Today's adventure was the creepiest so far. The Accidental Mummies of Guanajuato is a traveling exhibit featuring the remains of many inhabitants of the city of Guanajuato. Because of the high heat and dry air, the crypts that the bodies were placed in acted like ovens, killing the bacteria that normally breaks down and decomposes bodies. This resulted in incredibly well preserved corpses, or naturally occuring (accidental) mummies.
These mummies were first discovered when the families of many of those kept in the crypts failed to pay a tax to keep them there. The bodies were disinterred, and a museum was set up using the the mummies as attractions. The city of Guanajuato quickly became a major tourist destination after this discovery, and the museum branched out to include a traveling tour throughout the world.
The touring exhibit has made Greensboro it's home for several months now. Today was the last day of the exhibit, so Elizabeth and I went to the Natural Science Center of Greensboro to check it out. She had never been to the NSC, so today's "do a new thing" counts double!
It was really amazing to see bodies this well preserved after centuries (most of the bodies are from before 1850). New research techniques using X-Ray and DNA analysis has lead to some fascinating discoveries about who these people were and what their possible causes of death might have been. The age ranges of the mummies varies from the old (60+) to the very young (less than a year old in some cases).
The baby mummies were, to me, the most disturbing and upsetting out of all the mummies in the exhibit. A video near this section said that a common practice of the day was to take photographs of a baby if it died in infancy. These deceased children were thought to be pure and without sin, and were dubbed "angelitos" because their families believed they were destined for a direct passage to heaven. The only thing that I see them having a direct passage to is my nightmares tonight. I am expecting that they will figure promently in them.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if all of the mummies showed up in my nightmares, and that's the biggest thing that I came away with after viewing the exhibit. The Accidental Mummies exhibit reaffirmed for me that I never, ever want to be burried. I don't want to end up with a nest of spiders in my chest (which was the case for one of the mummies that we saw today). I don't want to end up baking in a crypt. I don't want to end up in a museum, and I especially don't want to end up in nightmares.
So it's a viking funeral for me then. Just me, a boat, and a flaming arrow to set it all ablaze on the high seas. No chance to become an accidental mummy there!
No comments:
Post a Comment