Spending time in a museum does not usually bring us any negative emotions However, in rare cases, the opposite is also true. There are such museums on the planet, visiting of which is not recommended for the faint of heart - such terrible exhibits are presented in them.
THE FACES OF DEATH OF THE MUMMY MUSEUM
The Mummy Museum in the Mexican town of Guanajuato is not for the faint of heart. Unlike classical Egyptian mummies, the exhibits of this museum amaze with a variety of faces of death, the distorted facial expressions of some mummies even suggest that people were buried alive.
No one embalmed these mummies, they formed naturally at the local cemetery due to too dry soil. Dead bodies were subjected to rapid and severe dehydration, which preserved them from decomposition.
This museum was formed by chance. In the second half of the 19th century, a law was passed, according to which the relatives of the deceased in the cemetery had to pay a tax on eternal burial. If the tax was not paid, the remains of the deceased were removed.
The law and forced exhumation were in effect from 1865 to 1958. It should be noted that not all recovered bodies were mummified, apparently, the conditions in different parts of the cemetery (dryness of the soil, its composition, proximity groundwater etc.) contributed to the preservation of the bodies in different ways.
All the mummified bodies found during the exhumation were kept by the cemetery workers in a separate building. Already in late XIX centuries, these mummies began to attract the attention of travelers, they began to charge a fee for their inspection. The official date of the museum's formation is considered to be 1969, when the mummies were exhibited in special glass cases.
In total, the museum has collected more than a hundred mummies, mostly women's mummies, there are also about two dozen children's and several men's. Among the children's mummies, individual specimens stand out, which are considered the smallest mummies on the planet.
There are a lot of very creepy mummies in the museum, at the sight of which impressionable young ladies almost lose their senses. Of all the mummies, only 59 are on display. Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit the museum every year.
THE SOULS OF THE DEAD ARE ALWAYS NEAR?
In the sacristy of the Italian church Del Sacro Cuore del Suffraggio in Rome, there is a small museum, the exhibits of which testify to the presence of the souls of dead people on earth. The beginning of this Museum of the Dead Souls was laid in 1912 thanks to the church rector.
For a long time only one exhibit was kept in the museum - a nightcap with traces of ghost fingers smeared with soot. These traces, according to local legend, left the ghost of Louise le Seneschel. Her husband, after the death of his wife, began to lead quite wild image life and completely forgot about the prescribed mourning, so she came to him from the other world to remind him of decency.
On the night of May 7, 1873, the ghost of Louise pulled off the cap from the head of Mr. le Seneschel and pinched his nose several times very painfully ...
Over time, others have been added to this exhibit. On this moment the museum already has more than a hundred different artifacts, including clothes, underwear, books and other items with fingerprints, soles and other marks left by the souls of the dead. All this is material evidence of the real existence of ghosts.
If you want to visit this museum, remember that it is usually closed. To view the exposition, you need to contact the local priest. By the way, according to the testimonies of tourists who visited the museum, it is useless to take pictures in it - spirits spoil almost all the pictures ...
NATURAL HORROR "THE TOWER OF THE CRAZY"
The Museum of Pathological Anatomy in Vienna (Austria) is located in a 5-storey tower building, in which in the 18th century there was a clinic for violent lunatics, hence the second name of the museum - "The Tower of Madmen".
Although mentally ill people have long disappeared from this building, many museum visitors, having not yet seen its exhibits, already feel some oppressive “aura” of its thick walls, as if saturated with negativity and unhealthy emotions.
The exhibits of the creepy museum will not add to the mood. Weak-hearted people are immediately advised to refrain from visiting it.
What is so terrible can be seen in the "Tower of the Mad"? The exposition includes canned heads, corpses with various developmental anomalies and mutations, babies drunk in alcohol with terrible pathologies.
Organs of patients with venereal diseases, alcoholics and smokers are displayed here. They say they are very useful to see people suffering bad habits, and those who are illegible in their connections.
One of the most valuable exhibits of the museum is the alcoholized head of the murderer of Empress Sisi. Perhaps the only exhibit that does not cause negative emotions is an old mahogany gynecological chair.
