Palermo's Crypt of the Mummies

today's episode is sponsored by - Lane tri - Lane for free on your first device and when you decide you want to upgrade to premium use my code Geographics to get a discount of 10% on premium more about that in a bit [Music] tourists visiting sicily may land here looking to visit Airy Greek temples sun-drenched villas the majestic power of Mount Etna palaces inspired by Norman and Arab heritage and churches adorned in mosaics in golden leaf Palermo the capital city of the islands offers similar attractions enjoyed best under a clear sky and with a cup of granita in your hands but today we are gonna take you to a destination far away from the scorching Sun a place where half light dominates here the door separating the realm of the living and the Empire of the Dead has been left ajar welcome to the Capuchin catacombs of Palermo the last resting place for hundreds of Europe's most terrifying and fascinating mummies [Music] the entrance to these catacombs is unassuming a simple doorway marked by a small marble plaque reading catacomb entry the catacombs are located underneath the convent run by Capuchin friars located at number one of Piazza Daka Puccini Capuchin Square this is a short walk from the Cathedral of Palermo and the norman palace a unesco heritage site you may have noticed that the Italian word for Capuchin friars is the same as the word for your favorite drink of coffee hence frothy milk this is because the color of the cappuccino resembles the light brown shade of the Frye's robes this religious order was founded by Matteo Serafini in 1525 and they are mostly known for carrying out the teachings of Saint Francis of Assisi however the order also has close association with peculiar burial places such as the Kaiser Grove to the Imperial crypt in Vienna or the crypts of Our Lady of the Concepcion in Rome with its walls decorated by the skeletons of almost 4,000 friars but let's stay in Palermo today's catacombs are just below street level bathed in the gray half light that permeates from narrow windows unlike the more famous catacombs of Paris or Rome these do not stretch from hours on end this relatively small space comprises four main intersecting corridors to form a rectangular shape with some smaller additional chapels and passageways the catacombs hold a collection of about 1250 to mummies displayed along its walls although many more corpses up to eight thousand are estimated to be stored out of sight some of them very well-preserved still dressed in their finest clothes others are little more than skeletons many of these corpses are positions along the walls in an upright position ready for the resurrection of the flesh when the end of times arrives their heads and necks are twisted upward contorted into a silent scream destined to resonates amongst those walls for decades if not towards their ceiling their faces are inclined forwards at us the living as if to judge us or to admonish us that we too shall return to dust their blackest eyes and cavernous mouths forever grasping us light and the mummies at the catacombs sorted according to specific criteria there is a corridor just for friars one for priests and one for middle and upper-class professionals doctors professors politicians even high-ranking officers and double-breasted tunics military decorations and oversize Napoleon hats it was in fact a regular custom for relatives of the buried to come visit them on the day of the dead the second of November to give them a change of clothes and to ensure that they always looked their finest women are kept apart from the men in a separate passage an area reserved exclusively for girls who died still virgins their families dressed their remains in immaculate bridal gowns another section is one more difficult to stomach here visitors can finds the mummies of 38 children of various ages many of them a tiny toddlers babies even whose innocence was withdrawn in fear their lives snuffed out by the two common infectious diseases of the day or by rare and mysterious congenital syndromes but let them rest for the moment we will get back to them towards the end [Laughter] it's now time to look at how and why such an extraordinary place came to be to do so we have to go back to our friends the capuchins and their history division friars first settled in Palermo in 1534 nine years after their order was established like their spiritual cousins the Franciscan friars the capuchins respected and venerated their dad on a daily basis through prayers and commemorations in other words they focused on the souls of the deceased rather than their flesh the bodies of dead friars were in fact disposed of with little ceremony by burying them in a large mass grave dug outside that church and the convent the capuchins even had a sort of Constitution which forbade burials from taking place inside the churches of the order things took an unexpected turn in the uncanny valley at the end of the 16th century in 1597 the original mass grave was not large enough to accommodate all the dead so the Frye's began excavating new burial place behind the apse of that church after two years they were ready to displace most of the bodies from one bit to the other but the exhumation left them aghast 45 of the bodies were almost perfectly preserved result of spontaneous mummification due to the microclimate in the original pit this event