Secrets of the mummies at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Vilnius
Anthropologist Dario Piombino-Mascali discovers lessons for modern medicine among remains of 23 preserved people
The crypt under the Dominican Church of the Holy Spirit in the heart of Vilnius has a vivid history.
The coffins hidden in the gloomy lair under the church’s altar were stripped by Napoleon’s army for wood. During the second world war, the Nazis used it as a makeshift bomb shelter. And in their time as the local overlords, the Soviets converted the crypt into a museum of atheism.
Now Dario Piombino-Mascali is applying an altogether more gentletouch as he attempts to prise out the secrets of its ghostly inhabitants: 23
