It is not allowed to shoot in the dungeon where the mummies are stored. Therefore, I took pictures from the network.
We rested on the island of Sicily and decided to visit the museum of the dead, the Capuchin catacombs.
A strange sight. In fact, these are just open graves.
Noble people started a fashion not to be buried in the ground. Since the 16th century, almost 8,000 mummies have been buried here.

In those days, they also noticed that there was some kind of preservative in the air of the catacombs of the monastery, in which cadaveric decay slows down.
And the clothes are very well preserved. Especially women's outfits look unnatural.
Already decayed flesh, almost a skeleton, but in a cap, with ruffles. Well, it's a very strange sight.
But like everyone else, I was simply struck by a little girl. They call her Sleeping Beauty. Rosalia Lombardo, who died during an influenza epidemic in the early 20th century. Mother went mad with grief. Her father also loved her madly and asked to be embalmed by a famous Italian doctor. The secret of embalming has almost been revealed in our time.
A formalin composition (Mostly. There were other substances, for example, glycerin) was injected into the arteries under pressure.
The baby seems to be sleeping.
I was most struck by her beautiful, BRILLIANT red hair. Even the cilia on her eyes have been preserved, and almost 90 years have passed!
Some scientists did an x-ray of the mummy, because they thought that Rosalia was in a lethargic sleep, and maybe the doll. But no, the imperishable body of the girl is completely real!
There is also a legend about a local monk who lost his mind after he saw the supposedly open eyes of a mummy girl.
more pictures of mummies

The halls are divided into burials of monks, children, women, virgins, politicians..

The clothes on the mummies are also well preserved and it is possible to see old frills, ties ..

Amazingly preserved dress

Mothers with their children

Contemporaries treat this place as a cemetery, albeit an open one. And they visit their ancestors

death smile

Shooting photos and videos is prohibited, but several channels managed to film a documentary

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. It was an Italian chemist who spent long years while 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.

Rosalia Lombardo was born on December 13, 1918, in the Italian city of Palermo, Sicily region (Palermo, Sicily, Italy). The baby caught pneumonia, and her life ended on December 6, 1920, shortly before the age of two.

Heartbroken father Lombardo painfully experienced the death of his daughter. He contacted a Sicilian chemist and embalmer named Alfredo Salafia and asked to keep Rosalia from decay.

Alfredo responded to the request of a grieving father and made an embalming solution according to his own formula. Among other chemical compounds, the mixture included formalin - for disinfection, zinc salts and salicylic acid - to give the body strength, glycerin - to prevent the mummy from complete dehydration, and alcohol - to quickly dry the body. The solution was injected under pressure through the arteries and distributed through the blood vessels.

Messina paleontologist Dario Piombino Mascali claimed at the end of the 20th century that he was able to figure out the secret of Alfredo's recipes after studying a discovered diary of a Sicilian embalming expert. Subsequently, the technique worked successfully in practice.

Rosalia became the most famous work Salafis. Referred to by some reporters as "the most beautiful mummy in the world", the dead girl in the early years was no different from the living one. It seemed that Lombardo was just sleeping sweetly. In the mummified body, not only the soft tissues of the face remained incorruptible. Sicilian chemist processed eyeballs, hair, eyelashes, the brain and the insides of the baby.

Over the next hundred years, "Sleeping Beauty" (Italian "Bella addormentata") has not changed much. And yet, in the mid-2000s, the first signs of decay began to appear. Currently, the mummy is in the chapel of Saint Rosalia in a glass coffin filled with nitrogen and insulated with lead foil. For complete tightness, the glass container is sealed with wax. The chapel itself is located in the farthest part of the Capuchin Catacombs.

Located under the Monastery in Palermo, the Capuchin Catacombs, where about 8,000 people are buried, are visited annually by thousands of tourists from all over the world. Rosalia, along with the US Vice Consul Giovanni Paterniti buried here, remain the main attractions of the catacombs to this day. The baby was the last of the buried, and the official closing of the Capuchin Catacombs took place back in 1881.

True facts from short life Rosalia could not help but be "diluted with rumors", which have accumulated in abundance over the decades. In fact, there is not a single picture of a living Sicilian girl, not a single official document revealing the identities of her parents.

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Rumor has it that Rosalia was the daughter of Mario Lombardo, an Italian general. It is known that the girl was born fragile and weak. In the 24 months of her life, she experienced so much pain and struggled with so many diseases that she could last a lifetime as an adult.

At the end of the 20th century, people appeared who assured that the baby’s mummy had long since crumbled, so that visitors to the catacombs are lured simply by a wax copy of Lombardo. To refute the rumors, X-ray equipment was delivered to the chapel of Saint Rosalia. Studies have shown that not only the cellular structure has been preserved, but also internal organs mummies. The illuminated coffin with the body of Rosalia also helped to establish that her brain remained intact, although it decreased by 50% in volume due to mummification.

