Mummy girl with open eyes. The Sleeping Beauty Mystery: The Mummy Who Winks at Tourists Rosalia Lombardo

Sleeping Rosalia, a princess with a tattoo and other mysterious mummies from around the world

When it comes to mummies, most people immediately think of Egypt. However, people for thousands of years have found ways to preserve the bodies of their dead on all continents. And if you add to this the number of people who were “accidentally” mummified naturally after death, then suddenly it turns out that mummies can be found almost everywhere, and not just in the pyramids. Let us give examples of such mummies, which are almost never mentioned anywhere.

1. Spirit Cave Mummy

The so-called "Spirit Cave Mummy" was discovered in the Spirit Cave near the town of Fallon, Nevada. In 1940, Sydney and Georgia Wheeler were exploring and excavating dry caves in the area when an unfortunate incident led to a successful discovery. Sydney injured his ankle while fleeing a rattlesnake and the couple took refuge in a nearby cave. Inside, they found not only 67 artifacts, but also two bodies wrapped in reed rugs.

One body is well preserved in a cave. It belonged to a man, about 45-55 years old, who died about 1500 years ago. Only in 1994, with the help of modern technology, they were able to accurately determine the age of the mummy. And it turned out not to be one and a half thousand, but as much as 9,415 years. Incredibly, the mummy's genome sequence proved that this individual was closely related to modern Native Americans.

2. Man from Tollund

The next naturally occurring mummy, known as the Tollund man, was discovered in Denmark in the 1950s. It was assumed that the deceased was about 40 years old. His corpse was dug up in a peat bog, where the acidic and deoxygenated environment kept the body and internal organs in good condition. Initially, it was believed that it was the corpse of one of the locals who fell victim to criminals. However, it was later revealed that "the man from Tollund" had died over 2,000 years ago.

Man from Tollund

Most researchers believe that the cause of death determined at the autopsy in the 1950s was correct: Tollund was hanged. Rope marks were found on his neck, and in 2002 a forensic examination found that his tongue was sticking out and swollen, a common occurrence in death by hanging or strangulation. Although the body decomposed after it was removed from the swamp, the head was carefully preserved. She can still be seen attached to a copy of the body in the Silkeborg Museum.

3. Xin Zhui

The mummified remains of Xin Zhui (aka Lady Dai) belonged to a Han Dynasty noblewoman in ancient China. She died in 163 BC. at the age of approximately 50 years. Her grave was discovered in 1971 while the Chinese military was digging a tunnel near Changsha. She was discovered in an elaborate burial chamber with over 1,000 precious items inside.

The discovery of Xin Zhui is extremely important because she is one of the best preserved mummies ever discovered in China. In fact, her skin is still elastic and her muscles are in such good shape that her joints are still able to flex. The main organs and the circulatory system are also in excellent condition. Scientists were even able to extract a small amount of blood from the mummy's vein and identify her blood type: type A. Incredibly, even her eyelashes and nose hair were intact, and Xin Zhui still has distinct fingerprints. For this reason, Xin Zhui's corpse is still being researched at the Hunan Museum, where they are trying to find the perfect way to preserve human bodies.

4. La Doncella

In 1999, the perfectly preserved body of a teenage girl was found atop Mount Lullaillaco in Argentina. Known as La Doncella ("The Virgin"), the girl was found next to the bodies of two more young children, a girl and a boy. Their bodies are among the best preserved mummies ever found. This is because they were frozen in ice on top of the mountain. It is believed that the "Virgo" died 500 years ago, and she was sacrificed by the Incas.

Sometimes children were sacrificed in various rituals, leaving them on mountain peaks, where they froze to death. Terrible as this sounds, it was considered an honor that only children from the most noble families could be bestowed. The shape of La Donachella's head suggests that she was indeed noble, as the shape of her skull was altered by traditional head wraps. Huge amounts of alcohol and coca leaves were also found in her system.

5. Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin died in January 1924, and his body is still in the pyramidal mausoleum on Red Square in Moscow. For many years now there have been disputes about what to do with the mummy of the leader of the proletariat - to bury or continue to exhibit.

Vladimir Lenin in the Mausoleum.

Now the corpse, closely monitored by scientists, is kept at the ideal temperature and humidity in an airtight glass container to prevent it from decomposing. The exact method used to preserve Lenin's body is considered a state secret. However, foreign scientists have found that this process involves removing all the organs of the body, injecting embalming fluid into the veins, and soaking the body in embalming fluid for about six months.

6. Rosalia Lombardo

Perhaps this is one of the saddest stories on this list. Rosalia Lombardo, who was only 2 years old, died in Palermo in 1920, a victim of pneumonia. Her father Mario Lombardo was so shocked by what had happened that he turned to the famous embalmer Alfredo Salafia with a request to keep the tiny corpse. The body is so perfectly preserved that Rosalia is often referred to as the "Sleeping Beauty".

Baby Rosalia Lombardo.

Her body is kept in a glass coffin in the Capuchin catacombs in Palermo. Rosalia's mummy gained a creepy reputation as observers claimed that her eyes opened and closed at different times of the day. It is even said that the iris of her eyes still has bright blue pigmentation. However, this intimidating claim was debunked when it was discovered that the effect was caused by alternating light passing through the windows of the catacombs, as her eyes are in fact in a permanent half-closed state.

7. Tattooed Princess Ukok

"Princess Ukok", who lived in the 5th century AD, proves that tattoos remain with a person not only for life, but also after it. Her remains were found in a burial immured in a layer of ice in Siberia. While she may not be a true princess, "Ukoka" was almost certainly a person of high status, as she was buried next to six horses. Food items and jewelry were also found next to her corpse, and some witnesses say there was even a container of cannabis.

Tattooed princess of Ukok.

Although her internal organs had long since disintegrated, her bones and some of her skin survived. Incredibly, the intricate tattoos on both of the woman's arms are perfectly preserved. They show complex images of animals and mythical creatures. It is believed that these tattoos were an important part of people's personalities, showing family ties. They may also have been useful after death, helping people find each other in the afterlife.

8. John Torrington

Poor John Torrington is another example of how the conditions in which a person is buried can turn him into the perfect mummy in a completely random way. He was an ordinary stoker on Franklin's expedition to the Arctic Circle. John died of lead poisoning at the age of only 22 and was buried with three companions in the icy conditions of the tundra. In the 1980s, scientists who decided to exhume the body to determine the cause of death were shocked.

John Torrington.

When they opened the coffin, they saw blocks of ice. Carefully melting the ice, scientists saw the perfectly preserved faces of John Torrington and his ill-fated companions, who looked directly at them. The only deterioration in the condition of the corpse was a slight contraction of the lips and eyelids. While part of John's face was blue, it wasn't because of the cold. His skin was dyed with the pigment of the blanket in which he was buried.

9. Saint Bernadette

Another relatively modern mummy, Saint Bernadette grew up in France during Victorian times. As a teenager, Bernadette Soubirous claimed to have repeatedly had a vision of the Virgin Mary. On the site where these visions were (in the grotto) a shrine was built, and thus began a series of miraculous healings attributed to the spring in this grotto. While many of these miracles have since been debunked, a number of people to this day claim to have been cured by the waters of Lourdes.

Saint Bernadette

Bernadette herself died in 1879 of tuberculosis and was posthumously canonized. Her body was exhumed at least three times and declared "incorruptible" by the church. In other words, it mummified quite well, although some areas of decomposition were observed. This must have contributed to the mishandling of her body during the exhumations. For this reason, it was decided to cover the face and hands with a layer of wax to hide the decomposition. The mummy can be seen in the chapel of Saint Gildar in Nevers.

10 Atacama Alien Mummy

Perhaps the most bizarre of all the mummies on this list, the tiny "alien" mummy from the Atacama has one of the most tragic stories. The size of the remains, which were found in the Chilean Atacama Desert, is only 15 centimeters in length.