was considered by the Fras as a heavenly sign direct divine intervention they decided to commemorate the occasion by exhibiting these 45 mummies in the newly excavated crypt they were not to be buried but placed in a vertical position along the walls of the gallery for everyone to admire the results of the miracle the first body to be placed in the Capuchin catacombs was that of friar silvestro Gubbio he still carries a placard bearing the date of the event the 16th of October 1599 by 1601 the Capuchin population of Palermo had increased as the living grew in numbers so too did the dying the order had to dig an additional room and a chapel underneath that convent followed by another gallery these additional structures were dug apart from the very first crypt with the 45 brothers and the two areas were joined up only in 1680 by 1732 the catacombs had expanded even more with the three more galleries which gave it its current quadrilateral structure it seems the by now the rules imposed by the Constitution regarding burials were largely ignored as was the habit of disregarding the preservation of the flash all the while the population of this village of the Dead continued growing thanks to the admission of laypeople into its ranks first only no woman who had financially supported the Capuchin Order were allowed to be entombed in the catacombs by 1787 the subterranean cemetery had opened for business to whoever requested admittance and whoever could afford it of course according to one accounts at the start of the 19th century the cost of a standard place in the Capuchin catacombs was around 50,000 euros in today's money by comparison nowadays that paycheck could buy you a three-bedroom flat in the seaside district of Palermo the capuchins would take care also of the populace but those who could not afford a premium spot were placed in simple pits or in common graves in an area outside of the convent in 1823 this extraordinary Cemetery was completed and the subsequent works were required only for repair reasons initially these catacombs were well known only to the citizens of Palermo until in 1836 they received the attention of a celebrity visitor novelist Alexandre Dumas author of the three musketeers during a tour of Sicily the French master spent a morning at the convent describing his impressions and encounters in a widely published article among the curiosities he describes the mummy of a man named Francisco this mummy had been placed standing next to the entrance brandishing a large wooden staff he had been elevated to the dignified rank of custodian of that place and he had been given the staff to prevent the other mummies from escaping DeMarre also reported that the catacombs hosted at least one member of the royal family this was a mummy adorned with a paper crown and a golden scepter whose heads and hands rested on a small table topped by a canopy the placard identified him as Don Philip king of Tunis who had been shipwrecked off the coast of Palermo in 1622 he had been taken good care of by the frost but had died of disease on the 20th of September after having converted to Christianity and one thing you should certainly convert is your passwords to be more secure and that's something you can definitely do with today's sponsor dashlane and how is that for a transition - Lane is a one-stop shop for all of your digital identity protection needs if your passwords are all the same that's a bad idea you can convert them using dash lines password manager to create and securely store complex and unique passwords making it less likely that your accounts are gonna get compromised we also have a VPN as part of their service meaning you can browse the Internet securely and confidently even on public Wi-Fi but not just that they also actively monitor the dark web to see if your information has been leaked somewhere online that means you can go in and change your passwords before someone breaks into other accounts that share that same password plus - Lane does what it's always done it stores your passwords it keeps your personal data secure it fills all of those annoying boxes for payment info or passwords for you so make your life easier just go to dash Lane comm forward slash Geographics to try - lean for free on your first device and when you decide to upgrade to premium use the code Geographics and you'll get a discount of 10% and let's get back to the video [Music] Jamar has also the privilege of witnessing the process of a corpse being turned into a mummy the body completely naked it had been laid onto a ceramic grid his hands feet and neck had been tightly tied with ropes to prevent spontaneous post-mortem spasms of the muscles and nerves a gentle constant stream ran over the body this constant exposure to running water had the counterintuitive effect of draining body fluids which collected underneath the grit over a period of six months the procedure eventually desiccated the corpse Dumont mistakenly reported that after this period the mummy was ready to be dressed in its finery and exhibited in the catacombs but the process was a little bit more complicated than that after the Fras had made their initial discovery of spontaneous mummification in 1597 they developed a method for anthropogenic mummification that is a method which requires intentional human activity after the step involving the grids described by the writer bodies