胆小慎入！世上最恐怖的干尸博物馆

Visit the grave of a relative in central Mexico and you're just as likely to find their body, writhing in apparent eternal agony, mummified and propped up for the amusement of tourists than resting in peace.

在墨西哥瓜纳华托，人们在墓园吊唁亡故时，可能会看到自己故去的亲友。这些干尸姿态蜷缩扭曲，死前的痛苦被永恒地定格。他们非但不能安息，反而成为游客消遣的对象。

The Guanajuato Mummy Museum, which sees more than 4,000 visitors a week, charges tourists £2 to gape at more than a hundred dried human cadavers, all of which have been disinterred from graves in the cemetery next door.

瓜纳华托干尸博物馆展示100多具干尸，每周至少接待超过4000名游客。而探看这些掘自隔壁公墓的干尸，游客们则要给2英镑 Behind flimsy glass cabinets, the museum displays murder victims, criminals who were buried alive and infants laid to rest dressed up as saints – a Mexican belief that it will ease their passage to heaven.

在玻璃箱里，陈列的遗体死因各异。有谋杀案的被害者、有被活埋的犯人，还有被打扮成圣人模样的婴孩。墨西哥人认为，这么做婴儿容易升天。

'It's terrifying, I feel sick to my stomach,' Peruvian visitor Maria Goncalves told MailOnline in the middle of her group's guided tour. 'It's the terrible expressions the mummies all have that makes it so horrible.'

一名跟团游览此地的秘鲁游客展览看到一半，对MailOnline表示：“这太吓人了，我看得想吐。这些木乃伊脸上恐怖的表情太让人毛骨悚然了。”

The Guanajuato Mummy Museum - owned by the state government - was recently voted as one of Mexico's best tourist attractions by users of one of Mexico's most popular tourism websites.

这家干尸博物馆由州政府运营，近期在墨西哥最火旅游网站的一次网投中，网民们将它选为墨西哥最受游客欢迎的旅游点。

The mummies are a parchment-yellow colour, their dried skin moulding around the bones which lie beneath the surface.

这些木乃伊的皮肤如黄色的羊皮纸，皱皱巴巴地包裹着骨骼。

The thinner areas of skin – such as the eyelids, genitals, cheeks and earlobes – have deteriorated faster, and in most cases little remains but flaky scraps and gaping holes.

像眼皮、生殖器、脸颊、耳垂等部位的皮肤越薄就腐化得越快，大多数情况下，这些部位早已腐蚀破落得仅剩片屑和空洞。

Despite the museum's macabre exhibit, guided tour groups of 15 or more pass through its hallways every ten minutes.

尽管展览主题恐怖阴森，但是参观游人仍然络绎不绝，每10分钟就有一个15人或人数更多的旅行团经过走廊。

'We see even more on weekends,' says Jose Martínez, who sells souvenir sugar effigies of the dried human remains at the museum's exit. 'Usually on Saturdays there's an hour-long wait just to get in.'

在展览馆出口销售糖质干尸肖像纪念品的祖瑟·马丁内斯 The human remains have been preserved due to the method of burial in the Saint Paola Cemetery next door.

这些尸体因为隔壁圣保拉公墓的埋葬方法而得以保存下来。

Corpses, rather than being buried in the ground are sealed inside air-tight crypts, where the lack of oxygen slows the natural rate of decomposition.

尸体是被封存在不透气的地穴中，而非埋在地下。这些地穴中没有氧气，因此减缓了尸体在自然条件下腐烂的速度。

'The bodies dry out rather than putrefy, which leaves them in this state of mummification', says Jesús Saltillo, one of the tour guides at the museum.

“尸体被风干而非腐烂，使它们变成了如今木乃伊的状态。”展览馆导游约瑟斯·萨尔提略 Many of the corpses are so well preserved that their eyebrows, beards and fingernails are still intact.

许多的尸体连睫毛、胡须和指甲等都保存完好。

Nearly all of the mummies mouths are gaping open, a result of the hardening of the tongue and slackening of the jaw muscles following death.

由于死后舌头变僵，颔肌变松，几乎每具干尸的嘴都张得大大的。

'It leaves them all with an expression as if they were experiencing terrible pain,' says Jesús, 'but the vast majority died peacefully.'

“他们脸上表情就像他们当时正经历巨大的苦痛，但是大部分人都走得非常平静。”约瑟斯说。

Those mummies who didn't die 'Holy Deaths' – as the Mexicans describe the act of dying in one's sleep – are displayed in a separate section of the exhibit.

至于那些走得“不太平和”的遗体，则被另外放置在独立的展区内。墨西哥人将那些在睡梦中安息的人称为“走得平静”。

One glass case in this area contains three agonised mummies: a man whose fatal stab wound to his abdomen is still a visible puncture in his parchment-yellow skin, a drowned man whose rigour mortis set his writhing legs in the form of a frog's, and an unmarried pregnant woman who was buried alive by her own family, her screaming face covered by skeletal hands.

在这里的一个玻璃柜里展示了三具痛苦的尸体：一具被捅致死的男尸，腹部的伤口在其羊皮纸般蜡黄的皮肤上依然可见；一具溺亡的男尸身体僵化，身躯蜷曲成青蛙的模样；还有一具被家人活埋的未婚妈妈的尸体，她干枯的手捂着其惊恐尖叫的面孔。

The Saint Paola Cemetery, the museum's source of mummified remains next door, is made up of entire walls of individual crypts, seven tombs high. Those which are occupied are bricked up from the outside and sealed with a placard denoting its occupant.