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Sleeping Beauty - Rosalia Lombardo - is an amazing phenomenon that occurs with the body of a dead girl on the island of Sicily. A girl named Rosalia Lombardo died a long time ago, but her body is still practically untouched by decomposition.

Rosalia Lombardo holds a special place in the hearts and minds of those who visit the Capuchin Catacombs. "Sleeping Beauty" from Palermo, under this name she became known in the world.

Rosalia Lombardo died of pneumonia in Palermo, Sicily, in December 1920. Her father, General Lombardo, was so heartbroken that he wanted to bury his daughter's body in the catacombs, while preserving her body in its original form. He was lucky that his request was granted, since burials were forbidden in the catacombs at that time, and Rosalia was one of the last to be buried there.

Before placing her body in the catacombs, Rosalia's father hired the famous embalmer Alfredo Salafia. He was an Italian chemist who spent many years perfecting his embalming technique. As a result of his research, he deduced the embalming formula, in which the bodies were preserved unprecedentedly well and for a long time.

Salafiya perfected his embalming skills on animals before moving on to humans. His methods differed significantly from traditional embalming. He simply injected the drug he invented into the carotid artery, in fact, without carrying out any other preparatory steps for embalming the body. Didn't even draw blood.

Salafiya worked so well that the embalming he performed was able to stop the ravages of time. The girl's body is so well preserved that even in this photograph, taken in 1995, it seems that Rosalia is just sleeping.

Photo. Mummy of Rosalia Lombardo

Salafiya died in 1933, taking the secret of his formula with him to his grave. However, long studies led to the fact that his secret was revealed: he used formalin - to destroy all bacteria, salicylic acid to stop the growth of fungi, alcohol, which contributes to the rapid drying of the body, while glycerin prevents its complete drying out (because of which the skin does not become too brittle and does not crack).

However, the main secret of Salafiya was in the use of zinc salts. They hardened Rosalia's body, preventing the formation of corrosion and depressions on her body, for example, on her cheeks and in the nasal cavity, which is why the girl still looks like she is alive.

But even apart from the appearance of Rosalia, her story is amazing for other reasons. She has the same name as the patron saint of Palermo, Saint Rosalia.

Legend has it that Saint Rosalia was born into a noble family and dedicated her life to religion. At the end of her life, she was led to a cave by two angels, where she spent the rest of her life as a hermit, and died in 1166.

Five hundred years later, a plague struck Palermo, and Rosalia appeared to a sick woman and then to a hunter, telling them where to find her remains. The hunter found her body in a cave, and Rosalia's remains were carried around the city, after which the plague stopped.

Photo. Catacombs of the Capuchins in Palermo

Another amazing moment in this whole story is the girl's eyes. Sometimes, several days and nights a year, they slowly open and close, as if a girl is trying to throw off the shackles of eternal sleep.

Over the years, the number of eyewitnesses has increased, who were ready to swear that, visiting the catacombs, they noticed that the girl's eyes were slightly open, while, as in previous times, they were definitely tightly closed.

In a number of cases, people photographed Rosalia's face during the day, and indeed, in the photographs it was noticeable that the girl's eyes seemed to be slightly open.

The camera, installed for 12 hours in the catacombs, recorded how the girl's eyes slowly opened, then closed again.

Many consider this a real miracle, someone is a paranormal phenomenon. There are those who try to rationalize this phenomenon by saying that the eyes are affected by changes in temperature and humidity.

In 2009, it was noticed that the body was finally starting to show signs of decay. Currently, Rosalia has been placed in an airtight container.

However, Rosalia's body is still in excellent condition, and in its new vault, it will lie for many, many more years.

