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The Mummies of Guanajuato are a collection of naturally mummified human remains from Guanajuato City, Mexico.

Most were exhumed from the Pantheon of Santa Paula municipal cemetery between 1865 and 1958 after annual burial fees were not renewed. Their exceptional state of preservation led to the creation of the Museum of the Mummies of Guanajuato, where the collection has become a major tourist attraction and a subject of archaeological, forensic and conservation research. Although the bodies were long regarded as examples of natural mummification produced by the local burial environment, scientific studies have found evidence that some were at least partially embalmed. The museum, established in 1969 beside the cemetery, holds 111 mummies, including men, women, children and infants; as of 2007, 59 were on public display.

The Mummies of Guanajuato originated in the Pantheon of Santa Paula, a municipal cemetery in Guanajuato City that opened in 1861 following the implementation of the Laws of Reform, which required burials to be moved from churchyards to municipal cemeteries for public health reasons. Like many Mexican cemeteries of the period, the Pantheon of Santa Paula contained above-ground burial niches that families retained by paying an annual burial fee.

In 1865, four years after the Pantheon of Santa Paula opened, cemetery workers began exhuming bodies from burial niches whose fees had not been renewed. Expecting to find only skeletonized remains, they instead discovered that some bodies had been naturally mummified, with their skin, hair and burial clothing still intact. Over the following 93 years, until exhumations associated with the burial tax ended in 1958, additional naturally preserved bodies were uncovered. Because of their exceptional state of preservation, cemetery workers retained many of the best-preserved bodies rather than reburying them, gradually forming the collection that later became the Museum of the Mummies of Guanajuato.

As mummified bodies accumulated during the late nineteenth century, they were stored in a building above the Pantheon of Santa Paula municipal cemetery. The Museum of the Mummies of Guanajuato (Spanish: Museo de las Momias de Guanajuato) became home to the collection in 1969. As of 2007, 59 of the collection's 111 mummies were on public display.

The Mummies of Guanajuato have required ongoing conservation since they were first placed on public display in the late nineteenth century. Over the decades, responsibility for their care has been disputed between the municipal government of Guanajuato, which operates the Museum of the Mummies of Guanajuato, and the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), Mexico's federal agency responsible for protecting archaeological and historical heritage. INAH has argued that the mummies form part of Mexico's national patrimony and should be conserved according to professional museum standards, while the municipal government has maintained responsibility for their care and exhibition. In the years that followed, as the museum's popularity grew, the mummies were transported to temporary exhibitions in Mexico and abroad. In 2024, during renovations to the Museum of the Mummies of Guanajuato, museum staff moved one of the mummies as part of the work.

In 2023, INAH warned that displaying the mummies in traveling exhibitions could pose a public health risk after one of the corpses appeared to have fungal growths.

The mummies are a notable part of Mexican popular culture, echoing the national holiday "The Day of the Dead" (El Día de los Muertos). The Mummies of Guanajuato (1970) pitted the well-known Mexican professional wrestler Santo and several others against reanimated mummies. Author Ray Bradbury visited the catacombs of Guanajuato with his friend Grant Beach and wrote the short story "The Next in Line" about his experience. To conjure a morbid and eerie atmospheric opening sequence to his film Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), German director Werner Herzog used footage he had taken of several of the mummies.

Quick Facts

• Their exceptional state of preservation led to the creation of the Museum of the Mummies of Guanajuato, where the collection has become a major tourist attraction and a subject of archaeological, forensic and conservation research.
• In 2024, during renovations to the Museum of the Mummies of Guanajuato, museum staff moved one of the mummies as part of the work.
• Because of their exceptional state of preservation, cemetery workers retained many of the best-preserved bodies rather than reburying them, gradually forming the collection that later became the Museum of the Mummies of Guanajuato.
• The Mummies of Guanajuato (1970) pitted the well-known Mexican professional wrestler Santo and several others against reanimated mummies.
• The Museum of the Mummies of Guanajuato (Spanish: Museo de las Momias de Guanajuato) became home to the collection in 1969.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Mummies of Guanajuato". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.