There’s a montage of cemetery space and graves in Portugal, but the cause has little to do with overpopulation and an increase in deaths. No, Portugal has corpses stacking up in morgues because the ones that are already dead are turning into mummies and refusing to decompose. If this sounds like a new twist on the zombie apocalypse or on the Catholic and Orthodox beliefs that the bodies of some saints don’t decompose, the researchers are open for suggestions because they have no idea why the dead are mysteriously mummifying in Portugal. And brace yourself for the reason why this is causing serious problems for cemeteries, morgues, and families of the deceased.
“This has a social impact, which is quite a big deal for my own country.”
“This,” according to Angela Silva Bessa, a forensic anthropologist from the University of Coimbra who is doing research on Portugal’s cemeteries, is actually a combination of things, starting with a lack of burial space across the country, which became so severe in the late 1950s and early 1960s that a practice was introduced in 1962 called “levantamento dos ossos” or “raising the bones.” Business Insider reports that like most other countries, the Portuguese had long buried their dead in small church graveyards and the parishioners had a longstanding – when new bodies were added to a family plot, the old bones were removed and placed in a common ossuary or tomb.
In earlier times, deceased bodies posed a health risk before the need to exhume arose, but the shortage of space led to the advent of mass burial practices, such as churches and cemeteries allowing that burial plots essentially became reused automatically up to a certain limit before being redeveloped automatically to accommodate new burials, with a 3-to-5-year limit on occupancy before being exhumed automatically due to overcrowding — which could be a niche in the walls of the cemetery or cremated, a less common practice in Portugal. Morbid, yes, but society accepted it and the practice of “raising the bones” worked… until the demand for space became greater. That led to another morbid social impact.
The less time a corpse spends in a grave, the less time it has to decompose. Since families are notified so that they can be present when family members are exhumed and moved, they can view the decomposing remains of loved ones multiple times. Paulo Carreira, chief executive of the national funeral association of Portugal, says families seem to be okay the first time, but it is normal to find the process of “raising the bones” emotionally draining after their death. This is not quite “incorruptibility” – that is the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox belief that the bodies of some saints and holy people do not decay because of a miracle of divine intervention. This doesn’t happen to all saints and is difficult to prove. A recent example was the body of Pope (and saint) John XXIII, whose body was said to be extremely well-preserved when exhumed in 2001 – 38 years after his death – but many attribute it to the fact that it had been embalmed and kept in an airtight coffin.
Imagining going to the grave site of a close relative for the burial of another relative and finding the first one completely preserved many years after their death. This is not quite “incorruptibility” – that is the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox belief that the bodies of some saints and holy people do not decay because of a miracle of divine intervention. This doesn’t happen to all saints and is difficult to prove. A recent example was the body of Pope (and saint) John XXIII, whose body was said to be extremely well-preserved when exhumed in 2001 – 38 years after his death – but many attribute it to the fact that it had been embalmed and kept in an airtight coffin.
Bessa points out that this is obviously nothing like the intentional mummification practiced in ancient Egypt – a process that is only now becoming understood as more mummies are found and better tools for analyzing them without destruction are developed. However, this type of partial mummification is uncommon in Peru and other South American countries where the dry air in the mountains quickly dehydrates and mummifies corpses naturally. Something strange is causing some bodies buried at the same time in the same cemetery to mummify completely or partially, and at different rates in the same environment. Bossa entered her research with a hunch.
That is not a statement on the diet and obesity of the Poruguese by Kkap, but it is close. He says one reason why some of these bodies are mummifying could be variations in size, muscle mass, and fat content. Another could be the variations in the complex ecosystem that is in the soil in different geographical locations in a cemetery (under trees, on a sunlit hill, in a poor drainage area), and between different decomposition stages. Finally, Bossa says the lifestyle of the person, which may have hastened their death, could also have an effect on their after-death – decomposition and mummification may be related to what they ate, whether they smoked or took certain medicines.