'Van Gogh' Mummy Found In Spanish Church

In the Spanish Church of the Assumption of Our Lady archaeologists found more than 30 mummified bodies. One of which closely resembled Van Gogh's face in his famous self-portrait.

The mummy has been impressively preserved according to bignews2day.com. The person, whose real name has not been known, is one of the mummified bodies that were found in the church in the village of Quinto, near Zaragoza while restoration work was done on the church. Assumption of Our Lady

The workers involved in the church restoration were surprised to see 30 mummified bodies, some were in very good states of preservation, appeared from the partly opened wooden coffins. The mummified bodies which consisted of 11 adults and 24 children were then stored in a chapel of the church, wrapped in cloths, and waiting for examination, Discovery News reported.

In 2014, a project was launched to study and restore the collection unearthed in the church and a lab was created at the site.  "The project is still ongoing. We have begun with five mummies, two adults and three children," Mercedes González, director of the Instituto de Estudios Científicos en Momias in Madrid.

The bodies were naturally mummified all thanks to the very dry soil of the area. The bodies were believed to be dated from the late 18^th until mid-19^th century, based on their clothing. Some male mummies even wore monk clothes. "In Spain it was very common for people to be buried with habits of a religious order. Some of these mummies wear Franciscan habits, but they are not monks," González said.

However, actual monks were buried barefoot, while the mummies of Quinto wore espadrilles, a kind of shoe typical of the Aragon region. "They are made of straw and cotton and were used by peasants," González said. Some mummies' hair and beard were also perfectly preserved which amazed people who found them. "Hair usually maintains very well in dry environments, especially if there are no insects such as Dermestidae, or skin beetles," González said.

The mummy resembling to Van Gogh, was believed to be in his 40's when he died, is one of those who were clothed in Francsican habits. However, only little is known about him, his diseases and what caused his death.  "We are waiting for the results of histological analysis that were sent to several international institutions in Italy, Korea, Nebraska and Brazil," González said.

She said that in the region of Aragon, to which Quinto belongs, there were several epidemics, and in the 18th century, smallpox and yellow fever ravaged the region, while in the 19th century epidemics of cholera claimed many lives.

Raffaella Bianucci, a bio-anthropologist in the Legal Medicine Section at the University of Turin said that the mummies' excellent state of preservation allows a minimally invasive, in-depth study of skeletal and soft tissue pathologies.

"Should it be confirmed that some of them died from cholera, an investigations should be carried out to identify historical cholera strains that might provide information on the microevolution of the bacterium Vibrio cholerae," Bianucci said.