(Figure 1 The first mummy to be exhumed in 1865 from Santa Paula cemetery in Guanajuato, Mexico was that of French born, Dr. Remigio Leroy. Photo by Ernie Sowers) Who is this macabre figure you see standing upright in the box to your left? No, this isn’t a mummy found in an Egyptian tomb. No, this person wasn’t wrapped in cloth and encased for preservation. Yes, he wore this leather duster and red bow tie upon burial and his remains, identified as Dr. Remigio Leroy were exhumed over 150 years ago in Guanajuato, Mexico.

During my travels, I have witnessed incredible artifacts and masterpieces at museums worldwide. Few created the curiosity within me, however, as the 119 objects displayed at a museum located on Trozado Hill in the beautiful UNESCO World Heritage City, Guanajuato, Mexico.

For 50 pesos ($5.00US) we walked among the dead who eerily resembled the living. Exhumed bodies naturally mummified with little decomposition, some, whose hair, colorful and wiry sprouted from scalps, some, whose burial clothes remained relatively in tact and all, whose mouths formed an oval opening as though they were still screaming proved fascinating subjects. We eagerly waited entrance into the most visited museum in all of Mexico, over 1,000,000 a year, El Museo de las Momias.(The Museum of the Mummies)

(Figure 2 The mouth muscles, the first to deteriorate during the process of rigor mortis in an unembalmed body, cause the mouth to fall open. Photo by Ernie Sowers) The discovery of this rare process of natural mummification accidentally was unearthed in 1865 in the Santa Paula Cemetery on a hill overlooking Guanajuato, Mexico. Although many sources differ on the dates of specific happenings or the dates of the mummy exhumations, the scientific and historical facts regarding the reasons this process occurred remain consistent.

A mid 19th century Guanajuato law required living relatives of the deceased to pay a grave tax of 170 pesos, payable in total at the time of death for the wealthy, or at a rate of 20 pesos per year for the poor. If three years passed without the tax payment being paid, the body of that individual was dug up and cremated. Only those non-paid corpses were disturbed, as original bodies were placed in tombs, seven rows high.

Dr. Remigio Leroy, interned during a cholera epidemic in 1833 happened to be the first exhumed, as he had no relatives in Mexico to pay the new tax. The body appeared mummified, preserved, in tact. A combination of arid soil conditions and climate, at the elevation of 7000 feet caused the body to dry out naturally before it could decompose. The soil, rich in nitrates and aluminum caused rapid dehydration.

From then, until 1958 when the grave tax was repealed, cemetery workers continued to dig up the “unpaid” tenants and found the same stone-like condition for most bodies after as little as 5 years from date of death. The workers displayed the bodies next to the cemetery and, according to an article in the Brownsville Herald, they started charging onlookers to view the bodies in the ossuary in 1894, thus opening of the Museum of Mummies. Interest really sparked among Mexican tourists however, in 1970 after the movie starring Mexican masked wrestler Rodolfo Guzman Huerta, “Santo Verses the Mummies of Guanajuato,” premiered.

The museum boasts having the smallest mummy in the world, a baby taken by cesarean section. The mother’s remains are located elsewhere in the museum. Each display gives a short historical account of the identification of the body and circumstances of death, if known.

(Figure 3 A baby’s skin shows only minor deterioration. Photo by Ernie Sowers) National Geographic’s “The Mummy Roadshow” and the 1978 out of print book by Ray Bradbury, “The Mummies of Guanajuato” provide additional, in depth information on this fascinating phenomenon.

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