In front of the Cathedral we find the Crypt of San Michele where some mummies belonging to a period between the 14th and the 19th century are kept. They were discovered in 1647, during the enlargement works of the Cathedral, but do not expect Egyptian mummies: here man has nothing to do with it. The natural mummification of the Mummies of Venzone is due to particular environmental conditions that occurred in some tombs of the Cathedral in which Hypha bombicina Pers developed, a mould with the property of dehydrating the tissues and inhibiting their decomposition.
The corpses date back to a period ranging from 1348 to 1881, the year in which the cemetery inside the Duomo was reclaimed and placed on the current site, outside the Old Town. The process of mummification of the bodies took place on average within the first year of their burial.
The oldest mummy, the Hunchback, was discovered in 1647 during some work to enlarge the Duomo; the body was found in a fourteenth-century tomb located below the current Cappella del Rosario.
The other mummies date back, instead, to the 18th and 19th centuries.
In 1845, the mummies of Venzone were moved from the Cathedral Crypt to the Upper Chapel and, following the strong earthquake of May 6th 1976, 15 of the 21 mummies kept there were extracted from the ruins of the Rotunda of San Michele; all the bodies were substantially intact.
The Mummies of Venzone are 5 in all.