Photos from open sources

Scientists, as well as all kinds of independent researchers, including religious ones, are still amazed by the unique mummy - a two-year-old girl Rosalia Lombardo, who for 97 years has retained her amazing freshness, as if the child had not died, but only fell asleep. (website)

Why does this phenomenon haunt scientists? The fact is that the girl does not change over the years. And it is difficult to find a logical explanation for this:

• Suppose, scientists say, that Dr. Alfredo Salafii, who performed this embalming immediately after the death of Rosalia, which occurred on December 6, 1920 (the girl lived only two years and died of pneumonia, after which her father decided to keep the body of his beloved daughter as a keepsake) , possessed some miraculous way of mummifying corpses. However, Salafiya's embalming technology was found in his archive of manuscripts, and experts did not find anything in it that could somehow explain the "sleeping beauty" phenomenon;
• Sometimes, according to religious figures (to clarify, the burial of the girl Rosalia was almost the last in the history of the Capuchin catacombs in Palermo and unremarkable), the body of a holy person can retain its vitality, which is most often observed among Buddhist monks who almost completely do not die. But in this case, all this does not fit in with the death and embalming of the most ordinary two-year-old girl;
• Perhaps Rosalia Lombardo, ufologists suggest, is not quite an earthly girl, and therefore aliens took part in her embalming, as well as death, who save her body for some future resurrection;
• With this statement, which is so fabulous (as in Pushkin's "The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Bogatyrs"), the alleged resurrection is correlated only not with aliens, but with the otherworldly forces of the Kingdom of the Dead.

Facts and evidence that the mummified girl is alive

Meanwhile, the body of Rosalia Lombardo, being in a glass coffin, has not changed much over the whole century, even the blond hair, the girl's eyelashes look like they are alive, and the bluish eyes, of course, continue to look at this world, because they sometimes open slightly. Let it be quite a bit, but it is enough to amaze the imagination of tourists who flock here from all over the world in order to look at this miracle.

Photos from open sources

But is it only the trembling of the eyelids that strikes in this mummy? The attendants claim that some miracles are constantly happening near the glass coffin: either the key will fall from the grate that closes the entrance here, or the girl will sigh, or the monks will hear footsteps in her crypt. And one caretaker named Donatello even "has lost his mind", claiming that one day Rosalia fully opened her eyes and looked at him with her blue eyes, full of hypnotic attraction and incredible power. I must say that the monks claim that the girl's body exudes a pleasant smell of wild flowers and most often - lavender. And although this does not always happen, the fact itself is simply amazing.

Photos from open sources

Skeptics, of course, do not believe in all this, explaining the trembling of the mummy's eyelids by the play of light, for example, the caretaker of the catacombs, an ardent materialist Dario Piombino-Mascali, holds this point of view. However, scientists installed modern equipment that monitors the mummy, and this is what struck them: the computer recorded weak impulses from Rosalia's brain, which can only happen in one case - the girl is sleeping, but she is not dead - fantasy and nothing more.

But that's not all: a modern video camera that can record in slow motion, for example, a flower blooming or a bud swelling, recorded that the mummy's eyelids actually open slightly. So it’s impossible to blame everything on the play of light and the conjectures of the monks ...

If there was a ranking of beauty among mummies, then this beautiful little girl would take first place every year. It is impossible to believe that she has been dead for over 100 years. How alive. It seems that she will soon wake up smile and say that this is a prank and you have been played. But unfortunately, she left this world long ago.

She has her own little secret, from which people fall into a stupor, turn pale and lose consciousness. Next, we will talk about the secrets of beauty and the secrets hidden behind the angelic appearance of the most beautiful mummy in the world.

Rosalia Lombardo was only two years old when she died of pneumonia back in 1920. Her untimely death plunged her father into shock and depression. He decided to turn to the famous specialist Alfredo Salafia for help and asked him to save Rosalia's body through embalming and mummification. In order to somehow tame your pain, rub it.

Alfredo Salafia, a skilled embalmer and taxidermist of his time. He performed an incredible, beautiful and complex operation on Rosalia, that even a hundred years after death, it seems that the girl is just sleeping under glass in a wooden box. The girl's body is in the Capuchin catacombs in Palermo, Italy.

