Italy, by using X-ray technology to analyse the remains of some of the 163 children laid to rest there.
The first ever comprehensive study of mummified children in Sicily’s famous burial catacombs in the city of Palermo is being led by Staffordshire University.
The Capuchin Catacombs, which hold more than 1,280 skeletonised and mummified bodies, are open to the public as a somewhat macabre tourist attraction.
Bodies dating from the late 16th to early 20th century are still dressed in period refinery and line corridors and crypts of the underground cemetery.
The catacombs include the embalmed body of Rosalia Lombardo, a young Sicilian girl who died of pneumonia brought on by the Spanish flu in 1920.
The first ever comprehensive study of mummified children in Sicily’s famous Capuchin Catacombs is being led by Staffordshire University
Mummified Bodies in catacombs. Wealthy citizens who died between the 17th and 19th centuries were embalmed by the Capuchin monks of the city of Palermo
Children were accepted in the catacombs from 1787 but while extensive research has been conducted on the mummified adults, the juvenile mummies have largely been overlooked
The Capuchin Catacombs in the city of Palermo on the Italian island of Sicily are a kind of museum filled with the forgotten ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, who are watched over by a group of Capuchin monks
Exterior view of the monastery and catacombs of Capuchins. Today they provide a somewhat macabre tourist attraction
‘Determining whether children buried in the catacombs suffered environmental stresses on their body can inform us of living conditions and the environments in which they lived,’ Dr Squires said.
The cemetery was first reserved for ecclesiastical workers, then accepted deceased from all walks of life, and experienced its greatest popularity during the 19th century
The mummy has achieved notoriety for a phenomenon in which her eyes appear to open and close several times a day, revealing her intact blue irises.
Capuchin Catacombs curator Dario Piombino-Mascali has said this phenomenon is due to an optical illusion produced by the light that filters through the glᴀss windows covering her coffin, which is subject to change during the day.
‘[Her eyes] are not completely closed, and indeed they have never been,’ Piombino-Mascali said in 2014.
Dr Piombino-Mascali, who is working with Dr Squires on the latest project, investigated the preservation of Rosalia Lombardo around a decade ago.
He said several of the child mummies at the Capuchin Catacombs ‘look like sleeping children’.
The Capuchin Catacombs is open to the public, for those who feel like spending their day walking amongst the unknown
‘Many of the mummies are a result of natural dehydration. Other mummies were chemically treated. Those chemically treated are normally better preserved,’ he told the Guardian.
‘Some of them are superbly preserved. Some really look like sleeping children. They are darkened by the time but some of them have got even fake eyes so they seem to be looking at you. They look like tiny little dolls.
‘Of course you want to do something to preserve them and to make sure their stories are told and give a sense that they are children. It is very upsetting when you deal with children in anthropology.’
As pH๏τography is banned in the catacombs and the subject matter is highly sensitive, artist Eduardo Hernandez will produce illustrations of the juvenile mummies.
These will be shared alongside journal articles, lectures, a blog and teaching packs translated into both Italian and English.
