Mummies may unnerve the best of us, especially those with a weak stomach. However, they do continue to be discovered and fascinating to archeologists. Movies, books, and television shows all picture mummies as terrifying monsters that, when found, come to life and chase us through the accursed caverns of their tombs. This is, obviously, pure fantasy. While curses may be true, mummies do not just sit up and attack us out of nowhere, thankfully. Surely we are all thankful that mummies do not simply attack and are very much dead. If they did come alive, however, it would be impossible for them to chase us.

That is a topic for another day!

Lemon grove

In Lemon Grove, California, a housewife discovered mummified remains of an infant and young girl in 1980. Considering the bodies were mummified so well, it was first seen as a murder. Police were quickly called to the scene to check everything out. This is when it was found that the bodies had been dead for centuries. Later, the housewife found out that before her, two teens obsessed with mummies lived in the home. They had taken the mummified corpses from a burial cave in Mexico and smuggled the remains to their home in California. Little did they know, their home would later be sold and their collection would be found.

Screaming Mummy

1881 was the year archeologists found a mummy in a royal grave south of Cairo.

The mummy was covered in goatskin, seen as a dirty animal to Egyptians. When bodies are wrapped in goatskin, the Egyptians believed the soul would not be able to go to the afterlife. In 1886 the mummy was unwrapped, revealing a corpse stuck in a painful scream. The mummy had no identifiers, another sign of disgrace to Egyptians, and was given the name "The Screaming Mummy." Some believe that the mummy was that of a prince that tried to kill his father, causing him to be seen as a disgrace.

Rosalia Lombardo

This mummy was very well preserved by Alfredo Salafia after the young girl's mourning father requested Salafia to preserve his daughter. Rosalia Lombardo was a two-year-old Italian child who died of Influenza in 1920. Her organs were intact, and she was one of the last remains to be accepted into the Capuchin Catacombs.

Rosalia Lombardo currently rests in a chapel at the end of the catacomb's tour, encased in glass and looking like a resting child. It is amazing to believe she has been dead for decades. She has no signs of decomposition, and no one knows how Salafia preserved the body so well.
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