MUSEUM OF MEDICAL HISTORY MUTTER
Museum medical history Mutter in Philadelphia (USA) presents an extensive collection of medical pathologies and antique medical equipment to the attention of visitors. There are no less terrible exhibits here than in the Museum of Pathological Anatomy in Vienna, so it is better for especially impressionable people to refrain from examining it.
The Mutter Museum was opened in early 1750 by Benjamin Franklin, at first its unusual collection was used only for scientific research and educational purposes. Now this museum can be visited by anyone.
Among its exhibits is widely known famous collection human skulls (48 copies) of various sizes and shapes. One of the most important exhibits of the museum is the body of a woman, turned into soap due to the unusual conditions of her burial place.
Here you can also see the famous Siamese twins Chan and Yen Bunkers with a joint liver, the skeletons of Siamese twins fused with their heads, the skeleton of a two-headed child, many canned internal organs with various pathologies.
Of great interest to tourists is one of the main exhibits of the museum - Harry Eastlack. This man suffered from fibrodysplasia ossificans during his lifetime, a very rare disease characterized by the formation of bone growths at the site of a bruise or wound. Eastlack died at the age of more than forty, before that he bequeathed his skeleton to the museum.
In addition to the skeleton of this unfortunate man, the museum presents a number of his lifetime photographs. Another exhibit, quite shocking to visitors, is a conjoined female fetus in a glass cubic jar.
TORTURED WITH THE DEVIL'S FANTASY
There are several torture museums in the world, but two of them are considered especially terrible - in The Hague (Netherlands) and in the city of Mdina (Malta). The first of them is also called the "Gate of Prisoners", the main exhibit in it is an ancient casemate of the XIII century, in which torture actually took place.
Its walls seem to be saturated with unbearable pain and horror, especially sensitive people fainting often occurs here during the excursion. The museum displays an impressive arsenal of various instruments of torture, and the guide's story is full of detailed details of their use.
The Museum of Torture in Mdina is considered unsurpassed in terms of its impact on visitors. It is located in the basement, descending into which you immediately stumble upon decapitated people, hangmen, a rack and various instruments of torture. Among the latter are a vise for squeezing the skull, tongs for tearing out nails, and other inventions of executors who possessed a truly diabolical fantasy.
Here are shown scenes of various tortures, the characters of which, made of wax, look very naturalistic. These museums are not recommended for the faint of heart, pregnant women and children.
Anatomical museums are invariably of great interest to tourists. When museums of history or arts do not arouse sufficient interest, then before the upcoming vacation, you should choose an exposition that will really touch the living
Museum Vrolik
Provocative Museum Museum Vrolik (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) was founded by father and son Vrolik. Translated from Anglo-Dutch, the word "vrolik" means "fervent", for this reason the museum received such a strange name
Gerardas Vrolik, and William Vrolik were professors of medicine and studied mutations in humans. They collected huge collection mutations, which eventually turned into a museum. The exhibits include Siamese twins, children of the Cyclopes, two-headed monsters. ##dy-mutants of various stripes make an indelible impression on visitors
The Human Body Exhibition
The Human Body Exhibition, or exhibition of the human body, was first exhibited in Florida in 2005 and has since been held in many cities around the world.
