In 1647, laborers working on a cathedral in Venzone, Italy found the eerily preserved remains of a man inside a tomb in the churchyard. His body had dried and shriveled to just 33 pounds, leaving his skin like parchment, but he hadn’t decomposed.
After more corpses like this one were found in the ensuing decades and centuries, locals and experts alike were long baffled as to how these bodies had been naturally mummified. Since the early 20th century, many have believed that a certain fungus was responsible, while more modern theories say that the particular soil and water conditions are the explanation. However, the mummies of Venzone remain largely mysterious to this day.
