Visit the grave of a relative in central Mexico and you're just as likely to find their body, writhing in apparent eternal agony, mummified and propped up for the amusement of tourists than resting in peace.

在墨西哥瓜納華托，人們在墓園吊唁亡故時，可能會看到自己故去的親友。這些干尸姿態蜷縮扭曲，死前的痛苦被永恒地定格。他們非但不能安息，反而成為游客消遣的對象。

The Guanajuato Mummy Museum, which sees more than 4,000 visitors a week, charges tourists ￡2 to gape at more than a hundred dried human cadavers, all of which have been disinterred from graves in the cemetery next door.

瓜納華托干尸博物館展示100多具干尸，每周至少接待超過4000名游客。而探看這些掘自隔壁公墓的干尸，游客們則要給2英鎊（約19元人民幣)的門票費。

Behind flimsy glass cabinets, the museum displays murder victims, criminals who were buried alive and infants laid to rest dressed up as saints – a Mexican belief that it will ease their passage to heaven.

在玻璃箱里，陳列的遺體死因各異。有謀殺案的被害者、有被活埋的犯人，還有被打扮成圣人模樣的嬰孩。墨西哥人認為，這么做嬰兒容易升天。

'It's terrifying, I feel sick to my stomach,' Peruvian visitor Maria Goncalves told MailOnline in the middle of her group's guided tour. 'It's the terrible expressions the mummies all have that makes it so horrible.'

一名跟團游覽此地的秘魯游客展覽看到一半，對MailOnline表示：“這太嚇人了，我看得想吐。這些木乃伊臉上恐怖的表情太讓人毛骨悚然了。”

The Guanajuato Mummy Museum - owned by the state government - was recently voted as one of Mexico's best tourist attractions by users of one of Mexico's most popular tourism websites.

這家干尸博物館由州政府運營，近期在墨西哥最火旅游網站的一次網投中，網民們將它選為墨西哥最受游客歡迎的旅游點。

The mummies are a parchment-yellow colour, their dried skin moulding around the bones which lie beneath the surface.

這些木乃伊的皮膚如黃色的羊皮紙，皺皺巴巴地包裹著骨骼。

The thinner areas of skin – such as the eyelids, genitals, cheeks and earlobes – have deteriorated faster, and in most cases little remains but flaky scraps and gaping holes.

像眼皮、生殖器、臉頰、耳垂等部位的皮膚越薄就腐化得越快，大多數情況下，這些部位早已腐蝕破落得僅剩片屑和空洞。

Despite the museum's macabre exhibit, guided tour groups of 15 or more pass through its hallways every ten minutes.

盡管展覽主題恐怖陰森，但是參觀游人仍然絡繹不絕，每10分鐘就有一個15人或人數更多的旅行團經過走廊。

'We see even more on weekends,' says Jose Martínez, who sells souvenir sugar effigies of the dried human remains at the museum's exit. 'Usually on Saturdays there's an hour-long wait just to get in.'

在展覽館出口銷售糖質干尸肖像紀念品的祖瑟·馬丁內斯（Jose Martínez）說：“周末的參觀人數更多，周六人們要排一小時隊才能入場。”

The human remains have been preserved due to the method of burial in the Saint Paola Cemetery next door.

這些尸體因為隔壁圣保拉公墓的埋葬方法而得以保存下來。

Corpses, rather than being buried in the ground are sealed inside air-tight crypts, where the lack of oxygen slows the natural rate of decomposition.

尸體是被封存在不透氣的地穴中，而非埋在地下。這些地穴中沒有氧氣，因此減緩了尸體在自然條件下腐爛的速度。

'The bodies dry out rather than putrefy, which leaves them in this state of mummification', says Jesús Saltillo, one of the tour guides at the museum.

“尸體被風干而非腐爛，使它們變成了如今木乃伊的狀態。”展覽館導游約瑟斯·薩爾提略（Jesús Saltillo）說道。

Many of the corpses are so well preserved that their eyebrows, beards and fingernails are still intact.

許多的尸體連睫毛、胡須和指甲等都保存完好。

Nearly all of the mummies mouths are gaping open, a result of the hardening of the tongue and slackening of the jaw muscles following death.

由于死后舌頭變僵，頷肌變松，幾乎每具干尸的嘴都張得大大的。

'It leaves them all with an expression as if they were experiencing terrible pain,' says Jesús, 'but the vast majority died peacefully.'

“他們臉上表情就像他們當時正經歷巨大的苦痛，但是大部分人都走得非常平靜。”約瑟斯說。

Those mummies who didn't die 'Holy Deaths' – as the Mexicans describe the act of dying in one's sleep – are displayed in a separate section of the exhibit.

