Because the mummies had been laid to rest with their arms across their bodies and were now propped upright, it appeared as if they were in frozen states of disembowelment, trying to hold in their desiccated innards. There were also baby mummies with mouths contorted by rigor mortis into ghoulish scowls, still wearing their tiny lace burial dresses. One of the mummies, Ignacia Aguilar, had suffered from a strange illness which caused her heart to occasionally stop, sometimes for as long as a day at a time. On one such occasion, thinking she had died, her relatives buried her. When she was disinterred, her mummy was found facing down, biting her arm, with blood in her mouth. She appeared to be gripping her hands together and pushing up with her back against the now-invisible coffin. The exertion was etched for eternity into her muscles.

But the most popular mummy of the museum by far happened to be the smallest ever found in the world — the fetus from a pregnant woman who died of cholera. A scrum of visitors crowded around the small vitrine taking photos. I couldn’t bear to get up close to it. From a distance it looked like a thumb. Later, in the gift shop, amidst various Day of the Dead trinkets and painted skulls, I noticed they were selling necklaces, key chains, and colourful erasers in the shape of this little mummy fetus.