Magnificent Mummies

More than 2,000 human mummies live the walls of an underground crypt in Palermo, Sicily all wearing their finest clothes. To make the spectacle even spookier, their jaws are loosely wired in place so that their mouths appear to be gaping wide at visitors.

Some are stretched out in niches carved into the limestone of the capuchin Catacombs, but, owing to lack of space, others simply hang from hooks on the walls. The mummies are grouped according to age, sex, and social status, ranging from tiny babies in cribs and rocking chairs to adult lawyers in their best suits and soldiers in uniform. There are also hundreds of coffins, the sides of which have been cut open to reveal the deceased.

The monks of Palermo began mummifying their dead as a status symbol more than 400 years ago. The Palermo mummification happened by chance. A monk, Brother Silvestro, died suddenly in 1599 and some months later it was found that the limestone and the lack of air in the crypt had combined to mummify his body. Thereafter, his fellow monks decided that they too, wished to be mummified after death and soon the wealthier local townspeople began to express similar desires.

The practice was finally discontinued in 1920s. One of the last people to be mummified was two year old Rosalia Lombardo, also known as the "Sleeping beauty". Her family frequently visited her open coffin. Although the dry air in the crypt has preserved many of the remains, body parts such as ears and hands have fallen off over the years, and other mummies are now little more than dressed skeletons.