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The Horrifying Stories Of Mummies

Posted on 10 September 2009

Here is one shocking story a little girl in the form a mummy. You heard it right; she is preserved in the form of a mummy now. We are talking about the pretty faced Rosalina who seems to be just sleeping after she came from her play in the garden. She has been preserved there since the last 90 years in a small wooden and glass topped coffin. The place we are talking about is the Capuchin monastery in Sicily.

rosalinaThis girl died of bronchial infection in Dec 1920 when she was a mere 2 years old. But surprisingly she is not alone and is given company by another 2000 mummies which are almost 400 years older. She was one of the last few persons to be mummified after which the process was banned finally. You can see in the pictures that some of the mummies are kept in open wooded boxes like that Of Rosalina and the rest are arranged on straight benches. Some of them even hang from the wall in different stages of decay.

Some of the mummies have a nose and cheek in place but others aren’t in the best of the shape. These mummies were covered by the famous National Geographic Magazine which dates back to 16th century or so. They were so kept that the mummies used to dry out than getting rotted. Silvestro of Gubbio seems to be the oldest mummy still in place who died in 1599. He is still covered with the then religious robes.

A special procedure was followed to preserve them. The dead bodies were undressed and kept in special chambers so that the fluids in the body could easily drain out and it could get preserved for generations. After a period of six months when the total fluid drained out, the body were doused with the help of vinegar and then they were put inside those wooden coffins as per their last wishes.

The mummies were divided into several areas where they were rested. A separate section was devoted to teachers, doctors, professors, soldiers and lawyers who were dressed as per the job they used to do. In the recent times a special injection was used to preserve the bodies. After seeing the mummified body of Rosalina every one used to think that it was a doll. When x rays of the body was done, it showed that all her organs are very much intact. This area is a special tourist attraction and a great place for scientists to do some further research and learn things like diseases, life expectancy in the previous centuries.

5 Responses to “The Horrifying Stories Of Mummies”

  1. Flint says:

    #1. Who wrote this article?
    #2. Where’s the links to see more pictures of dead people?
    #3. Why did they quit mummy making? (Not profitable? Illegal?)
    #4. How many mummies are dressed up like wise guys? (Sicily.)
    #5. What is the secret injection to preserving a body and is it related to Coke-Cola’s secret ingredient?

  2. Mindi says:

    ^ I hate when people act like this, but this time Flint’s right.

  3. Michela says:

    This place is in Palermo, Italy.
    YouTube is full of videos of this catacomb, the whole interenet ha plenty of article about it. The name of the girl pictured is Rosalia Lombardo, not Rosalina.
    Just digit her name on youtube or google, or cappuccini catacombs as well.

  4. Saku says:

    Michela is right, the girl’s name is Rosalia Lombardo. Her father who was an officer wanted her to be mummified with chemicals so that her body would be preserved. The first mummies down the cappuchini catacombs of Palermo weren’t consciously preserved, they just dried because of the chilly, dry air down there, which the monks of Palermo discovered by incidence. They stopped making mummies because the catacombs just were too full. Rosalia Lombardo was the last mummy ever finding her peace in the catacombs. I can swear, nobody thought she was a doll. That’s what happened to this Inuit baby mummy, though: http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bog/images/ways-09-eskimo-l.jpg

  5. Sue says:

    Been there. Kind of creepy, but intersting.


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