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There were tens of thousands of elegant mummies beneath a monastery.
In Sicily, the relationship between the living and the dead is particularly strong. Tourists in Palermo can experience this unique cultural phenomenon at the Capuchin Monastery. From the exterior, nothing hints to the strange attraction within: an expansive network of catacombs filled with around 8,000 corpses preserved in their Sunday apparel. In other parts of Western culture, the long-dead are typically kept hidden away from view; however, at this monastery the opposite is true. Here visitors can pass freely among these mummified bodies--the only thing separating them being a small rope with a sign asking for respect.
