What happens if you hold a mummy in a museum. Guanajuato Mummies Museum: Naturally Preserved Bodies (Mexico). Man Rendswuren, Germany

Some mummies that frighten visitors to world capitals today were found thousands of years ago. As for the mummies of the Mexican city of Guanajuato, they ended up in the museum only a few centuries later.

Between 1865 and 1958, city residents whose relatives were buried in the local graves were required to pay a tax. If someone evaded payment for three years in a row, the bodies of his loved ones were immediately dug up.

Because the soil in this region of Mexico was extremely dry, the corpses looked more like well-preserved mummies. The first mummy dug up is considered to be the body of Dr. Leroy Remigio, which was found on June 9, 1865. The dug up bodies were kept in a crypt in the cemetery, and relatives could still ransom the corpse. This practice continued until 1894, when enough bodies accumulated in the crypt to open a museum of mummies in Guanajuato.

In 1958, residents stopped paying taxes for space in the cemetery, but decided to leave the mummies in the crypt, which soon became a local attraction and began to be popular with tourists. Yes, initially travelers came straight to the crypt to see the bodies of mummies, but soon the collection of dead bodies became exhibits of a separate museum.

Since all mummies are formed naturally, they look much more terrifying than embalmed bodies. It is remarkable that the Guanajuato mummies, with their bony and distorted faces, are still dressed in the decorations in which they were buried.

Perhaps the most shocking exhibits of the museum of mummies for visitors will be the buried body of a pregnant woman and the wrinkled bodies of children. The museum also houses the smallest mummy on the planet, which is no larger than a loaf of bread.

At the moment, it is not known exactly how the corpse, having been buried for more than a century, could have been so successfully preserved. As already mentioned, scientists suggest that the reason for this is the characteristics of the local soil, but there is also an opinion that the local climate contributed to the mummification of corpses.

The museum has a shop that sells sugar skulls, stuffed mummies, and postcards with dark humor in Spanish.

Extremely cold, very dry regions and swamps are where bodies naturally mummify, sometimes being discovered thousands of years later.

In the case of the Guanajuato mummies, subjects only had to wait a few hundred years and were not so much discovered as evicted. From 1865 to 1958, the city of Guanajuato, Mexico, required relatives to pay a huge tax for the dead. When relatives did not do so for three consecutive years, their deceased relatives were dug up and transported to other burial sites.

Oddly enough, due to the extremely dry soil conditions, the corpses often turned into well-preserved mummies. (The first person to be dug up and found mummified was Dr. Remigio Leroy. His body was removed from the ground on June 9, 1865.) Cemetery staff kept these strange mummies in a crypt underground in case relatives showed up with money and demanded reburial. By 1894, enough mummified bodies had accumulated in the crypt. The cemetery staff decided to rename this place a museum.

Although the practice of paying for burial sites ended in 1958 (three years before the first man flew into space), mummies continued to be kept in the local crypt-museum. In 1970, the Mexican horror film Santo vs. the Mummies of Guanajuato was filmed there. leading role starring Rodolfo Guzman Huerta. As mummies gained fame, they began to attract interested visitors. For many years they were simply kept in crypts, but these days they are housed in more formal museum displays.

Because mummies were created naturally, they look more terrifying than Egyptian ones. With tortured and twisted faces, often covered with the tattered rags in which they were buried, the mummies stand and lie in glass cases throughout the museum.

Perhaps most shocking to visitors are a pregnant mummy and shrunken baby mummies, including the "world's smallest mummy" which is no bigger than a loaf of bread. It is still unknown why there are so many natural mummies in the cemetery, and year after year this place becomes overgrown with superstitions about them. There is a widespread belief that mummification is a divine punishment for deeds committed during life.

The museum has a gift shop that sells sugar skulls and stuffed mummies, as well as grotesque postcards featuring mummies and humorous jokes in Spanish.

