Apr
18
The mummies of Guanajuato
Photo of a Guanajuato mummy by cl a ra
This is a cross post from my other blog, Cody’s Cuentos.
In the city of Guanajuato, Mexico there is a museum which is home to more than 100 mummies. The history behind the museum is fascinating. The story goes that back in the 1800s in Guanajuato people had to pay a burial tax. This fee could be paid once or in yearly installments. If after three years the families couldn’t pay the fee or they just simply stopped paying, the corpses were exhumed from their graves to make more room for other deceased. But when the bodies were exhumed, the grave diggers discovered that the corpses had been unintentionally turned into mummies, due to the extremely dry weather and soil conditions in this part of Mexico.
The mummies of Guanajuato became a tourist attraction starting in the late 1800s. Although the practice of exhuming bodies from the local graveyards has ceased, the original mummies found during that time period continue to be on display at El museo de las momias en Guanajuato to this day.
Listen to the legend of a Guanajuato mummy, if you dare. But you may want to listen to this podcast with the lights on. 
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