2024-05-02 14:50:58
This phenomenon was discovered among more than 100 bodies that were exhumed from the San Bernardo Municipal Cemetery.
In many cases, the bodies still had hair and nails intact, and in some cases, skin tissue and eyeballs, which are usually the first to decompose after burial.
But now scientists may have found an explanation for why the remains survived – a combination of humidity and the steep hillside on which the cemetery is located.
The bodies were first discovered in 1963. after exhuming them from the San Bernardo Municipal Cemetery, and by the late 1980s, about 50 mummies were being found each year.
A similar natural mummification has been observed in Guanajuato, Mexico, where underground gases and the chemical composition of the soil prevent the dead from decomposing.
However, the dead in Guanajuato date back to the 19th century. the first half, while the St. Bernard mummies are relatively new.
Mummification is the process of preserving the body after death, where the body is deliberately dried or embalmed, but the San Bernardo bodies were essentially mummified by accident.
After a body is buried, teeth and nails fall out within 3-5 days, but it can take a decade for the body to decompose, leaving behind a skeleton and traces of hair, skin tissue, and clothing fibers.
However, when in 2001 Clovisnerys Bejaran’s mother, who had been buried three decades earlier, was unearthed, and the woman found her body almost intact, including her burial clothes.
“She still has her small, round, brown face, her hair in a bun,” Bejarano said.
Bejarano’s mother is on display in the mummy museum at the Jose Arquimedes Castro Mausoleum, along with 13 other bodies exhumed from the San Bernardo Cemetery.
At first, mummification researchers found no pattern to how or why bodies mummified. They reported that all the bodies were from different areas of the cemetery and belonged to different age groups and genders.
“When it all started, people were a little bit in disbelief about what was happening. They thought these would be isolated events, says museum guide Rocio Vergara. “Over time, more and more bodies were found in this condition.”
At first, scientists thought that the mummification might have been due to the people’s healthy diet and their active farming culture, but one person brought to the site from Bogotá, a city about 60 km from San Bernardo, refuted this possibility.
Daniela Betancourt, an anthropologist at the National University of Columbia, said this may have been due to the steep slope of the mountain. According to her, it’s constantly windy and hot, creating oven-like conditions and dehydrating bodies.
However, she noted that this theory still needs to be tested: “There is a lack of research on what happens and what specific conditions are those that cause people to mummify.”
Regardless of the reason, some residents are glad their loved ones’ bodies were preserved.
“Most people who lose their parents bury them in the ground or cremate them and never see them again. But if his [tėvo] I miss him, but I can see him anytime, and he is exactly as he was in life,” resident Pabon, who said that in 2015, told the New York Post. visited his father’s remains every two weeks after his father’s body was found.
Adapted from the Daily Mail.
2024-05-02 14:50:58