The geography of the exhibition is more than impressive: Winnipeg, Dublin, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Atlanta, Vienna, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Montreal, Niagara Falls (Ontario), Bogota, Cordoba, Barcelona, Cincinnati, Santiago de Chile, Sao Paulo , Prague, Bratislava, Sofia, Zagreb, Budapest, Belgrade, Lisbon, Atlantic City, San Diego, Las Vegas, New York, San Antonio, Washington, Omaha, Honolulu, Indianapolis, Phoenix, Sacramento, Tucson, Cleveland , Seattle, Detroit, Riga, Warsaw, Puerto Rico, Ljubljana, and Boise, Haifa, as well as Houston, Tegucigalpa, San Salvador (El Salvador), Bucharest, London. Embalmed human bodies, dissected in such a way as to show on the one hand the complexity of the structure, were used as exhibits of the exhibition. human body, and on the other hand, show its beauty and harmony. How beautiful it looks, judge for yourself
It should be noted that the people whose bodies are exhibited as exhibits, during their lifetime, gave written consent to the use of their bodies after death as drugs. Everyone who liked the exhibition can make a posthumous will on the spot and replenish the exhibition after death
Kunstkamera in St. Petersburg
The Kunstkamera in St. Petersburg was founded in 1714 by order of Peter the Great
The Kunstkamera contains more than a million exhibits. If earlier the exhibits were used for scientific purposes, then at present it is exclusively a museum of human mutations and deformities, where visitors can see with their own eyes incredible metamorphoses that nature does with human flesh
It is worth saying that in addition to the so-called "exhibition of freaks", this museum famous for its numerous exhibits that tell the historical past of many peoples of the world
Museum of the human body in the Netherlands
The museum was created twelve years. The creation of the collection took twenty-seven million dollars. The building is located inside the model of a giant man, which makes it possible to walk freely inside and get acquainted with the structure and work of the organs and systems of the human body. Museum staff must have a medical education and intelligibly answer all kinds of questions from visitors
If you want to improve your knowledge of human anatomy, then the Museum of the Human Body in the Netherlands is perfect place for this
They cut corpses on which students are trained. "In the city" visited the anatomical museum of the university and saw with my own eyes impressive specimens of what a person consists of.
According to an employee of the institution, its history dates back to the 30s of the last century.
At first it was difficult to call it a museum. Just a few jars, organs. But gradually it grew and moved to a new building, - Yulia Petrovna told us.
The woman noted that the institution is purely for the self-training of students who come here after classes to study the internal organs, bones, and even see freak children in alcohol.
freak kids Photo: Vlad Bespalov
The baby was born a mutant Photo: Vlad Bespalov
Cyclops child Photo: Vlad Bespalov
Teachers are no longer afraid of what they see in the museum Photo: Vlad Bespalov
The exposition of the museum is impressive Photo: Vlad Bespalov
The exposition of the museum is impressive. Here are all the organs that make up a person, from the tongue to the huge liver.
This is what the head looks like Photo: Vlad Bespalov
leg bones Photo: Vlad Bespalov
Kidney in section Photo: Vlad Bespalov
Female and male reproductive organs Photo: Vlad Bespalov
Our guide says that the exhibits for the museum are taken from corpses.
Organs are placed in sealed jars and filled with formalin. Of course, over time, the liquid evaporates and you have to add a new one. But in this state they can be stored for years, - Yulia explained.
Teachers have not been afraid of what they see in the museum for a long time. Yes, this is understandable, what kind of doctor is he if he becomes timid at the sight of, for example, what happened to a person after an accident.
Mummified leg Photo: Vlad Bespalov
kidneys Photo: Vlad Bespalov
Human heart on the left Photo: Vlad Bespalov
Skull with mimic muscles Photo: Vlad Bespalov
The internal organs of the child Photo: Vlad Bespalov
Gut and most big organ human - liver Photo: Vlad Bespalov
When a student is shown a corpse for the first time, this is a kind of test: is a person capable of being a doctor, - the woman emphasized.
According to her, the collection is now complete. No new exhibits will be purchased. Unless something happens to the old ones. - There are fewer corpses now, and funding is not very good. If we buy something, then, probably, something artificial, - Yulia Petrovna admitted.
However, they are not going to earn money for museums at the university.
This is for educational purposes, not entertainment. Yes, and repairs would not hurt to do, - summed up our guide.
