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1.29.2009

Locked in time... the 400-year-old mummies (and one little girl)

Preserved: Rosalina died in 1920, aged two
Preserved: Rosalina died in 1920, aged two

By Jane Fryer

With her crumpled yellow hairbow and grubby face, pretty little Rosalina looks as though she's just flaked out for a nap after a morning spent playing in the garden.

In fact, she has been lying in her tiny, wooden, glass-topped coffin in the catacombs beneath the Capuchin monastery in Palermo, Sicily, for more than 90 years - skilfully and shockingly preserved to look just as she did when she died of a bronchial infection in December 1920, aged two.

Read the rest on the DailyMail.