Many people have had hair-raising moments when witnessing a nearly 100-year-old mummy blinking its eyes.

Many people have had hair-raising moments when witnessing a nearly 100-year-old mummy blinking its eyes.

In 1920, a 2-year-old girl named Rosalia Lombardo breathed her last, ending a short life due to pneumonia . The baby’s father, a city official, contacted famous embalmer Alfredo Salafia to protect his baby daughter’s permanent appearance.

100 years later, in the Catacombe Dei Cappuccini crypt beneath a monastery in Palermo, Italy, you can visit the extremely well-preserved mummy of little Rosalia. Unlike other mummies, Rosalia is like a sleeping princess because she still retains her childlike features with a plump face, half-closed eyelashes and a silk bow tied around her golden cloudy bun on her head, looking like Maybe just falling asleep behind the glass.

But the part that makes you feel creepy is that if you stand there long enough, you will see her blink.

Rosalia’s mummy is always the center of attention for visitors to the catacombs in Palermo.

Many tourists felt scared when they saw the nearly 100-year-old mummy open and then gently close its eyes. Meanwhile Rosalia’s eyes, like the rest of her body, were as hard as stone. Some evidence in the form of photos and videos shows that Rosalia mummy’s eyes open and close many times a day. Besides many rumors about spirituality, many people believe that it is due to the erratic temperature changes in the tomb, causing the eyelids to have an opening and closing effect.

The moment Rosalia “opened her eyes” made viewers scared and gave goosebumps.

However, after much research, anthropologist Dario Piombino-Mascali proposed a completely different hypothesis, which many people agree is the most reasonable. It is an optical illusion formed when rays of light shine through the window and through the glass on Rosalia’s mummy’s coffin. As the direction of the light changes, Rosalia appears to blink several times a day.

Dario’s hypothesis has been widely published, but many people still come to visit to witness the magical “blink” moment. In addition, Alfredo Salafia’s secret to embalming is explored and researched by many scientists every year. It wasn’t until 2009 that the mystery was finally solved. Dario himself discovered a handwritten memoir by Alfredo Salafia that clearly stated the mummification process of little Rosalia.

Different from every other technique in the world, Alfredo did not completely remove Rosalia’s internal organs, but filled them with natron salt to dry them. First, he made a small puncture on her body and then injected a mixture of formalin, alcohol, salicylic acid, glycerin and zinc salt inside. The reason he clearly stated in his memoir: formalin kills bacteria, acid prevents mold growth, glycerin maintains a certain humidity, and zinc salt turns Rosalia’s body into stone, blocking the cheeks and cavities. deformed nose.