The “mystery” of the most famous Mummy in the Palermo Capuchin Catacombs has to be resolved
The first-ever comprehensive study of mummified children in Sicily’s famous Capuchin Catacombs is being led by Staffordshire University. Dr. Kirsty Squires, Associate Professor of Bio Archaeology , and her team have been given exclusive access to a previously unstudied collection of children’s mummies housed in the underground cemetery of the Capuchin Convent in Palermo. The Catacombs contain the largest collection of mummies in Europe, with over 1,284 mummified and skeletonized bodies dating from the late sixteenth to early twentieth century. 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. Dr. Squires explained: “The Capuchin Catacombs comprise one of the most important collections of mummies in the world. However, there is very little documentary evidence about the children who were granted mummification and the ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ records from the period ...