Someone Mishandled A Mummy In Mexico And Its Arm Fell Off

I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about the proper way in which one should handle a 19th-century mummy. I mean, I've spent some time thinking about it, but not a lot.

But, if you're trying to decide what would be the worst thing that could happen if you mishandle one, an arm falling off has to be toward the top of the list. It might be second only to it unraveling like a roll of toilet paper that some teenage ne'er-do-well lobbed into a tree at their algebra teacher's house.

Unfortunately, they've got a one-armed mummy in a museum —  Museo de las Momias or Museum of Mummies — in Guanajuato, Mexico. 

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The mummy in question was buried in the early 1800s and dug up in the 1860s which makes it pretty new by mummy standards. Still, newer mummies are apparently pretty brittle and, according to the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), one of the mummies was damaged when it was moved during renovations.

"These events confirm that the way the museum’s collection was moved is not the correct one, and that far from applying proper corrective and conservation strategies, the actions carried out resulted in damages, not only to this body," the INAH said in a statement, per The Associated Press. "It appears that this situation is related to a lack of knowledge about proper protocols and the lack of training of the personnel in charge of carrying out these tasks."

Visitors look at mummies at the Museo de las Momias in Guanajuato, Mexico because if you have a choice between a museum with mummies and one without, you're taking the mummy museum every time. (Photo by Rodrigo Oropeza / AFP) (Photo by RODRIGO OROPEZA/AFP via Getty Images)

This Is the Latest In A Long-Running Mummy Beef

The INAH was quick to throw the museum under the bus, but that's because these two sides have been beefing over these mummies for years, and that's partially because the mummies were found before the INAH was even around, which means they fall under local, rather than federal, control.

The INAH also sees the mummies as an important cultural artifact, other parties have reportedly seen them as a tourist attraction and even sent them out on tours, including some stops in the US back in 2009.

But why can't they be both?

You can teach people about your culture, but you need to get them in the door first and mummies are a great way to do that. I once overpaid to go through a Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum because I heard they had a mummified hand. They did, but it wasn't worth the price of admission, which was like $40.

Still, the mummy got me in the door.

I'm not sure what is next for the one-armed mummy, but I'm sure this long-running beef is far from over.