Mummy Monday: Little Rosalia Lombardo

Today marks our final Mummy Monday posting prior to our departure for the MSFS! We've featured a wide range of mummies that our students will be meeting over the next few weeks in previous posts. Today, we will feature a very young and unique mummy. This mummy is Rosalia Lombardo and she is world famous for her beauty and excellent preservation. Rosalia was born in 1918 and died just two years later of pneumonia. Her father, Official Mario Lombardo, was distraught with grief and asked noted embalmer, Alfredo Salafia, to preserve her for the family. Salafia did such an incredible job with the embalming, that modern X-ray analysis has shown the girl's organs to be remarkably intact. She was one of the last corpses to be admitted into the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, where her body is kept in a glass coffin that has been hermetically sealed within a glass enclosure filled with nitrogen gas to prevent decay. This is one of the most well-preserved mummies within the catacombs.

Rosalia Lombardo rests in her coffin now safely enclosed within a nitrogen chamber.

Mummies Profile: Rosalia Lombardo

The face of Rosalia Lombardo

Lived: From 1918 to 1920

Sex: Female

Occupation in Life: None

Status: Child Mummy

Age at Death: 2

Cause of Death: Pneumonia

Place of Interment: Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo

Societal Importance in Death: Her excellent preservation has provided researchers with insights into embalming techniques of the early 1900s.

When Students Will Meet This Mummy: During the second week of the field school.

Dr. Dario Piombino-Mascali examines Rosalia Lombardo.