Her small cheeks still look firm and healthy plump. Locks of blond hair are neatly gathered above her head and tied with a silk bow. Apart from the beautiful appearance, if I may say so in relation to the dead, small child. Her internal organs are not damaged, which is confirmed by X-ray scanning.

Rosalia Lombardo has long earned the nickname "Sleeping Beauty", gaining a reputation as one of the best preserved mummies in the world.

Rosalia's perfectly preserved body is only part of the story. The girl's visitors swear she blinks and winks at them. In the gif, we see her eyelids opening and closing. Or does it seem so?

Some claim to have seen her eyes. Sleeping Beauty's beautiful blue eyes are also in excellent condition. They are not damaged, as is most of the body. You can see how they shine, as if alive.

Research says that temperature changes inside the crypt can cause Rosalia's eyelids to close and open, producing a blinking effect. But the curator of the Capuchin catacombs, Dario Piombino-Mascali, puts forward a different theory. Piombino-Mascali believes that Rosalia's eye winks are an optical illusion. Caused by the angle of the light coming from the windows onto her face. As the day goes by and the angle of the light changes, the girl seems to open and close her eyes several times.

Piombino-Mascali made the discovery in 2009 when he noticed that workers at the museum had moved her coffin, causing her body to shift slightly, allowing him to see her eyelids better than ever before. Piombino-Mascali realized that Rosalia's eyes had never been completely closed.
Another big discovery was the secret formula that Alfredo Salafia used to embalm Rosalia's body. What further supported it in an impeccable condition.

In 2009, Piombino-Mascali found living relatives of Alfredo Salafia. After talking with them, they agreed to hand over the documents belonging to Salafia, where he wrote down his secret procedure and the formulas of the substances used.

Unlike typical embalming, when internal organs are removed and empty cavities filled with solutions completely dry the body, Dr. Salafiya made a small puncture in the body and injected a mixture of formalin, zinc salts, alcohol, salicylic acid and glycerin. Each ingredient in the mixture did its own unique and delicate job.

Formalin killed all bacteria, glycerin ensured that the body did not lose moisture, salicylic acid destroyed fungi and mold. The magical ingredient was zinc salts, which froze Rosalia's body in its pristine state. They gave rigidity and elasticity to the skin and muscles, preventing the cheeks and nasal cavities from collapsing.

The Sleeping Beauty is one of the eight thousand mummies in the Capuchin catacombs in Sicily. It was one of the last corpses that was accepted into the catacombs.

Rosalia's x-ray shows that her brain and liver are intact. The grid in the picture is the coffin under the body.

Probably the most famous mummy in the whole world is Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. And the most beautiful and young Rosalia Lombardo.

Rosalia Lombardo died on the eve of her second birthday, having lived on earth for a very short time. Her fame is sad - the girl died of pneumonia in 1920. The family, which was very upset by the loss of a child, turned to the embalmer Alfredo Salafia, who treated the body with a special composition. The mummy of the child was left in Palermo, in the almost two-year-old Rosalia Lombardo is located in the chapel of the same name. The exhibit, lying in a small coffin with a glass lid, is open to tourists and is the last point on the route through the catacombs.

Rosalia Lombardo: during life - a child, after death - a sign from above

Some believe that the main secret of preserving the body is the secret chemical composition used by the embalmer. Others consider it a miracle. One way or another, one of the most amazing objects in the burial catacombs of the Capuchins is Rosalia Lombardo. "Sleeping Beauty" - that was the name of the girl after her death. But this was not only the embalming composition of Salafia.

For a long time, little Rosalia Lombardo remained almost in its original form. The photo, which can be found in any source, still demonstrates the extent to which the body has been preserved. It's been over a hundred years since her death. Then she had a light childish skin, which was not touched by traces of decomposition. The curls and bow were the same as in life.

After some time, inexplicable events began to occur in the chapel. One of the parishioners claimed to have seen Rosalia open and close her eyes. The chapel attendants began to smell lavender, which usually smells of small children.

