The Preservation Secret of Rosalia Lombardo – The Beautiful Mummy

The body of Rosalia Lombardo, two years old girl from Palermo, Sicily who died in 1920 still looks intact. She was thought to have pneumonia which caused her death. Her body is well preserved and she looks as if she were sleeping, and this made her named “Sleeping Beauty”. Rosalia's body is kept in a small chapel and is encased in a glass covered coffin, placed on a marble pedestal in Palermo, Sicily.

The concoction made the mummy looks fresh has been a secret for years. However, Dario Piombino-Mascali - a biology anthropologist from Institute for Mummies and the Iceman has found the exact concoction that was used Rosalia’s preservation.

He searched the material used to preserve Rosalia from the family and close relatives of Alfredo Salafia, a taxidermist who died in 1993. Lately, the formula was found from a handwritten memoir of Salafia's. The formula apparently consisted of formalin to kill bacteria, alcohol to dry the body, glycerin to keep her from over drying, salicylic acid to kill fungi, and the most important ingredient, zinc salts to give the body rigidity.

Formalin has been known as the material for preserving bodies. It kills all bacteria which cause the bodies rotten. Salafia has been the founder of that preservative. Overall, the key of Rosalia’s body preservation success is the zinc salts which can make the body rigidity so that you can lift up the mummy from the coffin and let it stands up!