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The mummified and skeletal remains of more than 160 children lie preserved in the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo in northerly Sicily , and soon , scientist go for to uncover some of the mysteries wall their lives and death using X - ray technology .
The catacombs comprise at least 1,284 mummified and skeletonized corpses of alter ages , according to the newresearch task ’s site . The catacombs were in manipulation from the late 1590s to 1880 , although two additional bodies were buried there in the other twentieth century , according to thePalermo catacomb web site .
The Capuchin Catacombs are located in Palermo, Sicily.
The forthcoming investigation , funded by the U.K. ’s Arts and Humanities Research Council , will be the first to alone focus on children domiciliate in the hugger-mugger crypt and corridors . Specifically , the investigators will examine child mummies that were buried in the catacombs between 1787 and 1880 , and they ’ll commence by X - raying the 41 mummies housed in the crypt ' " children ’s room , " or " tyke chapel,“The Guardian reported .
" We will take a portableX - rayunit and take hundreds of prototype of the children from different slant , " Kirsty Squires , the project ’s principal investigator and an associate prof of bioarchaeology at Staffordshire University in the U.K. , told The Guardian . The team skip to better understand the children ’s identity operator and wellness status , as well as examine cultural artifact such as the attire they were buried in , she say .
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The researcher will apply X - rays to determine each child ’s sex and long time , as well as break any sign of developmental defects or disease . These findings will be compared with each child ’s wearable , connect funerary artifacts and their locating within the chapel , as well as the method ofmummificationthat was used to keep up them , according to the project website . The team will also utilise decease record book they have from the prison term , although these bear circumscribed information , such as the at peace ’s epithet and engagement of death .
Together , these clues should provide an insight into the identities , health and lifestyles of nestling who were mummified in 18th- and 19th - century Palermo . At the time , being turn into a mum was a " status symbol " and " a mode to uphold status and dignity even in death , " concord to the Palermo Catacombs website .
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When first built in the late 1590s , the Capuchin Catacombs were used as a individual burial site for friar . But in 1783 , the Capuchin order began tolerate laypeople in the region to be buried there as well , the catacombs web site said . And by earn a donation to the order , family line could pay to have their deceased congeneric dry up and put on display in the catacombs .
Corpses could be mummified in one of three way of life : through raw mummification , where the physical structure were allowed to wholly dehydrate in a special room call the " colatoio ; " through a cognitive process that involved bath the body in arsenic ; or by the chemical embalming of the bodies , when a trained someone throw in the corpse with preservatives .
These processes could create astonishingly well - preserved mummies . Regarding the soon - to - be - scanned child mummy , " Some of them are superbly preserved , " Dario Piombino - Mascali , atomic number 27 - investigator for the project and scientific curator of the Capuchin Catacombs , told The Guardian . " Some really look like sleeping children . They are darken by the metre but some of them have got even fake eyes so they seem to be looking at you . They look like tiny small dolls . "
show more about the Palermo juvenile mummy project inThe Guardian .
in the first place write on Live Science .
