There’s a haunting attraction in the heart of Mexico that is guaranteed to send shivers running down your spine. The 111 mummies of Guanajuato, Mexico, have faces frozen in eternal screams. Their eerie expressions make it look like these ancient remains have just witnessed something shocking.
But don’t worry—these people did not die screaming due to some terrible, torturous death. The way their faces look is all due to the mummification and preservation process.
In the 1830s, a cholera epidemic ravaged the world, and millions of people became sick. According to the National Library of Medicine, at least five percent of the population in Mexico City died from the cholera outbreak.
Guanajuato, which is north of Mexico City, started running out of space in their underground cemeteries. So, bodies were interred in new crypts aboveground. The environment was warm and dry, creating the perfect conditions for mummification.
Then, in 1865, the local government passed a “burial tax.” As a result, families were forced to pay a certain amount of money to keep their loved ones buried. If they were unable to pay the tax, the bodies were removed and transferred to a storage facility.
When the owners of the crypt first saw the bodies after their burial, they were horrified. The mummified bodies had faces frozen in terror.
However, they hadn’t really died screaming in agony. After death, their jaw muscles naturally relaxed. Still, the result is frightening.
Once word of the Guanajuato mummies got out, the townspeople began paying cemetery workers a few pesos to see the mummies for themselves. By the early 20th century, the mummies became a tourist attraction.
Not every corpse could be identified, and tourists often stole the name tags of mummies put on display, which only made identification harder. Some records for the mummies exist, though.
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One body belonged to Ignacia Aguilar, who had bit into her arm. It is believed that her relatives buried her alive when cholera symptoms made her heart appear to stop.
When she woke up and found herself in her grave, she bit down on her arm, causing her mouth to be filled with blood.
Another Guanajuato mummy was a woman who died in childbirth. She was accompanied by her 24-week-old fetus. A third body belonged to a doctor named Remigio Leroy.
Cemetery workers put a total of 111 mummies on display for tourists by the early 20th century. In 1968, a museum called El Museo de las Momias opened to house the Guanajuato mummies. Part of the appeal of the mummies is the speculation of their backgrounds.
To this day, visitors continue to make up stories about who these individuals could be and what their lives were like. It costs 85 pesos to visit the museum and explore this piece of Mexican history.
