Among the places they visited was Guanajuato, home to a famed collection of mummies. In the late nineteenth century, bodies buried in the local cemetery were subject to a fee, a grave tax, for “perpetual” interment. If the family couldn’t pay the fee, the bones were eventually removed to make room for a fresh body. During one such disinterment, the city was shocked to discover that they were not digging up bones but “flesh mummified in grotesque forms and facial expressions.” The soil’s chemical components, along with the atmosphere in Guanajuato, had naturally mummified the bodies.