A fact that is contrary to medicine

All this could not fail to attract the attention of scientists. They had little hope of making new discoveries, but what they found was really amazing - the girl's brain twice showed activity that can only be characteristic of a living person!

Dr. Paulo Cortes, who led the medical research, was amazed by this discovery. Indeed, in medicine there are cases when the body could "resurrect" after being dead for half an hour. And also the state of coma can last for several years. However, by the time Rosalia Lombardo became the object of medical study, she had been in her coffin for 73 years.

Some believe that the girl's soul returned to the body for a while when brain activity was recorded at an interval of 33 and 12 seconds. Then the astonished researchers carefully rechecked the equipment and the accuracy of the experiment, but no error was found - Rosalia Lombardo really "came back" to life for a while.

Amazing eyewitness accounts

It is widely believed among the clergy that Rosalia Lombardo is the messenger of God, although this is not officially confirmed by the Catholic Church.

Some residents of Palermo say they have witnessed how the girl opens and closes her eyes. Believe them or not? Who knows. But the only thing that remains indisputable is the fact of recording the electrical activity of a brain that has been dead for decades. Such indications can only be characteristic of living nervous tissue.

The chemical composition, until recently kept secret, affected the body in such a way that the child seemed not dead, but sleeping. Mysterious events constantly took place around the girl's body. For example, one of the abbots, Father Donatello, tells that one of the monks lost his mind in a short period of time: “He claimed that Rosalia's eyes were open for thirty seconds. Despite the fact that the caretaker was considered crazy, after that, a group of scientists was called in to conduct research.

The solution to the mysterious composition

At the end of the twentieth century, the scientist Dario Piombino Mascali revealed the secret of the composition with which Rosalia's body was embalmed. It included zinc, formalin, glycerin and other components. By injection, the solution penetrated into all tissues. Subsequently, studies were conducted in the United States during which Alfredo Salafia's balm was tested. The results exceeded all expectations - with the help of the composition it was really possible to keep the bodies from decomposition. Thus, there is a scientific explanation for how this girl survived. Rosalia Lombardo surprises more with her mystical visitations during the presence of doctors, as well as parishioners and ministers of the chapel.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, the body began to show little signs of decomposition. Therefore, it was processed and placed in a chamber filled with nitrogen.

Taphonomy is the science that deals with death.

Rosalia's case is far from unique. Although the composition of the Salafia balm has been disclosed, this case does not cease to excite medical scientists. Currently, a whole direction has arisen in science called taphonomy. It studies those patterns that are characteristic of the processes of physical decomposition. In America, in the state of Tennessee, there is even a "farm of the dead" - a laboratory in which research is being carried out in this direction.

Man is powerless against death. Having invented almost everything for a comfortable life, having learned to cure many diseases and gaining control over the forces of nature, people still cannot penetrate beyond the bounds of understanding: what happens to a living being after death.

Saving bodies that defy logic

However, this feature is not always final for the physical body. People don't know where the soul goes. And is she coming back? Or, maybe, after staying for forty days on Earth, she goes to other worlds irrevocably?

This is still unknown to scientists, and no one knows if the secret of the afterlife will be discovered in the near future. However, the phenomenon of Rosalia Lombardo, as well as other bodies preserved after physical death, leaves a lot of spiritual food for mere mortals, as well as fields for the work of researchers.

Other cases of incorruptibility after death

It is believed that meditation practices help to achieve a state of incorruptibility after death. It is known that the body of the yogi Paramahansa Yogananda was not affected by decomposition for a long time. Also famous is the case of Lama Itigelov, who was also found by Russian scientists without any changes.

Thus, the example of Rosalia once again confirms that the physical and spiritual worlds are very close. Perhaps her soul decided to return for a while, not only to become a new mystery for scientists. Who knows, maybe little Rosalia Lombardo decided to remind humanity of how close she is and how little time people have left for good deeds.