Researchers suspect that the humidity and location on the mountainside of the San Bernardo cemetery may aid in drying out bodies and creating natural mummies.
The phenomenon of natural mummification has been discovered in over 100 bodies excavated from the San Bernardo cemetery since the 1960s. In many cases, the bodies maintain their hair and nails, and in some instances, even skin tissue and eyeballs, which are among the first parts to decompose after burial, as reported by Mail on April 29.
Many mummies in San Bernardo still retain skin tissue and nails. (Photo: Anadolu Agency).
Local residents have long believed that the bodies become mummies due to their vibrant farming lifestyle, or they view it as a reward for living well. However, new research offers a scientific explanation for the phenomenon of bodies becoming mummies. It may be a combination of humidity and the steep terrain of the mountainside where the cemetery is located.
The mummies were first discovered during an excavation of the San Bernardo cemetery in 1963. By the late 1980s, about 50 mummies were found each year. Researchers have recorded similar natural mummification phenomena in Guanajuato, Mexico, where underground gases and the chemical composition of the soil prevent decomposition. However, the mummies in Guanajuato date back to the first half of the 19th century, while those in San Bernardo are relatively more recent.
Mummification is the process of preserving a body after death by drying it out or using compounds to prevent decomposition. However, the bodies in San Bernardo became mummies by chance. After burial, teeth and nails fall out in about 3 to 5 days, but decomposition takes a decade, leaving behind skeletons and remnants of hair, skin tissue, and clothing fibers.
In 2001, when Clovisnerys Bejarano, a resident of the town, excavated her mother’s body after 30 years of burial, she found that her mother looked as if she were peacefully sleeping, still intact and dressed in burial clothing. Bejarano’s mother is currently displayed in a museum at the Jose Arquimedes Castro mausoleum along with 13 other bodies excavated from the San Bernardo cemetery.
Researchers studying the mummification phenomenon found no common pattern regarding how or why the bodies became mummies. According to them, the bodies come from various areas of the cemetery and belong to different age groups and genders.
Initially, scientists believed that the mummification process was due to the healthy diet and active lifestyle of the deceased, but a person from Bogotá, located about 64.4 km from San Bernardo, contradicted this hypothesis. Currently, the research team is considering another possibility: the temperature from the graves combined with the elevated position of the cemetery may resemble a drying pan.
Anthropologist Daniela Betancourt from the National University of Colombia suggests that the cause may be the steep slope of the mountain. “The wind frequently blows through when it’s hot. One can envision the tombs as a pan that dries out the bodies,” Betancourt explains. She also emphasizes that there has not been much research on what happens and the specific conditions that turn people’s bodies into mummies. Therefore, the above hypothesis needs further testing.