were sealed in a Cell for about a year then they were exposed to the air washed with vinegar and finally dressed this process was not failsafe sometimes it was not effective leading to the loss of soft tissue and the skeletonization' of the corpse in that case the mummies were stuffed with straw to replenish the decaying body parts in the 18th and 19th centuries the Fras enlisted the help of professional embalmers who developed other methods if the subject had died during an epidemic for example their body was dipped into lime another common procedure was to inject their arteries with special chemicals mainly arsenic and Mercury based compounds environments or conditions in the crypt also contributed to the long-term preservation of the bodies low humidity are cool but not frigid temperature and good ventilation that derived from perpetually open windows in 1880 local authorities prohibited the practice of training body fluids as the byproduct of the operation could lead to the spread of infectious diseases this decision ends the lack of space eventually led to the capuchins closing the catacombs to new arrivals there were two exceptions in the early 20th century one of them was the embalmed body of the American Consul in Palermo the other one became known as the most beautiful mummy in Europe but would get to meet her later in fact we would like to meet celebrate and remember each one of these mummies without forget that once they were people but the passage of time is as merciless to them as it is to us so we'll be able to take a closer look at only a small section of them if you investigate the lives of the inhabitants of the catacombs you will find that many of them are related to stories of love and passion one of these is the body of Antonio prestige a Como he appears as an androgynous character he wears a long light brown robe over a white long-sleeve shirt his hair is quite long on the sides and he stands inside a white vertical cubbyhole his head slightly tilted forward his gaze seems to be disapproving of the visitors the character was in fact known as a libertine and an inveterate lover of the better half of humanity indeed even as the nickname the Don Juan of the catacombs after the legendary seducer of Spanish literature after his death in 1844 his body was injected with arsenic and Mercury then as per as well the mummy was positioned upright in the catacombs and the two glass eyes were placed in his sockets this way Antonio was able to continue spying at beautiful girls for all eternity one of the most beautiful sitting Outsiders field of vision was the 29 year old Maria al-mahdi mark we save spot ro this story also comes to us from de Mar the Marquis had died on the 7th of August 1834 she had been embalmed draped in crepe fabric and lace and crowns in red roses every day the Marquis would be visited by a young man identified only as Baron P the aristocrats love for her had been untainted or unconsummated according to de mark consumed by grief every day Baron P would place a fresh bouquet of flowers into the hands of the Marquis as accounts point to such stories of delicate lives and unconsummated passions the catacombs are home to many mummies with a lustful aura these stories have been collected by a real authority on the subject art historian and photographer dr. bull kuda norris self-proclaimed expert in authorised and sex with ghosts one of the embalmed gentlemen was known in his life for being the carrier of a very generous man had to put it mildly the fame followed him in the grave so that young Brides took to seek his help if their husbands were not sufficiently in doubt tradition hazards this if a lady rubbed a cloth on this mummy and then on her husband she could transfer some of the dead man's sexual prowess but this treatment came with a side effect at least on one occasion a young lady experienced a vision of the mummies ghosts taking her husband's place while in bed the ghost was exercised thanks to a black cementec fashioned a metal codpiece for the husband the next time the couple had sex the ghost was trapped inside that particular fashion statement people were definitely weird in the past while this mummy was into live breathing ladies another one was simply into their underwear the catacombs watchman kept finding stashes of lady's Underpants hidden behind a particular mummy nobody could understand why until a young woman from the area reported to the police that she had been visited regularly by the ghost of a man each time the man would propose to her and upon being rejected he retaliated by stealing the girl's underwear chances are the girl was just planting the underwear because it wasn't ghosts the last in our bizarre collection of mummies is the one popularly known as ill masturbatory which even without you know an Italian you can probably guess what it stands for this mummy belonged to a friar who according to kuda NARAS had a knack for self abuse but not the kind of flagellation associated with some religious orders one night during a particularly intense session the friar died of a heart attack right at the high note of his fiddle solo some say the devil had got into him at the right moments this would account for the expression of agonizing pleasure forever sculpted into this mummys face the story was appropriated by generations of parents in Palermo in the late 19th century they would