Good to know

If you take the city bus (labeled "Las Mumias"), ask the bus driver to point out the street that leads to the museum. You will go up until you see a large stone wall with no windows. To go straight into the museum, turn right and walk to the end of this wall. Then you will see many souvenir stands. Turn left and walk until you find the ticket office. If you want to visit the cemetery first, do not turn towards the large stone wall, but instead walk up the hill a little more and you will see the entrance on the right. The cemetery is worth a look if you like that kind of thing. You cannot enter the museum from the cemetery. you'll have to cross to the other side and go down below - the museum is actually located under the cemetery!

You should not plan a visit to this place as part of a sightseeing tour, otherwise you simply will not have enough time to appreciate these terrible corpses. Instead, make sure you have at least an hour or two to walk around the cemetery.

As I promised in the previous post, today I will talk about the main attraction of the most beautiful city in Mexico -. We will talk about a truly shocking Mexican panopticon - Museum of mummies(Museo de las Momias de Guanajuato). I warn you: people who are impressionable, with a sensitive psyche, pregnant women and nursing mothers should refrain from viewing this post. It contains many photographs people's bodies who left our mortal world about 100-150 years ago, and this is unlikely to benefit you. The rest are welcome, but preferably not at night

It all started with the fact that in mid 19th century city ​​authorities Guanajuato a burial tax was introduced. This meant that dead citizens were buried in local cemeteries not for thank you, but on the terms of a paid extension of your grave site. Since the dead themselves, for obvious reasons, cannot pay for themselves, their relatives had to do this. 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 remove from the graves almost brand new dead people, many of whom still had hair, teeth, nails and even clothes! Amazing fact an explanation was quickly found: it turned out that the unique composition of the soil and climate Guanajuato promotes the natural process of mummification of bodies buried here. And no mysticism.

The law obliging relatives to pay 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 the period 1850-1950(according to some information, citizens who died during the cholera epidemic in 1833). 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. That's how this one came about, one of the most terrible in the world, museum.

Currently on display in the museum 59 mummies, several of which are mummies of children(at this point, think again about whether you want to scroll down). Some of them are equipped with signs on which it is written in the first person: I am such and such, I gave my soul to God at such and such a time, my stoned earth's 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 stand almost identical, unremarkable dead bodies. All of them have preserved skin, which, of course, cannot be called soft and silky, but still; some comrades stand with their hair and legs trimmed, and the one on the far right flaunts codpieces and boots, in which, obviously, he was sent to a better world.

Then there are characters that are much more interesting. For example, this is the best-preserved specimen in a leather jacket. If not for some inconsistencies in his years, one would think that during his lifetime the guy was a rocker.

We go further and see no less interesting exhibits: one of the dead is comfortably seated in a coffin, someone attracts attention with a remarkably preserved toilet, and one of those who have passed on to another world attracts museum visitors with her almost waist-length scythe.

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

But I was much more shocked by the photographs on the walls of this room, telling about the tradition that existed at that time - to take photographs for memory with already dead babies. I immediately remembered an episode from my favorite horror movie “The Others”, where the same thing was supposed to be done with dead people of any age. It's creepy, in general.

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

The next room with mummies of people produces quite a peculiar impression. those who did not die a natural death. Here, for example, is an exhibition of a person buried alive (left), a drowned person (middle) and someone who died from a traumatic brain injury (right). With the third, everything is clear, but how the other two comrades, who were subsequently mummified, died is revealed by their extremely unnatural poses. The mummy on the left is a woman who fell into a lethargic sleep and was buried by mistake, the position of whose hands indicates an attempt to get out of such an unfortunate situation for her. From the position of the drowned man one can judge that in the last seconds of his life he was severely short of air.

