Rather than using a dehydration process that is typical of ancient mummies, Summum uses a chemical process that is supposed to maintain the body's natural look.
The belief in cursed mummies probably stems in part from the supposed curse on the tomb of Tutankhamun.
The Guanajuato mummies are on display in the Museo de las momias, high on a hill overlooking the city.
Mummies can be studied without unwrapping them using CT scan and X-ray machines to form a 3-D reconstructed digital image.
The findings of mummies from different cultures and time periods has been of great value to science, providing a source of information about the health and lifestyles of the various peoples.
Some of the best-preserved mummies date from the Inca period in Peru some 500 years ago, where children were ritually sacrificed and placed on the summits of mountains in the Andes.
In 1972, eight remarkably preserved mummies were discovered at an abandoned Inuit settlement called Qilakitsoq, in Greenland.
Such mummies are remarkably well-preserved, with skin and internal organs surviving; it is even possible to determine what their last meal was by examining their stomach contents.
The best-known mummies are those that have been deliberately embalmed with the specific purpose of preservation, particularly those in ancient Egypt.
Scientists interested in cloning the DNA of mummies have recently reported findings of clonable DNA in an Egyptian mummy dating to circa 400 B.C.E.
Once preserved, the mummies were laid to rest in a sarcophagus inside a tomb, where it was believed that the mummy would rest eternally.
Nineteenth-century aristocrats would occasionally entertain themselves by purchasing mummies, having them unwrapped, and holding observation sessions.
Egyptian mummies became much sought-after by museums worldwide in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and many exhibit mummies today.
Natural mummification is fairly rare, requiring specific conditions to occur, but it has produced some of the oldest known mummies.
The "health" of a glacier is defined by the area of the accumulation zone compared to the ablation zone.
During the twentieth century, horror films and other mass media popularized the notion of a curse associated with mummies.
It was very important to ancient Egyptian religious beliefs that the human body was preserved. A method of artificial preservation, called mummification was developed by the ancient Egyptians. ... They were any Egyptian who could afford to pay for the expensive process of preserving their bodies for the afterlife.
Mummification. The earliest ancient Egyptians buried their dead in small pits in the desert. The heat and dryness of the sand dehydrated the bodies quickly, creating lifelike and natural 'mummies'. Later, the ancient Egyptians began burying their dead in coffins to protect them from wild animals in the desert.
The process of mummification is the process (embalming and wrapping) by which a body was preserved and prepared for burial. The ancient Egyptians mummified their dead because they believed that the physical body would be important in the next life. ... Thus, the ancient Egyptians changed their burial practices.