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For a small fee, you can tour the underground catacombs of the Capuchin monastery in Palermo, Sicily, where 2,000 well-dressed but decaying bodies, mostly from the 19th c., are on display. Nobody knows exactly why they have been preserved.
From the February issue of National Geographic:
“Their jaws hang open in silent yowls, rotting teeth grin with menace, eye sockets stare bleakly, shreds of hard skin cling to shrunken cheeks and arthritic knuckles. These people are mostly small, their arms crossed as they sag against the wire and nails that hold them upright, their heads lolling on shoulders, bodies slowly collapsing with the effort of imitating a past life…”