展示隔壁公墓干尸的圣保拉公墓由一整面墙的墓穴组成，足足有七块墓碑那么高。当遗体放入后，人们用砖和布告将墓穴密封。

When a family's lease on their loved one's crypt expires, they are given five days to renew the payment (£95 for twenty years).

当一家的亡故者在墓穴寄放的租约到期时，家属将有5天时间可以需交费用(20年交95英镑)。

If they choose not to pay, the body is removed and given to the museum's curator for inspection. If the curator finds it's condition good enough to appeal to the huge numbers of visitors his museum receives, it is added to the collection.

如果他们选择不续约，则这些遗体会被移交给展览馆长接受“检阅”，如果馆长认为尸体情况足够好，将对数量可观的游人有吸引力，则会将遗体加入馆藏。

If rejected, the body is sent to a common grave on the outskirts of town.

但家属要是拒绝的话，遗体则会被送往城郊的普通墓地。

The first ever mummy to be disinterred was Remigio Leroy, known as the 'French Doctor', who died during a visit to Guanajuato in the 19th century.

第一具被发掘出的干尸是著名的“法国医生”——勒罗伊·雷米吉尔 The Frenchman's body was released after twenty years inside a crypt in 1865, when the owners were amazed to find his almost-perfect preservation.

他的遗体在地窖里放置了20年，直到1865年被出土时，地窖主人惊喜地发现了他保存完好的尸体。

His condition, complete with the clothes he still wears for visitors today, aroused so much excitement in the mining town that the cemetery began to collect other well-preserved corpses for display, eventually establishing the dedicated museum in the 1950s.

他的尸体被完好地保存下来，如今游客仍能看到他当时穿的衣服。他的出土为这个矿山小镇吸引了大量的游客，这也促使公墓开始收集保存其他完好的遗体，最终在上世纪50年代开办了干尸博览馆。

The museum is renowned for its ownership of the smallest mummy in the world – a four-month old foetus of a woman who fell victim to a cholera outbreak in the 1860s.

这家博物馆还因这里有世界上最小的木乃伊而闻名——一具四个月大的胎儿，他被从一名19世纪60年代死于霍乱的女人子宫中取出。

The most recent addition to the collection was Baby Enrico, an infant who died at six months of age in 1999.

而最近新增的展品则是1999年六个月大死去的婴儿——恩里克 Following the expiration of his crypt's five-year lease, the museum removed him in 2004 and chose to add his body to the collection, thanks to his parents' decision to dress his corpse up as Saint Bartholomew. His green and yellow tunic and wooden halo are one of the more popular mummified bodies in the museum.

五年租约期满后，2004年，恩里克从窖里被“抱”了出来。由于他的父母决定将他打扮成圣巴塞洛缪的模样——身着黄绿长袍，头顶木质光环，博物馆将其收入馆内。这样的打扮使他成为馆中受欢迎的木乃伊之一。

'His parents still come to visit him,' museum guide Jesús tells a horrified tour group made up of Mexicans and Canadians. 'They couldn't afford the cemetery fees any longer, but they occasionally come here to see him.'

博物馆讲解员约瑟斯对一个由墨西哥和加拿大游客组成，被吓得不轻的旅行团说：“他的父母仍然常来探望他。尽管他们付不起公墓的费用，但是他们偶尔会来这里看望他。”

Baby Enrico is the second exhibit in the 'Baby Room', where five infants - all less than a year old - are lined up, each in climate controlled display cases, dressed as they were found when their crypts were broken into.

和恩里克一块在“育婴室”展出的，还有另外四名均不到一岁的婴儿。他们躺在控温箱内，穿着墓室到期时，所穿的衣服。

'Little Saint Martin', the final infant in the exhibit, who died at birth and was never formally named, was dressed by his parents as Saint Martin, complete with broom, rosary and homespun cassock, in the hope that his outfit might recommend him to a peaceful afterlife.

小圣马丁是系列展的最后一名婴儿，他出生就死了，离世的时候甚至还没取好名字。小圣马丁的父母把他打扮成圣马丁，穿着朴素的袈裟、放上扫帚、念珠，希望这些服饰能让他获得一个平和的来生。

Arturo Tabares, Guanajuato government head spokesperson, defended the museum. He said: 'The museum is an important part of Guanajuato's tourist appeal. The museum breaks no laws in displaying its exhibit to visitors, who are given fair warning of its graphic contents.

'We have a different cultural approach to death in Mexico, here we celebrate the cycle of life and accept death as inevitable. 99% of the visitors leave the experience pleased with what they saw.'

瓜纳华托政府发言人负责人阿图罗·塔巴瑞斯说：“这座博览馆是瓜纳华托重要的重要旅游名胜，它展出的所有展品并不违法，对参观者也有合理的提醒。在墨西哥，我们的文化对死有不一样的看法，我们赞颂生命的轮回并且接受死亡不可避免的特性。99%的游客都对这这种体验表示满意。”

Vocabulary

mummify: 将……做成木乃伊

cadaver: 尸体

disinter: 发掘

parchment: 羊皮纸

genital: 生殖器

effigy: 肖像

putrefy: 腐烂

slacken: 松弛