In the Mexican city of Guanajuato, a cholera outbreak in 1833 swelled the number of bodies in the main public graveyard.
Decades later, when some locals did not pay regular charges to keep their family members interred in the cemetery, bodies were dug up and dumped in a storeroom.
From 1870 to 1958, dozens of bodies were taken from their resting place.
Because of the dry climate in Guanajuato, and old-fashioned embalming techniques used, the bodies that were exhumed were mummified.
Cemetery workers soon realised that people would pay to see the gruesome desiccated corpses, and charged visitors a small admission fee to enter the storeroom.
The horrific attraction was eventually turned into the El Museo de las Momias (The Museum of the Mummies) in 1969, and now attracts visitors from across the globe.
