British scientists hope to unlock 200-year-old secrets of the Capuchin Catacombs in Sicily, southern Italy, by using X-ray technology to analyse the remains of some of the 163 children laid to rest there.
The first ever comprehensive study of mummified children in Sicily's famous burial catacombs in the city of Palermo is being led by Staffordshire University.
The Capuchin Catacombs, which hold more than 1,280 skeletonised and mummified bodies, are open to the public as a somewhat macabre tourist attraction.
Bodies dating from the late 16th to early 20th century are still dressed in period refinery and line corridors and crypts of the underground cemetery.
The catacombs include the embalmed body of Rosalia Lombardo, a young Sicilian girl who died of pneumonia brought on by the Spanish flu in 1920.
THE CAPUCHIN CATACOMBS
The Capuchin Catacombs contain more than 1,280 skeletonised and mummified bodies.
Palermo's Capuchin monastery outgrew its original cemetery in the 16th century and monks began to excavate crypts below it.
In 1599 they mummified one of their number, recently dead brother Silvestro of Gubbio, and placed him into the catacombs.
The cemetery was first reserved for ecclesiastical workers, then accepted deceased from all walks of life, and experienced its greatest popularity during the 19th century.
An inscription hanging from the neck or pinned to the chest, indicates the name, birth and death dates of the deceased.
The cemetery was officially closed by civil order in 1880, but the last burials are from the 1920s.
The cemetery has now become a kind of museum filled with the forgotten dead, who are watched over by a group of Capuchin monks.
Dr Kirsty Squires, associate professor of bioarchaeology, and her team at Staffordshire have been given exclusive access to a previously unstudied collection of children's mummies at the catacombs.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council has awarded more than £70,000 funding for the two-year project, which kicks off later this month.
'Work actually starts next week, which is very exciting,' Dr Squires told MailOnline.
'Data collection will take a week and then we will carry out archival research in the following week while in Palermo. All images collected will be analysed over the coming months.'
There are at least 163 children's bodies housed in the catacombs, including 41 children located in a designated room for children – the so-called 'child chapel'.
However, very little is known about these individuals, and death records from the period contain limited information, such as just the name of the deceased and date of death.
Dr Squires and her team will examine all 41 children housed in the child chapel who died between 1787 and 1880 using a portable digital direct X-ray machine.
'We are analysing 41 juveniles as we cannot gain access to the remaining individuals as they are located throughout the catacombs and are inaccessible,' Dr Squires told MailOnline. 'We are focusing on individual's in the children’s crypt.'
The X-ray machine will capture digital images of each child from head to toe. It is a non-invasive alternative to destructive techniques such as autopsy.
In total, 574 radiographs will be taken to generate a biological profile of the mummified children to establish whether mummification was reserved for specific children based on factors such as their age and sex.
Radiographs will also detect the presence of developmental defects, stress indicators and pathological lesions, which aims to gain an insight into the health and lifestyle of the children when alive.
'Determining whether children buried in the catacombs suffered environmental stresses on their body can inform us of living conditions and the environments in which they lived,' Dr Squires said.
SKELETON OR MUMMY?
The Capuchin Catacombs contain more than 1,280 skeletonised and mummified bodies.
Skeletonised remains have decayed right down to the bone.
Mummies, meanwhile, are bodies where soft tissue still survives.
One example of a mummy is the remarkably-preserved body of Rosalia Lombardo, a young Sicilian girl who died of pneumonia brought on by the Spanish flu in 1920.
THE CAPUCHIN CATACOMBS
The Capuchin Catacombs contain more than 1,280 skeletonised and mummified bodies.
Palermo's Capuchin monastery outgrew its original cemetery in the 16th century and monks began to excavate crypts below it.
In 1599 they mummified one of their number, recently dead brother Silvestro of Gubbio, and placed him into the catacombs.
The cemetery was first reserved for ecclesiastical workers, then accepted deceased from all walks of life, and experienced its greatest popularity during the 19th century.
An inscription hanging from the neck or pinned to the chest, indicates the name, birth and death dates of the deceased.
The cemetery was officially closed by civil order in 1880, but the last burials are from the 1920s.
The cemetery has now become a kind of museum filled with the forgotten dead, who are watched over by a group of Capuchin monks.
Dr Kirsty Squires, associate professor of bioarchaeology, and her team at Staffordshire have been given exclusive access to a previously unstudied collection of children's mummies at the catacombs.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council has awarded more than £70,000 funding for the two-year project, which kicks off later this month.
'Work actually starts next week, which is very exciting,' Dr Squires told MailOnline.
'Data collection will take a week and then we will carry out archival research in the following week while in Palermo. All images collected will be analysed over the coming months.'
There are at least 163 children's bodies housed in the catacombs, including 41 children located in a designated room for children – the so-called 'child chapel'.
However, very little is known about these individuals, and death records from the period contain limited information, such as just the name of the deceased and date of death.
Dr Squires and her team will examine all 41 children housed in the child chapel who died between 1787 and 1880 using a portable digital direct X-ray machine.
'We are analysing 41 juveniles as we cannot gain access to the remaining individuals as they are located throughout the catacombs and are inaccessible,' Dr Squires told MailOnline. 'We are focusing on individual's in the children’s crypt.'
The X-ray machine will capture digital images of each child from head to toe. It is a non-invasive alternative to destructive techniques such as autopsy.
In total, 574 radiographs will be taken to generate a biological profile of the mummified children to establish whether mummification was reserved for specific children based on factors such as their age and sex.
Radiographs will also detect the presence of developmental defects, stress indicators and pathological lesions, which aims to gain an insight into the health and lifestyle of the children when alive.
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