Mummy Stash Found in Italian Church: Photos

[Bernice Moore]

Mummy Stash Found in Italian Church: Photos

http://news.discovery.com/history/mummy-...pgn=emnws1

[Jan Klimkowski]

Mummy Stash Found in Italian Church: Photos

http://news.discovery.com/history/mummy-...pgn=emnws1

I've been involved in and directed several BBC/Discovery documentaries about mummies, so I know a little about the subject and its presentation through MSM lens.

There are some intriguing aspects about this Italian find.

Firstly, the bodies were naturally mummified - ie by some "natural" microclimatic conditions - rather than deliberately mummified through the application of chemicals and herbs.

(So, to understand the distinction, Egyptian mummies have been through an artificial surgical and medical process performed by the priestly elite; Inca capacocha child mummies found in sacred sites high on Andean mountain tops are naturally mummified by the freezing conditions.)

Secondly, the suggestion in the Discovery piece is that the location where the corpses were found was originally a church graveyard. However, when it was discovered several centuries ago that corpses were not decaying and decomposing but rather were being preserved as mummies, further individuals were deliberately dropped into the pit.

Which begs the question: after a natural death? Or was the mummification of the dead regarded as a holy miracle, a sacred privilege?

Thirdly, the location is described as "a small and rather isolated community of people whose lives centered around the church of Conversione di San Paolo Apostolo in Roccapelago, in the middle of the Emilia Romagna Apennines".

Hmmmm.