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This Little Girl Has Been Dead For 100 Years. But She Still Blinks Her Eyes In Her Coffin
Rosalia Lombardo
Rosalia Lombardo died at the age of two in 1920 from pneumonia. Her death left her father dejected, who failed to face reality and strove to take measures for preservation. Approaching a noted embalmer, he decided to go for mummification.
Alfredo Salafia was a skilled professional who tactfully performed Rosalia Lombardo’s embalming so well that even after 100 years of her death, she appears nothing but a sleeping beauty.
Impeccable Preservation
She has been mummified in the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, Italy, where she lies beneath the glass case and simply seems to be dozing off. Tourists remain in awe with her little stiff puffy cheeks, blonder tufts of hair wrapped above her head, tied by silk bow.
Scientists carried an x-ray scan which revealed her all internal organs to be intact. How was Alfredo Salafia able to achieve such mastery? Well, because his work didn’t take a typical approach in preserving the mummy.
He was able to keep Rosalia’s body in impeccable condition because of a secret formula he used. Documents found in 2009 with Alfredo’s relatives revealed the procedure he followed.
Instead of removing the internal organs and filling the empty cavities with natron salts for desiccating the body, Salafia created a puncture in Rosalia’s body. The punctured body was injected with glycerin, formalin, zinc salt, alcohol, and salicylic acid.
The ingredients were carefully selected because each carried out a unique, specified, and useful job. Formalin was responsible for killing bacteria, glycerin for disabling desiccation, salicylic for wiping out flesh fungi, and zinc for offering rigidity. It is due to the magic of zinc that her cheeks didn’t cave in.
The unprecedented efforts of Alfredo Salafia have made Rosalia Lombardo remembered as one of the best-preserved mummies.
The Creepy Mystery
But it is not only the sleeping beauty’s reputed preservation that attracts eyeballs, but it is mummy’s unusual behavior of blinking the eyes. Tourists swear by the strange mystery…
