In the sleepy Mexican town of Guanajuato, with its neatly kept square and elegant neoclassical theater, is one of the most bizarre and compelling galleries in the Western world. It is not a museum, for this gallery is in a cemetery; its walls lined not with art but with human mummies, standing with mouths agape, eye sockets staring as if they had just returned from the other side of Hell. Indeed, they have literally returned from the grave--exhumed from the dry, desert soil by cemetery keepers because relatives of the dead were too poor to pay for maintenance. So fascinating are these "living dead" that noted author Ray Bradbury wrote a chilling short story after seeing them: so visually arresting that photographer Archie Lieberman was moved to quell his horror and create a pictorial record. The two artists' reactions comprise this unusual book. The photographs call up the deepest and most provocative human emotions. They will shock, disturb and terrify. But they compel viewing; they stimulate confrontation and, believe it or not, will be examined again and again. The story, like all Bradbury's writing, quivers with tension and evokes the thoughts and feelings that reside mostly on the dark side of the mind--stuff of nightmares. No one who experiences this book will ever forget it.

Poking into the nooks and crannies of Mexico, a travel writer shares Mexico's best-kept secrets. Informative and helpful as the best travel guide, "Dancing Alone in Mexico" will help even seasoned travelers to get the most out of their trips to Mexico. Casual and lively as the best travel memoir, the book will also delight the armchair traveler.

Dr. Madero and his son Matt enjoy the exhibit at the local museum of the strangely preserved mummies from Guanajuato, Mexico. But someone sinister has brought the cadavers to life, and only an ancient spell can stop them!

Table of contents

Owing to their unique state of preservation, mummies provide us with significant historical and scientific knowledge of humankind’s past. This handbook, written by prominent international experts in mummy studies, offers readers a comprehensive guide to new understandings of the field’s most recent trends and developments. It provides invaluable information on the health states and pathologies of historic populations and civilizations, as well as their socio-cultural and religious characteristics. Addressing the developments in mummy studies that have taken place over the past two decades – which have been neglected for as long a time – the authors excavate the ground-breaking research that has transformed scientific and cultural knowledge of our ancient predecessors. The handbook investigates the many new biotechnological tools that are routinely applied in mummy studies, ranging from morphological inspection and endoscopy to minimally invasive radiological techniques that are used to assess states of preservation. It also looks at the paleoparasitological and pathological approaches that have been employed to reconstruct the lifestyles and pathologic conditions of ancient populations, and considers the techniques that have been applied to enhance biomedical knowledge, such as craniofacial reconstruction, chemical analysis, stable isotope analysis and ancient DNA analysis. This interdisciplinary handbook will appeal to academics in historical, anthropological, archaeological and biological sciences, and will serve as an indispensable companion to researchers and students interested in worldwide mummy studies.

Nicholas Reeves’s radical interpretation of a revolutionary king—now available in paperback. One of the most compelling and controversial figures in ancient Egyptian history, Akhenaten has captured the imagination like no other Egyptian pharaoh. Much has been written about this strange, persecuted figure, whose depiction in effigies is totally at odds with the traditional depiction of the Egyptian ruler-hero. Akhenaten sought to impose upon Egypt and its people the worship of a single god—the sun god—and in so doing changed the country in every way. In Akhenaten, Nicholas Reeves presents an entirely new perspective on the turbulent events of Akhenaten’s seventeen-year reign. Reeves argues that, far from being the idealistic founder of a new faith, the Egyptian ruler cynically used religion for political gain in a calculated attempt to reassert the authority of the king and concentrate all power in his hands. Backed by abundant archaeological and documentary evidence, Reeves’s narrative also provides many new insights into questions that have baffled scholars for generations—the puzzle of the body in Tomb 55 in the Valley of the Kings; the fate of Nefertiti, Akhenaten’s beautiful wife; the identity of his mysterious successor, Smenkhkare; and the theory that Tutankhamun, Akhenaten’s son and heir to the throne, was murdered.

Companion book to the Detroit Science Center exhibition.