Lungs Photo: Vlad Bespalov
Respiratory system Photo: Vlad Bespalov
Skeleton in the closet Photo: Vlad Bespalov
child's hand Photo: Vlad Bespalov
Legs Photo: Vlad Bespalov
The St. Petersburg Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) exhibits embalmed and alcoholized bodies of freak newborns, which are almost three hundred years old. Peter I himself bought them for his collection, paying an amount equal to the cost of three large ships. The exposition of freaks is located in two halls of the museum and always attracts increased attention visitors. This collection from special interest children and teenagers consider: “And they are not breathtaking, they are not sick,” writes journalist Andrey Knyazev. - The children, pointing at the freak with their fingers, say to each other: “Wow, how he looks like a baby born a year ago to our neighbor.” All the inhabitants went to her hospital under the pretext of care. The child died, and ten months later Aunt Alena gave birth to almost the same, but asked the doctors to kill him - the boy was born with a one-eyed cyclops, and his eye was in the place where normal children and adults have a nose, but there was no nose at all. “Aunt Alena,” the knowledgeable boy told his friends, “drinks heavily and even indulges in drugs.”
But some freaks from birth survive. So, in 1793, the wife of Clemente from French city Torquana were amazed when they first saw their newborn girl. The baby was born with one eye in the middle of her forehead. The child was very reminiscent of the giant Cyclops from Homer's Odyssey. Otherwise, the girl was no different from other children and lived to be 15 years old. For a long time, stories about people born with tails were considered a figment of the human imagination. However, in 1928, a baby with an unusually developed coccyx 23 centimeters long was born in one of the hospitals in Knoxville.
The only case in the world of the birth of a baby with a pig's snout was registered in Iceland. Mirana Portlet, "Pig Woman", was born in 1794. She was born in rich family and had a real pig nose! Despite the fact that Mirana led a rather secluded life, she was happy and extremely successful in life, got married and gave birth to two normal children. However, fans, as they say, did not lag behind her until her death. One of the Icelandic poets even dedicated poems to Mirana: “Her fate is happy: although her head is piggy, she is loved by many.” But bug-eyed Perry's eyes popped out of their sockets figuratively: he could push them out and rotate them in different sides. Once Perry performed in the circus, then he drank himself and sank into oblivion. A freak named Black Diamond, who lived in Philadelphia in the 19th century, had good reason to smile if he evil fate participate in the show. A rare disease called "congenital macrostomy" enlarged his mouth so much that he could stick two fists in it at once.
Legless acrobat Eli Bowen, whose feet joined directly to his hips, became a sensation in the early 20th century when he left hometown in Ohio and joined in London with famous circus"The greatest sight on earth." He could perform acrobatics and balance on the end of a pole without support. However, his most popular stunt was tandeming with friend Charlie Tripp, the incredible One-armed Miracle!
Herodotus wrote about African "ostrich people". He claimed that their legs were not like everyone else's, but were pincers, thanks to which they climbed trees beautifully and ran just as well. Centuries passed before scientists discovered a village in Botswana, the majority of whose inhabitants are “ostrich people”. And this disease (but can the amazing structure of the foot be called that?) Is called “claw syndrome” and is caused, according to doctors, by incest and some other virus. The most interesting thing is that a similar phenomenon was noted in the French Alps. Probably because some villages there are located just as far from large settlements like an abandoned Botswana village. There are also people with fused limbs that look like claws. This is also a hereditary anomaly. In Zimbabwe, for example, the Wadomo tribe lives today, whose members are called "crab people". And in the USA the dynasty of "crab Styles" is known.
It turns out that not only deceived, but also quite happy husbands, and even ladies, are cuckolds! Moreover, their horns are not necessarily located on the head. Recently, a group of French scientists made an amazing discovery: in the African jungle they found a tribe of savages, from whose backs stick out hard bone spikes-horns, similar to the appendages of dinosaurs and some modern reptiles. Instead of articulate speech, savages make grunting sounds and screams. "The amazing thing is that these spikes, which are up to 35 centimeters long, grow straight out of the back," said Dr. Jean Laton, leader of the research team. “Even children have them. The reason for the growth of such spikes may be some kind of genetic mutation. Dr. Laton, professor of biology at the University of Paris, who spent two months in the village of human dinosaurs with her colleagues, announced her startling discovery at a press conference in Kinshasa, Zaire. However, she refused to give the exact location of this tribe, saying only that the village is located in a remote area of the jungle near the Chuapa River - about 450 kilometers southwest of the famous Zairian waterfall.
