Mummy Monday: An Unknown Mummy Tells About Mummification

Welcome back to Mummy Monday! Last week, we discussed Saint Rosalia, the patron saint of Palermo. Today, we look at a mummy from the Capuchin Catacombs in Palermo that we know very little about. This mummy has been tentatively dated to the mid- to late 19th century. We do know know his identity in life, but analysis of his mummified corpse has given researchers insights into the way that people mummified their dead during this time period.

The unknown adult male mummy studied by
researchers during the Sicily Mummy Project.

As a part of the Sicily Mummy Project, researchers investigated this mummy using a mobile digital radiography system that they took with them inside of the catacombs. Their analyses revealed relatively homogeneous, radio-dense material in various veins and arteries as well as hyper-dense states in the liver and kidneys. They also found foreign bodies in the orbits as well as in the nasal and oral cavities. This told the researchers that the mummy had been created by skilled embalmers using an arterial injection of embalming fluid.

AP radiograph of the chest/abdomen showing arterial filling.

This mummy is one of many mummies on the island of Sicily that have unknown identities. Projects like the Sicily Mummy Project utilize modern technology to tell the stories of these anonymous individuals and the culture in which they lived. Mortuary practices are windows into our cultural past and being able to reconstruct these practices using scientific analyses of the mummies themselves give us a view of the past in ways that are not provided by historic texts or other artifacts.

Lateral radiograph of skull showing radio-dense foreign bodies.