Museum of the Mummies"). A law prohibiting forced exhumation was passed in 1958, but to this day, the museum displays original mummies.

Mummy hand from Guanajuato

The mummies of the Mexican city of Guanajuato are the result of weather and soil conditions under which mummification occurs. The bodies of deceased people, who were not taken for burial by relatives, often became public exhibits. During an epidemic, bodies were buried immediately after death to prevent the spread of the disease. Scientists believe that some people were still buried alive, and that is why, an expression of horror is captured on their faces. But there is another opinion: facial expressions are the result of posthumous processes.

Mummy of Ignacy Aguilar

At the same time, it is known that a certain Ignatia Aguilar was indeed buried alive. The woman suffered from a strange illness, due to which her heart stopped several times. During one of the attacks, her heart seemed to stop for more than a day. Believing that Ignatia was dead, her relatives buried her. When the exhumation was carried out, it turned out that her body was lying face down, and the woman was biting her hand, and there was baked blood in her mouth.

Mummy from the Guanajuato Museum

The museum, which displays at least 111 mummies, is located directly above the site where the mummies were first discovered. This museum also houses the smallest mummy in the world - the fetus of a pregnant woman who fell victim to cholera. Some of the mummies are on display in the surviving clothing in which they were buried. Guanajuato mummies are a prominent part of Mexican folk culture, highlighting the national holiday "Day of the Dead" (El Dia de los Muertos).