One of the craziest things I ever laid eyes on in Mexico (and that’s saying a lot) was the momias de Guanajuato: the Guanajuato mummies. Ancient Mexican civilizations didn’t practice mummification of their dead; these mummies are allegedly the exhumed bodies of once-buried deceased people whose families couldn’t pay to maintain their graves and were taken out to make room for dead people who could at a time in the 19th century when cholera was doing away with the population. Other sources say that when cholera was plaguing the region, dying — not dead – sufferers were buried in an effort to stop the spread of the disease, which explains the horribly agonized faces of the bodies who were literally buried alive.

Sound attractive? Well you’re in luck, as you won’t have to travel to Guanajuato to see them…the mummies are coming to a city near you!

A group of 60 Guanajuato mummies will kick off a tour of 10 American states, generating income of more than 6 million dollars for the country in the 3 years the exhibit will last [...]

The tour will start at the Detroit Science Center and continue on to the cities of Minneapolis, Denver, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago and Orlando, whose museams have up to 10,500,000 visitors per year.

Organizers of the traveling show, to be called “The Accidental Mummies”, say that this isn’t “a circus show” but a way to teach Americans about Guanajuato’s history and traditions. Milenio reports that over $600,000 is being spent in marketing the event and in hiring FBI artists to recreate busts of how the mummies must have looked when they were alive.

Via / Milenio

Video via pedroultreras on YouTube