But in Europeans, horns grow only on the head. No more than ten such cases have been registered in Europe. So, in the 16th century, a certain boy named Francois, the son of a poor peasant, at the age of five filled himself with a bump, but it did not disappear with time, but ... grew, turning into a horn! When the horn grew to 30 cm and no hat could cover it, Francois became a jester. In the 18th century, a French lady's horn grew like a ram's. The lady lived 80 years and ordered to cut it down just before her death. “I don’t want to appear before God in a satanic guise,” she said.
The Englishman John Heidegger deserved a title that would make anyone lose heart: “the most ugly person England". The 17th-century show director died on September 5, 1749, after entertaining the king with his grotesque appearance all his life. He was so ugly that he easily won the competition, which was arranged by Lord Chesterfield, who put up against him the most disgusting of the poor fellows he could find in London's Soho. The artist Hogarth even made a mask from Heidegger's face. When the unfortunate man saw what his own face was like, he fainted!
Of course, the most tragic cases of congenital deformities are the stories of people without limbs. Indeed, it takes a great deal of imagination to imagine the extraordinary courage with which people like Arthur Kavanagh, the "miracle without limbs", carried their life's cross. Today, alas, we are already accustomed to the sight of armless and legless newborns, a nightmare associated with the use of certain medical preparations. However, many babies born without limbs are incredibly mobile, manage to learn how to write, draw, and even play on musical instruments despite their physical disability.
A similar incident occurred more than a century ago with the so-called "Demerara Turtle Woman", an article about which appeared in the medical journal The Lancet in 1867. Her hips were barely 15 centimeters long, and her twisted feet were attached directly to them. Right hand was a simple stump, but the left, although terribly disfigured, hung down the entire length of the body, giving the woman a very unusual view. When she walked, if you can call it that, she looked like a tortoise slowly waddling from side to side. She explained her ugliness, as was customary in those days, by the fact that her mother was very frightened of something during pregnancy. Surprisingly, at the age of 22, the “turtle woman” gave birth to an absolutely normal girl. After that, she died in a colonial hospital from a disease transmitted through sexual contact.
By the way, some people deprived of limbs were sometimes put on a podium for any merit, but not for their physical defects. But one day this happened. The famous Violetta, "trunk woman" Victorian era, showed on the stage, covered with velvet. No matter how terrible it seems these days, it is said - yes, in fact, this can be seen from the photographs that have come down to us - that she was unusually beautiful and even graceful, with beautifully styled hair and a pearl necklace that adorned her elegant torso.
Sometimes babies are born with extra fingers. So, in 1921 in London, one male baby was found to have 14 fingers and 15 toes! And on August 16, 1936, the London Times reported, according to a report from Mexico City, about such a curiosity: “A boy named Modesto Martinez was born with 25 fingers. His parents are farmers, ranchers in the vicinity of the city of Xalapa, the capital of the state of Veracruz. The baby has seven fingers on the left hand, six on the right and six on each foot. One of his older brothers, Pedro, has 23 fingers." The 1921 record stood for 77 years, until a boy with 48 fingers was born in Egypt in 1998! Here is what journalist Alexei Kartsev reports about this unique case: “In the family of the Egyptian peasant Mahdi Mohammed from the small village of Shotura in the province of Sohag, a baby was born who does not have twenty fingers, like normal person, and ... 48. 24 each on the arms and legs! The surgeons who examined the baby found out another amazing thing - all the fingers are absolutely normal, with bones and muscles in place. Native crumbs asked the doctors to immediately remove the "extra" fingers, but the doctors categorically refused surgical intervention, insisting on deeper research. In the meantime, medical discussions are going on, fellow villagers and even residents neighboring villages stand in line at Mohammed's door to see the extraordinary baby, who has already been dubbed the "miracle of Sohag". But the most common cases are extra, or superfluous, ears; one 19th-century study found that out of 50,000 people, 33 were bound to have extra ears, or at least one ear. An issue of the British Medical Journal for 1870 reports a boy who was born with two normal ears, three additional ones, which were located on right side face, and two more on the left.
