Mummies Galore at Guanajuato's Museum of Mummies - Guanajuato, Mexico

Eventually, the city of Guanajuato began officially displaying mummies in a building near the cemetery, bowing to the fact that folks possess a natural curiousity about what someone looks like who's been dead for a century. (And the people of Mexico have a very different relationship with death and the departed than do their northern neighbors -- the dead are very much revered, but not feared.) The mummies were apparently stored against walls and leaned hither and thither somewhat helter skelter.

Guanajuato stopped exhuming the mummified bodies in 1958 and in 2007, the museum was remodeled, with the work being carried out in a mere sixty hours. The renovation was gigantic, modernizing the display spaces and showcasing the 111 mummies first and foremost, but including videos and multi-language explanatory plaques. Okay... explaining what? Go on to the next page to learn about the mummy's display, for instance...