Mexico’s Nationwide Institute of Anthropology and Historical past (INAH) has accused Guanajuato’s Museo de las Momias of not following conservation protocol in a latest reconfiguration of its shows, leading to injury to a minimum of one in all its mummies.
The museum—positioned in a Sixteenth-century city that could be a Unesco World Heritage website round 400km northwest of Mexico Metropolis—is known for its assortment of 117 naturally mummified our bodies, half of that are on show. The mummies have been exhumed from the adjoining mid-Nineteenth century Santa Paula Cemetery beginning in 1870 after members of the family of the deceased stopped paying burial charges; the our bodies had dehydrated on account of the area’s dry, scorching local weather.
With the mummies’ rising reputation amongst guests who frequented the cemetery, authorities determined to open a museum in 1969. Controversies on the museum are nothing new, starting from how the corpses are dealt with and toured to halted plans for a brand new venue and the museum’s perceived industrial exploitation of dying.
Not too long ago, a rearranging of the museum’s inside area sparked the ire of INAH, which questioned the conservation protocols adopted by the museum’s employees and condemned native authorities for his or her unwillingness to share the venture’s plans beforehand. After INAH’s consultants inspected the location, they confirmed that there was new injury to a minimum of one of many mummies, often called “The Stabbed One”, whose proper arm had reportedly come off. “Whereas the mum was already broken, its accidents are actually extra extreme,” INAH stated in an announcement.
“The Stabbed One” allegedly had an arm fall off whereas being moved to its present horizontal place on the Museo de las Momias in Guanajuato, Mexico Picture: Courtesy the Authorities of the Metropolis of Guanajuato
Metropolis authorities, who’ve jurisdiction over the museum and its assortment, refute the declare that any hurt resulted from the museum’s four-month-long redesign, which concerned altering the mummies from a vertical to a horizontal place and including heat gentle to the shows.
“The renovations introduced no new injury to the mummies,” Jesús Antonio Borja Pérez, Guanajuato’s director of tradition and schooling, tells The Artwork Newspaper. “For years the mummies deteriorated because of their exhibition and guests’ affinity for touching them or taking souvenirs, comparable to bits of clothes. It was solely within the early 2000s once they have been protected by glass. On this renovation, we adopted earlier suggestions of INAH’s consultants to put the our bodies horizontally, they usually have been dealt with by skilled museum employees.”
Over time, INAH and native authorities have signed collaborative agreements to protect and examine the mummies. In 2021, the federal authorities launched a large-scale analysis venture aiming to uncover the identities of the mummies by way of forensic evaluation.
“Whereas the archival work has concluded, intent on revealing the person tales of every corpse as a substitute of realizing them by their nicknames, the forensic examine is deliberate for later this yr,” says Ilán Leboreiro, a organic anthropologist and a part of INAH’s analysis fee of Guanajuato’s mummies. “Basic suggestions, comparable to horizontal placement, have been shared informally, however every physique requires explicit circumstances to make sure its preservation. The pending forensic examine will set up the rules, that are as much as the museum to use.”
The mummies on the Museo de las Momias in Guanajuato, Mexico, was displayed vertically Picture: Courtesy the Authorities of the Metropolis of Guanajuato
On the coronary heart of this controversy lies a priority for the dignified preservation of the naturally dehydrated our bodies, whose show initially resulted from guests’ curiosity—or morbid curiosity—however over time have turn out to be a part of the id of town and its legends. There may be even a regional mummy-shaped brown-sugar sweet, charamusca. Nonetheless, the continuing debate additionally reveals a political rift between the federal entity INAH and native authorities, every run by opposing political factions.
Financial implications might also be at play. Whereas Guanajuato’s isn’t the one assortment of naturally mummified our bodies within the nation, it’s a highly regarded vacationer vacation spot. Simply final yr, the museum reported 500,000 guests, bringing in additional than $2.4m. “The museum represents town’s second most necessary supply of earnings after property taxes,” Borja says.
All of those points are solely accentuated by Mexico’s upcoming normal election on 2 June.
However even with this heated controversy, INAH and native authorities are prepared to proceed collaborating to make sure the preservation of the mummies, a few of that are saved off website. “We’re open to beginning the subsequent section of the forensic examine of INAH’s ongoing analysis venture,” Borja says.
For its half, INAH says: “There may be goodwill in working collectively to make sure the caring of probably the most necessary heritage symbols of the individuals of Guanajuato.”
