Are the mummies on reality TV for real?

MANILA, Philippines - The strange and the occult have always interested us even as we had never consciously or deliberately sought them out. Recently, however, it almost seemed they appeared to be pursuing us across the continents. By they, we mean mummies, defined as cadaver which by natural or artificial means have remained in a state of preservation long after death.

Our basic familiarity with mummies comes from our very own Kabayan burial caves of 500-year old Ifugao mummies, maintained by the tribes in the desire to preserve their loved ones forever.

On a trip to Mexico City last month, possibly the most interesting aspect of our journey was driving out with best buddy Marlon Pedregosa four hours away to Guanajuato known for its underground labryrinthian roads as well as the Cervantino Arts & Music festival in honor of Miguel de Cervantes every October. To us, however, top attraction was its amazing Mummy Museum of 111 mummies exhumed by gravediggers from 1865 to 1958.

Given the Mexican inordinate interest in cadavers (note the annual Oct 22-Nov 2 Festival of Skulls to celebrate All Saints Day with masks of skulls), there must have been great rejoicing with the Guanajuato discoveries confirmed by scientists worldwide as the only ones conserved through natural process after having their crypts exposed to sulphur and other minerals for centuries. At the museum where they remain displayed enclosed in glass, we couldn’t quite fathom how they had been preserved complete with clothing, shoes, dentures, including a new born child.

Smallest child mummy at Guanajuato

The Guanajuato mummies became so famous what with television exposure throughout the world (National Geographic Channel among others) and their tour of the US in 2009 starting with Detroit Science Center at the cost of US$2 million. We thought to ourself, if the mummies could have survived centuries of peace and quiet in their preserved almost alive condition, how would they be able to survive the glare of reality television lights and cameras?

Hardly had we returned home when what would confront us but an exhibition of cadavers preserved for life through a tedious plastination technique invented by German anatomist Dr. Gunther von Hagens in the ’70s at the University of Heidelberg? Clearly, unlike the Guanajuato mummies preserved naturally, these plastinates are mummies preserved artificially.

When Gunther put his mummies on display in London 2003 under the title Body Worlds, his plastinates displayed in engaging “heroic” poses became a big hit even as he performed the first public autopsy in Britain after 170 years to great controversy. Since then, Gunther who is said to be much like a mad scientist soon realized the impact of his discovery. He expanded to travelling shows all over North America, Europe, and the world; put up the world’s largest Institute of Anatomy on the Polish border near Berlin; set up factories to produce new cadavers to keep up with the demand of the travelling shows.

Then television discovered him and with his innate showmanship he made use of the medium to market his Body Worlds exhibitions. Since appearing in a TV documentary in 1994, he started appearing in various Tv shows; in Ripley’s Believe it or Not in 2001; in the 2005 X Rated: Top 20 Most Controversial TV Moments; and in 2007 introduced his TV series on Channel 4 Autopsy: Emergency Room where he shows the impact of accidents on a genuine corpse stabbed or involved in a car crash.

One of the 111 mummies preserved naturally

Naturally, there are many criticisms – that he is only out to make money, that he is trampling on the human rights of the deceased, that the bodies in his exhibitions are taken from executed prisoners and inmates without consent. Gunther has faced all these armed with his desire “to show the human body as it has never been shown before… to democratize anatomy.” Charging that before his time, anatomy books had no lifelike poses, he claims to have now given anatomy life.

At this first occasion in the Philippines, Gunther’s exhibition retitled Myth of the Human Body (NeoBabylon Bldg., 9 Bayani Road, Taguig, Tel 8891724/ 8805467, contact Rose Gamban) is nevertheless a product of a man’s genius or lunacy. And whichever way one would view it, medical students, curious folk, or people like us who have been called to view the exhibition have found value in Gunther’s plastinates that he has attracted numerous numbers to become donors. Latest count was almost 10,000, some of them even wackier than Gunther could ever be, dreaming to be “skinned, posed, and proud once dead and admired by generations to come.”

Coming out of the unbelievable Myth of the Human Body exhibition on until April next year, we had no other recourse but to head for the movie house then showing Adele: Rise of the Mummy. This breezy light French comedy from graphic novelist Jacques Tardi, Grand Prix winner in an international competition for comics illustrators, is brought to life by international director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element), and given slightly daffy interpretation by Louise Bourgoin who kidnaps a band of mummies from the Paris Museum to bring to life her beloved sister who sits in bed staring blankly into space.

But naturally, only a comic-based fantasy adventure could end our romp into the world of mummies with its celebration of the incredible. After the tongue-in-cheek Adele, the mummies have fittingly stopped pursuing our sleeping and waking hours. But it was fantastic while it lasted. And now back to boring reality.

(Email the author at [email protected])