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

Many of you will probably want to ask: Was it scary to walk around the museum? I answer - it’s not scary. There were times when I was completely alone among the living in some hall: my husband, having barely crossed the threshold, skipped out of the museum, and there were so few other visitors that we did not interfere with each other at all. I felt absolutely calm, and only one single thought haunted me from beginning to end: and THIS is how it all ends! Maybe it sounds loud, but from a museum death I left 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 help but put in a good word for them. The fact is that Mexicans generally have a rather peculiar attitude towards death: they perceive it not just calmly, but, one might say, optimistically. What is absurd and even shocking for us, people of another culture, for Mexicans is a natural part of their life. The tradition of not being afraid, but even “making 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. IN Mexico There is even a corresponding holiday - when they pay tribute to death and even flirt with it a little. If you try to look at things through the eyes of a Mexican, then even this museum doesn’t look so terrible.

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

Where is the Mummy Museum:

The Museum of Mummies (Museo de las Momias de Guanajuato) is located in the city of Guanajuato. I wrote how to get to Guanajuato. The museum is located next to the cemetery - Pantheon. There are signs leading 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 Mummy Museum costs 52 Mexican pesos; photography costs 20 pesos.

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The Mummy Museum is located in the Mexican town of Guanajuato. Its exhibition consists of naturally mummified bodies. From 1865 to 1958, the city had a law under which the relatives of the deceased were forced to pay a tax for burial in the cemetery. If the tax was not paid for several years, the body of their relative was exhumed. If it managed to mummify, it was sent to the collection. Currently, the museum houses 111 mummies.

IN late XIX- at the beginning of the 20th century, tourists began to become interested in mummies, and savvy cemetery workers began to charge a fee for visiting the room where the relics were kept. Officially, the opening year of the Museum of Mummies in Guanajuato is 1969, when the mummies were placed in glass shelves and exhibited in a separate room. In 2007, the museum's exhibition was divided into different themes. The museum attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists every year.

A museum of this kind cannot help but become surrounded by legends; they say that the oldest mummies date back to 1833, when the city was hit by a cholera epidemic. Whatever their history, it does not negate their uniqueness, because unlike Egyptian mummies, they were not intentionally mummified. The local climate and soil were conducive to natural mummification.

The rarest exhibit is considered to be a small mummy of a baby; it is signed as “ smallest mummy in the world." Tradition says that the baby died during an unsuccessful birth.

Sometimes exhibits are exhibited in other cities. As a rule, these are about a dozen mummies, the insurance value of which is a million dollars.

There is a souvenir shop at the museum where you can buy clay mummies and more.

Perhaps everyone has seen some horror film at least once in their lives in which the living dead attack people. These evil dead excite the human imagination. But in fact, mummies pose no danger and have incredible scientific value. In our review, one of the most incredible archaeological finds of our time - the mummies of Guanajuato.

The 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 in 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 a place in the cemetery, otherwise the body would be exhumed. In the end, ninety percent of the remains were exhumed because there were few people 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 allowing visitors, 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 banning forced exhumation was passed in 1958, but the museum still displays the original mummies.

Mummy hand from Guanajuato

Mummies of the Mexican city of Guanajuato - the result weather conditions 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 epidemics, bodies were buried immediately after death to prevent the spread of the disease. Scientists believe that some people were buried while still alive, and that is why the expression of horror was imprinted on their faces. But there is another opinion: facial expression is the result of post-mortem processes.

Mummy of Ignace Aguilar

Moreover, it is known that a certain Ignacia Aguilar was indeed buried alive. The woman suffered from a strange illness that caused her heart to stop several times. During one of the attacks, her heart seemed to stop for more than a day. Believing that Ignacia had died, her relatives buried her. When they exhumed it, 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 houses at least 111 mummies, is located directly above where the mummies were first discovered. IN this museum There is also the smallest mummy in the world - the fetus of a pregnant woman who became a victim of cholera. Some of the mummies are displayed in the preserved clothing in which they were buried. The Guanajuato mummies are a prominent part of the Mexican folk culture, emphasizing the national holiday “Day of the Dead” (El Dia de los Muertos) in the best possible way.