use the phrase ghost as a boogeyman to scare their preteen boys and prevent them from spending too much time in the shower that's a euphemism as time moves on the catacombs and their mummies have become the object of scientific interest rather than superstition and folk tales the preserved corpses underneath the convent may still exert a powerful and morbid fascination but modern science has shown how much these dwellers of the half-light can teach us about their past and our present teams of anthropologists pathologists and archaeologists among others have analyzed the mummies from different angles very often with the participation of the indefatigable dr. Dario pob no miss golly he is a bio archeologist who is also scientific curator at the catacombs and founder of the first mummy studies field school the curator has joined forces at least twice with the team of radiologist dr. Stephanie Panzer the Murnau trauma center in Germany to investigate the cause of death of some children resting in the crypts in a study of September 2018 they analyzed the mummy of a teenage boy who presented numerous visible deformities the body had an elongated skull a protruding breastbone and underdeveloped cheekbones below his down slanted eyes by performing a CT scan of the mummy the team discovered clear signs of aortic dissection in other words the internal tearing of the aorta the large blood vessel branching off from the heart this last one allowed researchers to reach a conclusive diagnosis the boy had been affected by Marfan syndrome a rare genetic disorder of the connective tissue which affects about one in 5,000 people and another collaboration Panzer ins P Mino were able to identify a mummy with a much rarer condition this was the body of a very young very small child whose age and gender could not be identified the toddler's body presented with some deformed features described as obviously striking by the researchers and had received a privileged burial the child was subjected to radiological analysis which revealed shortening of the forearms and lower legs ketosis short fingers and the faces or facial appearance in medical terms of an eight week fetus all these signs pointed to a diagnosis of robbing our syndrome an extremely rare type of dwarfism with slightly more than 100 modern cases reported worldwide back in 2009 dr. Pam Beno published a revelation on possibly the most famous mummy preserved in the catacombs this is the embalmed body of Rosalia Lombardo who died of the Spanish flu in 1928 just two burials in the crypt had long been forbidden but Rosalia's father general Lombardo was wealthy and powerful enough to force an exception the general tasked the most famous embalmer of the age dr. Alfredo salafiyyah to preserve her body and dr. salafiyyah delivered he used on Rosalia a secret formula he had perfected on his own brother a fencing master had died in 1914 resilience can still be seen perfectly preserved inside a glass shrine Saloth ears formula did remain a mystery for almost a century until PMB know and esteem uncovered a manuscript in his estate which revealed the formula roselia's bloods had been replaced by a mixture of 1/3 glycerin 1/3 salicylic acid and 1/3 formaldehyde enriched with zinc sulfate and zinc right but little Rosalia was also at a center of another mystery her eyes were said to open or at least her eyelids to flutter at least twice a day you can see a time-lapse video on YouTube of this phenomenon the effect is pretty Airy but science and dr. PM bina have stepped forward to provide an explanation to the phenomenon the curator told reporters that this was merely an optical illusion it was caused by the changing light filtering through the side windows and by the fact that Rosalia's eyes had never been completely closed [Music] more recently PM Dino and his team are less concerned with exploring the past of the mummies and a rather worried about preserving their future since the late 19th century and up to the first half of the 20th century the mummies had to India fires flooding to earthquakes and the heavy bombing of Palermo during World War two the structural integrity of the crypts has also been weakened by uncontrolled urban growth in the 1960s and an increase in car traffic in the area moreover the lack of adequate funding and interest from local authorities is severely hindered the day-to-day maintenance of the catacombs leading to increased humidity levels acidic formations and sudden temperature fluctuations all in all then unstable environments that is causing a gradual deterioration of the mummies over the span of three centuries the Capuchin friars and their fellow embalmers have perfected techniques to perpetuate at least a semblance of life after death but how long that will continue for we just don't know and I really hope you enjoyed this video if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below and don't forget to subscribe brand new videos just like this a couple of times a week also please do check it off fantastic sponsored dashlane who I'm linking to below and thank you for watching

Channel: Geographics

Views: 200,975

Keywords: the mummies, crypt of the mummies, mummies from palermo, palermo mummies catacombs, palermo mummy girl, rosalia lombardo story, rosalia lombardo mummy

Id: hEsNIf7yKqg

Length: 21min 12sec (1272 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 14 2020