Mummy 2
The Torricellan Mummy A “Bailiff” the mummified body which has come to light during restoration work at Saint James’s Church. This sixteenth Century find is of scientific, cultural and historic interest. By Luigi Copertino Many inhabitants of Torricella have been able to see with their own eyes a mummified body that was dug up more than a year ago during restoration work on the foundations of the town’s Mother The administrators’ intended to ensure that an important moment in Torricella’s history was preserved, both with regards to cultural identity and from the scientific point of view, whilst at the same time sorting out the mummy with all the due care, respect and “sanctity” due to a human being, albeit dead, (who, since we are dealing with a man from the 16th Century, and considering his place of burial, had certainly been comforted in life by all the Christian sacraments).
We might be able to discover, moreover, the blood group the mummy in question had in life and also, from studying the contents of his stomach and intestines, we might be able to learn more about the food eaten at that time by the ancestors of today’s Torricellans. Other facts could be extracted by studying intestinal parasites, the hair etc. From a cultural and historic point of view, always provided that the research As the reader will certainly have noticed, up to here we have used the conditional tense and have noted several times that the early research might continue. And this precisely is the problem, that is, unfortunately, research has been interrupted more than anything due to a lack of funds. We feel, therefore, the need to appeal not only to all public bodies, the Commune, the Mountain Community, the Government Department of Antiquities, etc., but also to all interested private individuals and especially to the inhabitants of Torricella Peligna, because it deals with their cultural and anthropomorphic history, to ensure that the requisite finances be found, as soon as possible, necessary both for continuing scientific research and also for settling the mummy in a vacuum reliquary with dignity and respect, as had been the original intentions of the Commune’s Administration. We have said “as soon as possible” because now it is a race against time, since, in it’s present provisional state, there is a strong risk that the mummy might start to putrefy and thus to decompose. The only alternative to conservation, whether by private or public funds, would be to bury the mummy in the Torricella cemetery in an anonymous tomb. This would mean that Torricella would lose this precious chance to investigate its roots more deeply; which is not, as it might apparently seem, merely historic curiosity. © Amici di Torricella Anno II – N. 3 – dicembre 1990 Translation courtesy of Dr. Marion Apley Porreca |