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Rosalia Lombardo in 1995

Rosalia LombardoFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rosalia Lombardo was an Italian child born in 1918 inPalermo, Sicily. She died of pneumonia on December 6,1920. Rosalia's father, General Lombardo, was sorely

grieved upon her death, so he approached Alfredo Salafia, anoted embalmer, to preserve her.[1] Her body was one of thelast corpses to be admitted to the Capuchin catacombs ofPalermo in Sicily.

Contents

1 Embalming2 Technique

3 References 4 External links

Embalming

Thanks to Salafia's embalming techniques, the body waswell-preserved. X-rays of the body show that all the organs

are remarkably intact.[2] Rosalia Lombardo's body is kept ina small chapel at the end of the catacomb's tour and isencased in a glass covered coffin, placed on a marble

pedestal. A 2009 National Geographic photograph of Rosalia Lombardo shows the mummy is beginningto show signs of decomposition, most notably discoloration. [3] To address these issues the mummy wasmoved to a new drier spot in the catacombs, and her original coffin was placed in a hermetically sealed

glass enclosure with nitrogen gas to prevent decay.[4] The mummy of Rosalia Lombardo has since beenremoved from its hermetically sealed enclosure and returned to its original location alongside two otherchild mummies. The mummy is one of the best preserved bodies in the catacombs.

Technique

Recently, the mummification techniques used by Salafia were discovered in a handwritten memoir of

Salafia's. Salafia replaced the girl's blood with a liquid made of formalin to kill bacteria, alcohol to drythe body, glycerin to keep her from overdrying, salicylic acid to kill fungi, and zinc salts to give her

body rigidity.[5][6][7] Accordingly, the formula's composition is "one part glycerin, one part formalinsaturated with both zinc sulfate and chloride, and one part of an alcohol solution saturated with salicylic

acid."[8]

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References

Dario Piombino-Mascali, 2009. Il Maestro del Sonno Eterno. Presentazione di Arthur C. Aufderheide.Prefazione di Albert R. Zink. Edizioni La Zisa, Palermo.

^ National Geographic magazine, Feb 2009, p.1241.^ National Geographic magazine, Feb 2009, p.1502.^ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/images/090126-sicilly-mummy_big.jpg3.^ "The Girl in the Glass Casket | National GeographicChannel" (http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/the-girl-in-the-glass-casket-5908/Overview) .Channel.nationalgeographic.com. http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/the-girl-in-the-glass-casket-5908/Overview. Retrieved April 24, 2011.

4.

^ "Lost "Sleeping Beauty" Mummy FormulaFound" (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090126-sicily-mummy.html) .News.nationalgeographic.com. October 28, 2010. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090126-sicily-mummy.html. Retrieved April 24, 2011.

5.

^ "Einbalsamierung: Forscher lsen Rtsel der makellosen Mumie - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten -Wissenschaft" (http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,623616,00.html) . Spiegel.de.http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,623616,00.html. Retrieved April 24, 2011.

6.

^ Piombino-Mascali D, Aufderheide AC, Johnson-Williams M, Zink AR (March 2009). "The Salafia methodrediscovered". Virchows Arch.454 (3): 3557. doi:10.1007/s00428-009-0738-6 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fs00428-009-0738-6) . PMID 19205728 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19205728) .

7.

^ http://resources.metapress.com/pdf-preview.axd?code=r7872811t0124524&size=largest8.

External links

Original photograph (https://reader009.{domain}/reader009/html5/0509/5af271596d2bf/5af2715e7

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalia_Lombardo"Categories: births1918 | 1920 deaths | Mummies | (city)People from Palermo

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