The Haunting and Horrific Mummy Museum of Guanajuato

The Haunting and Horrific Mummy Museum of Guanajuato

The Guanajuato mummy museum houses the smallest mummy in the world, along with its unfortunate mother. She was a victim of malnutrition and cholera and died when she was 6 months pregnant. Her child is one of the most well-preserved mummies, according to the notes. The Mummies of Guanajuato are a number of naturally mummified bodies interred during a cholera outbreak around Guanajuato, Mexico in 1833. The human bodies appear to have been disinterred between 1870 and 1958. During that time, a local tax was in place requiring a fee to be paid for "perpetual" burial. Some bodies for which the tax was not paid were disinterred, and some—apparently those in the best condition—were stored in a nearby building. The climate of Guanajuato provides an environment which can lead to a type of natural mummification, although scientific studies later revealed that some bodies had been at least partially embalmed. By the 1900s[citation needed] the mummies began attracting tourists. Cemetery workers began charging people a few pesos to enter the building where bones and mummies were stored.[not verified in body This place was subsequently turned into a museum called El Museo de las Momias ("The Museum of the Mummies") in 1969. As of 2007, 59 mummies were on display, of a collection that totals "The mummies began to be exhumed from a Guanajuato cemetery when a law was enacted locally requiring families to pay a 'burial tax' to ensure the perpetual burial of a loved one. If the tax was not paid, the body was removed. Being naturally mummified, it was stored in a building above ground, and people began paying to see the bodies in the late 1800s. The law requiring the burial tax was abolished in 1958." As of 2006, this museum continued to exhibit 59 of the total of 111 mummies in the collection.