The duplication of various organs of the body happens quite often, and this phenomenon was most studied during the heyday of fair demonstrations of various deformities of the 19th century. legions of voyeurs Victorian England most of all they were interested in the genitals, thanks to which such people as Jean-Baptiste Dvusvyatsky became famous. It doesn't take much imagination to figure out exactly what they've become so famous for.
No related links found
Last year we went to St. Petersburg, visited the famous Cabinet of Curiosities of Peter I, looked at the freaks in alcohol, although in fact only one of several halls of the museum is reserved for them. Others talk about culture various peoples peace...
Recently, I accidentally found out that a cabinet of curiosities was also opened in Moscow. It is located at the All-Russian Exhibition Center in pavilion No. 2, in the same place as the sharks. The loud name actually means a small hall, where for 300 rubles. (ticket price) you can look at 3D photographs of freaks in alcohol, made, apparently, in the St. Petersburg Cabinet of Curiosities, as well as wax figures people with various physical disabilities. Previously, they charged 100 rubles for photography, now a piece of paper with the inscription “Free” hangs on the price plate on the number “100”. Thank you anyway.
Let's move on to what you can see there. Hand on heart, I can say that some moments were interesting, but the exhibition is very small, you can go around everything and read all the descriptions in 10 minutes, so there is not much interesting, respectively. Perhaps, in order to keep visitors there, they also play a video about smoking, which tells not only about its harm to health, but also about what is actually in the cigarettes sold, and how manufacturing companies earn their millions from their sale. But, these videos can probably change, and next time they will show something different there.
Execution Machine
Prison on the island of Santo Stefano. Here, among the prisoners, during the years of the fascist regime, the future president of Italy Alessandro Pertini, the writer Giorgio Amendola, the journalist Lelio Basso, the politician Altiero Spinelli, and the communist Umberto Terracini visited. It is not entirely clear what the Kunstkamera has to do with it.
Three-legged man - Georg Lippert. His third leg was fully formed, but was nonetheless inoperable. According to Lippert himself, it once could act like an ordinary limb, but due to a fracture it became unusable. Lippert performed in the circus, where he received the title " The only person with three feet on the ground. But in 1898 Francesco Lentini arrived from Italy and the title was lost. Francesco's third leg was quite working, and he could even play football with it.
Hairy man - Fedor Makhnov. His entire body was covered with thick hair, except for his hands and feet. He worked at the post office in Siberia. IN very coldy walked in one shirt. So it can be seen under the illumination created in the Kunstkamera.
And this is his real look.
Pig woman. This is the only recorded such anomaly. was born an ordinary child. At the age of 14 splicing began upper lip with a carrier. By the age of 25, a pig snout was formed. She was the daughter of a priest, very pious. She lived for 94 years, was married and had two children.
Two-faced Janus. 19th century. German musician. On the back of his head he had the likeness of a second person. He carefully hid it for 20 years. He had no success in music and decided to use this shortcoming of his. After that, his career went up, many wanted to see a musician with two faces. And it doesn't even matter how he played.
Two-headed hunter. This man was taken prisoner by the troops of Emperor Leopold I during the war with Turkey. Was very marksman from a bow. Each of his heads could talk separately and during the interrogation they whispered. For a long time there was confusion in the documents of that interrogation, because it was not clear how many people they were interrogating.
A kind of Siamese twins, the second torso grew from chest first. He was a musketeer for Louis XIII. But in fact - it was a musketeer jester. about any military service there could be no speech. He wore a musketeer's cloak and amused the courtiers.
Four-eyed. In 1854, a certain Johnny Stoker from Cleveland had two pairs of brown eyes set one above the other. According to contemporaries, "he could close any eye separately from each other, he could rotate each eye separately, which was the most repulsive sight." Johnny not only did not complex about his face, but was even glad about it. Using his ability to roll and roll out his eyes, he liked to scare people. At the same time, he sang indecent songs in an unpleasant raspy voice.
A few more photos from the Kunstkamera at the All-Russian Exhibition Center:
