Beijing News (reporter Hou Wuting) According to CNN local time reported on January 7, a research team will conduct a field investigation next week on a catacomb in Italy where hundreds of children's mummies are buried. They will use X-rays to analyze 41 child mummies in one of the rooms in an attempt to solve the mystery.
Mummies of children dressed in the Kapchin catacombs. Screenshot of CNN report
In Catacombe dei Cappuccini, a creepy tourist attraction in Palermo in northern Sicily, Italy, there is a special room with 41 children's mummies, while 163 child mummies are buried throughout the tomb.
The children's mummies were all dressed, some placed on cradles and chairs, and some fixed upright with sticks.
The tomb is the largest mummified gathering place in Europe, but little is known about it. Current research indicates that the tomb contains at least 1284 corpses, all buried between 1787 and 1880.
Kirsty Squires, associate professor of bioarchaeology at the University of Staffordshire in the UK, will lead the team to begin the fieldwork next week, and they will use X-rays to conduct the research in a "non-invasive" way.
Squires said they wanted to try to understand the children's lifestyle, mummified health and development, and compare the physiological data with the cultural environment at the time. They wondered if people mummified only children of a certain age or gender at that time.
"We know they may have come from middle-class countries – mummification ceremonies are reserved for wealthy people like the aristocracy, the middle class and the clergy." He adds, "So we know they're not the poorest members of society, but that's all we know." Why aren't they buried like everyone else? ”
According to Squires, mummies in the catacombs flourished between 1599 and the early 19th century, when the middle class saw it as a way to "retain their social image after death," and families visited buried family members after their deaths.
Beijing News reporter Hou Wuting
Edited by Liu Mengjie Proofreader Wu Xingfa
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