The amazing origin of the more than 100 Guanajuato mummies that survived thanks to very particular conditions

For the gravediggers, the task was common: to unearth the dead whose relatives had not paid the cost of the cemetery.

But the surprise was immediate when they saw the body of Remigio Leroy, a French doctor who died in June 1865. It was not a pile of bones, it was intact: clothes, teeth, hair.

The tombs of Santa Paula Pantheoninaugurated in 1861 and located on Cerro Trozado in the city of Guanajuato, Mexico, preserved the body naturally, without bandages or chemicals.

After that discovery occurred in 1871, says an article published on the website of the Guanajuato city council, those in charge of the pantheon found more bodies in the same state.

Pregnant women, children, elderly people who had died for different reasons, such as illnesses, murders or natural causes.

In a clandestine operation, gravediggers began to display them for a few pesos in an underground crypt.

And that’s how the successful one was born Guanajuato Mummy Museumwhich attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists and scientists every year who seek to understand the mummification processes without human intervention.

Mummies too reflect the history of this city of central Mexico, as well as the relationship that Mexican society has with death.

“They tell us about diseases, about how certain people with a high socioeconomic status were buried, and they also tell us about love,” the physical anthropologist tells BBC Mundo. María del Carmen Lerma Gómezexpert in the care of mummified remains.

“When we look at the bodies of the infants, we have a vision of how these people experienced loss. [Los niños] They were very cared for before being deposited in the pantheon and had very specific clothing, related to saints,” adds the person in charge of the Center for the Protection of Human Remains of the Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico (INAH).

The exhibition is a “matter of life rather than death,” he says, for his part. Jesus Antonio Perez Borja, general director of Education and Culture of the city of Guanajuato.

“It represents our links with other centuries,” he continues.

The museum, which consists of two locations and was legally inaugurated in 1971, is now an important source of income for the city, generating nearly US$2.5 million in 2023, according to the local press.

There live 117 mummies in air-conditioned display cases, which over the years have generated controversy in the country, but have also been inspiration not only for Mexican researchers, but also for their artists, who have transformed what is known – and unknown- of those lives in pieces of art, literature and cinema.

Unlike the mummies of ancient Egypt and other cultures, those of Guanajuato are young.

People who inhabited the city very recently. But they were quickly preserved after being buried by the climatic conditions of the city and the way in which the Santa Paula Pantheon was builtsays Lerma Gómez.

“The cemetery is on a hill, at the top of a hill. It is very windy where it is located and the sun hits the pantheon directly. There is nothing that surrounds it or shades it,” he explains.

He then adds that the bodies were not buried underground, but rather that some structures were built drawers or cuumbariums in which they were deposited. There they were at the mercy of the sun’s rays day after day.

“In these niches, very specific micro-environmental characteristics are created, with high temperature and low humidity, with many air currents. That is why the bodies dry out,” he points out.

For a body to be reduced to bones, it takes at least seven years, according to scientific literature.

There are records that some corpses from Santa Paula, indicates the also professor, were mummified in just five years.

“They dehydrated so quickly that the putrefaction processes were slower than mummification.”

Although experts are clear about the origin and reasons why these Mexican mummies were created, they are surrounded by mystery and, above all, morbidity.

His fame was built on terror.

Over the years, the identity of the corpses was lost.

Some reports claim that museum visitors tore off parts of the mummies’ clothing, as well as labels containing their names.

And given this, says Lerma Gómez, since the beginning of the 20th century the city’s tourist guides they started making up stories about those buried in the Santa Paula Pantheon.

They were inspired by the characteristics of the bodies and made an interpretation to satisfy the doubts of the visitors. But the stories They were loaded with a tone of terror to exacerbate curiosity.

Cultural production also perpetuated stories, such as the films of El Santo, a Mexican wrestler who faced the mummies of Guanajuato.

This is how some of the museum’s corpses became famous, such as “The Stabbed One”, who had a wound, or “The Drowned One”, who supposedly died from asphyxiation.

One of the most notable is perhaps a woman who is nicknamed “The Witch” and who is usually exposed behind bars.

The myths have raised questions and controversy in Mexico, because there are those who claim that the remains They should be treated like any other human body and not as objects that incite morbidity.

“It is terrible that they call her ‘The Witch’, when in life she was an older, Catholic woman who professed her religion. Now she is displayed without respect,” says Lerma Gómez.

Along with the stories surrounding the bodies, they have also spread erroneous explanations about mummificationkeep going.

“They say that mummies were made in the land of Guanajuato, which has many minerals. But they were not even buried,” he maintains.

For the researcher, the museum discourse does not necessarily have to abandon the stories that have accompanied the mummies for decades, but should be more attached to science Yet the True identity of those who were buried there.

However, Pérez Borja says there is no reason why the museum has to change, because he simply sees it as a perspective issue.

“We don’t have to change. It is a totally subjective matter. There are people who love to see [la colección] this way. The opinion of those who are not in favor of it being displayed like this is respected. But there are people for whom these types of events cause greater interest in visiting the museum,” he comments.

For him, he adds, the important thing is to “treat bodies with respect.”

In the INAH there is a commission that from 2022 try to identify the mummiesof which Lerma Gómez and three other specialists in anthropology and conservation are part.

It began as a project requested by the museum itself to find out which bodies were from the 19th century and which were from the 20th century.

Claiming their true stories could be a way to keep them away from horror speeches that have been persecuting them for decades.

In the pantheon, Gómez Lerma comments, there is a “Red Book”, in which the gravediggers wrote down the information of those they buried. It is, certainly, a tool that makes their work easier.

Some corpses, like that of the misnamed “Witch”, have already been identified, he maintains.

But it is not an easy task. “To say this name belongs to this mummy is more complex, because specialized anthropophysical studies need to be carried out there,” he details.

The jobs have not yet started full time. The 2024 electoral period delayed the efforts, says the expert.

Since 2016, the INAH has also proposed to the museum several Recommendations for preserving mummies.

For several years, activists have denounced mishandling of bodies, which has led to their deterioration.

The mummies have traveled around Guanajuato, to other locations in Mexico and even to the United States to be exhibited, something that The INAH asks that it not be donebecause of how fragile they are and because moving them from their environment could cause the putrefaction process to be reactivated.

But the city administration alleges that the bodies that are part of the tours are those that correspond to the 20th century, which due to their “complexity and state of conservation” can be presented outside the institution.

Although they also recognize that the 19th century mummies do not move because according to local laws and regulations, they are under the jurisdiction of the INAH, which prohibits them from leaving the museum.

Last May, the INAH, precisely, denounced that the mummy known as “El Auñalado” lost an arm, and alleged a “lack of protocols” and “training” of the staff.

Pérez Borja assures BBC Mundo that the statement from the government entity was wrong, and that the body he did not lose his limb in recent daysbut in 2017. The official insists that he has photographs that prove this.

He also indicated that there are other bodies that are damaged and defended the experience of the two museum employees in charge of transporting them.

Likewise, he indicated that since his administration began, in 2018, they have followed some INAH recommendations, such as cleaning and fumigating the mummies.

“If any of us, for reasons of cleaning or fumigation, move the bodies, it is likely that something will happen to some of them, due to their state of conservation and because for a long time they were exposed to the public without a display case. People had the habit of tearing off pieces of the mummies, pieces of their clothes,” he states.

While anthropologist Lerma Gómez insists that the INAH’s intention is safeguard historical heritage What do mummies mean?

“Just don’t move them,” he asks.

“So that they last 100… or another thousand years,” he comments.

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