In 2009, a documentary about "the most beautiful mummy in the world" was released. The audience was shown the girl's body outside and inside, including the hands lying on the sides. Previously, the upper limbs were hidden under the outer cover.

A few years ago, the media reported that Rosalia "opened her eyes." Her left eye seemed to have opened almost 5 mm, while her right eye had opened 2 mm. As they say, the blue eyes of the baby were exposed under the eyelids. Some were so amazed at the terrible phenomena that they began to claim that her spirit had returned to the body of the deceased.

The mummy frightens tourists visiting the catacombs, who think that the girl's eyes are really opening. But the caretaker of the catacombs, Dario Piombino-Mascali, says that it's all about an optical illusion.

According to Dario, Rosalia's eyelids were never tightly closed. At different times of the day, the light falls on the face of the mummy at certain angles, which creates the illusion of opening and closing eyes.

Others call the real reason"open eyes" Rosalia temperature fluctuations in the catacombs.

The Capuchin catacombs are divided into a corridor of monks, men, women, professionals, priests, a new corridor, a cubicle of children and virgins. Video and photography in the catacombs are prohibited.

Despite the fact that this girl lived less than two years, with December 13, 1918 before December 6, 1920, today everyone knows her, from young to old. At the same time, Rosalia's popularity has already come after how she left this world.

Whose photos during life are quite few, died of pneumonia. Her father, who was very hard to come to terms with the death of his beloved daughter, he decided to take a desperate step, turning to one of the best embalming specialists of that time Alfredo Salafii. His only request was that Alfredo, by any means, preserve the body of the deceased Rosalia in the same form as it was in life. Journalists who for some time had access to the girl's embalmed body described her as a very beautiful mummy. Thus began one of the most unusual and exciting stories on.

Interestingly, Alfredo Salafii, whose diaries were re-examined at the end of the last century, really managed to achieve amazing results by embalming Rosalia's body. In addition to the fact that outwardly the girl’s body was perfectly preserved, the specialist also managed to save all internal organs and brain. Alfredo himself concealed their secrets in personal diary where is Dario Piombino Mascali almost a century later, he managed to find a recipe for a unique solution of the master. It included glycerol, alcohol, formalin, zinc and several other chemical ingredients. Also Alfredo, making a mummy out of Rosalia Lombardo, launched a special liquid into her arteries and veins, which fully corresponded to healthy blood in color. Thus, he managed to save the entire circulatory system of the mummified girl from destruction.

The Miracle of Rosalia Lombardo

After her death, the girl's body was placed in a small church in Palermo. Since 1920, Rosalia Lombardo has been there. But, the most interesting thing is the uniqueness of the preservation of the body. In fact, for almost a century, the girl has not changed at all. Someone believes that this effect is achieved thanks to the unique solution of Salafia. Others believe that this is a real miracle. Regardless of who is really right, modern photo by Rosalia Lombardo prove that she looks like Just briefly fell asleep but never died in 1920.

The girl's skin is the same appearance like living children. Because of this, local journalists quickly dubbed Rosalia " sleeping beauty Palermo". The level of preservation is so good that even the hair, eyelids and eyes of the girl remain outwardly alive. This is impressive and amazes the imagination of those who see Rosalia with their own eyes.

Even several serious studies of scientists over a hundred years have not been able to really explain how this is possible. Many scientists who worked with the girl's body openly admitted the very fact of her existence today in this form - a real miracle. Moreover, during the entire period of research, two times the brain of a dead Rosalia emitted electrical impulses, which can usually only come from living organisms.

Local monks also have their own opinion. They tell a story about how one day opened her eyes. It was thirty-five years ago, and the watchman, who is in the hall with the girl's body, saw this and went crazy. True, according to the assurances of the monks, opened her eyes"sleeping beauty" is just thirty seconds. But, from time to time, even journalists photographing a girl claim that it seems that her eyes sometimes open slightly. So far, no one has been able to find a logical explanation for this.

There are still people who claim that Rosalia Lombardo is just sleeping, however, is in some unusual dream. In addition, given the fact that they began to mummify bodies in Sicily back in the sixteenth century and there were only about 8000 pieces, the uniqueness of Rosalia's body is only increasing - it has been preserved ten times better than all the other bodies of the Capuchin catacombs.

Photo of Rosalia Lombardo during her lifetime unfortunately not preserved. Remember, this was the beginning of the 20th century. Therefore, we can only admire the sleeping beauty in the Catacombs of the Capuchins in Palermo.

See Rosalia Lombardo now

It is possible that her mummy is in the Catacombs of the Capuchins in Palermo. How to get to the catacombs and opening hours, we wrote in detail in our article "". If desired, we can organize an individual excursion to the Catacombs, because quite a distance to walk from the center. Leave requests in the comments!

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 ...