至于那些走得“不太平和”的遺體，則被另外放置在獨立的展區內。墨西哥人將那些在睡夢中安息的人稱為“走得平靜”。

One glass case in this area contains three agonised mummies: a man whose fatal stab wound to his abdomen is still a visible puncture in his parchment-yellow skin, a drowned man whose rigour mortis set his writhing legs in the form of a frog's, and an unmarried pregnant woman who was buried alive by her own family, her screaming face covered by skeletal hands.

在這里的一個玻璃柜里展示了三具痛苦的尸體：一具被捅致死的男尸，腹部的傷口在其羊皮紙般蠟黃的皮膚上依然可見；一具溺亡的男尸身體僵化，身軀蜷曲成青蛙的模樣；還有一具被家人活埋的未婚媽媽的尸體，她干枯的手捂著其驚恐尖叫的面孔。

The Saint Paola Cemetery, the museum's source of mummified remains next door, is made up of entire walls of individual crypts, seven tombs high. Those which are occupied are bricked up from the outside and sealed with a placard denoting its occupant.

展示隔壁公墓干尸的圣保拉公墓由一整面墻的墓穴組成，足足有七塊墓碑那么高。當遺體放入后，人們用磚和布告將墓穴密封。

When a family's lease on their loved one's crypt expires, they are given five days to renew the payment (￡95 for twenty years).

當一家的亡故者在墓穴寄放的租約到期時，家屬將有5天時間可以需交費用(20年交95英鎊)。

If they choose not to pay, the body is removed and given to the museum's curator for inspection. If the curator finds it's condition good enough to appeal to the huge numbers of visitors his museum receives, it is added to the collection.

如果他們選擇不續約，則這些遺體會被移交給展覽館長接受“檢閱”，如果館長認為尸體情況足夠好，將對數量可觀的游人有吸引力，則會將遺體加入館藏。

If rejected, the body is sent to a common grave on the outskirts of town.

但家屬要是拒絕的話，遺體則會被送往城郊的普通墓地。

The first ever mummy to be disinterred was Remigio Leroy, known as the 'French Doctor', who died during a visit to Guanajuato in the 19th century.

第一具被發掘出的干尸是著名的“法國醫生”——勒羅伊·雷米吉爾（Remigio Leroy）。19世紀他在瓜納華托游玩時，客死他鄉。

The Frenchman's body was released after twenty years inside a crypt in 1865, when the owners were amazed to find his almost-perfect preservation.

他的遺體在地窖里放置了20年，直到1865年被出土時，地窖主人驚喜地發現了他保存完好的尸體。

His condition, complete with the clothes he still wears for visitors today, aroused so much excitement in the mining town that the cemetery began to collect other well-preserved corpses for display, eventually establishing the dedicated museum in the 1950s.

他的尸體被完好地保存下來，如今游客仍能看到他當時穿的衣服。他的出土為這個礦山小鎮吸引了大量的游客，這也促使公墓開始收集保存其他完好的遺體，最終在上世紀50年代開辦了干尸博覽館。

The museum is renowned for its ownership of the smallest mummy in the world – a four-month old foetus of a woman who fell victim to a cholera outbreak in the 1860s.

這家博物館還因這里有世界上最小的木乃伊而聞名——一具四個月大的胎兒，他被從一名19世紀60年代死于霍亂的女人子宮中取出。

The most recent addition to the collection was Baby Enrico, an infant who died at six months of age in 1999.

而最近新增的展品則是1999年六個月大死去的嬰兒——恩里克（ Baby Enrico）。

Following the expiration of his crypt's five-year lease, the museum removed him in 2004 and chose to add his body to the collection, thanks to his parents' decision to dress his corpse up as Saint Bartholomew. His green and yellow tunic and wooden halo are one of the more popular mummified bodies in the museum.

五年租約期滿后，2004年，恩里克從窖里被“抱”了出來。由于他的父母決定將他打扮成圣巴塞洛繆的模樣——身著黃綠長袍，頭頂木質光環，博物館將其收入館內。這樣的打扮使他成為館中受歡迎的木乃伊之一。

'His parents still come to visit him,' museum guide Jesús tells a horrified tour group made up of Mexicans and Canadians. 'They couldn't afford the cemetery fees any longer, but they occasionally come here to see him.'

博物館講解員約瑟斯對一個由墨西哥和加拿大游客組成，被嚇得不輕的旅行團說：“他的父母仍然常來探望他。盡管他們付不起公墓的費用，但是他們偶爾會來這里看望他。”

Baby Enrico is the second exhibit in the 'Baby Room', where five infants - all less than a year old - are lined up, each in climate controlled display cases, dressed as they were found when their crypts were broken into.

和恩里克一塊在“育嬰室”展出的，還有另外四名均不到一歲的嬰兒。他們躺在控溫箱內，穿著墓室到期時，所穿的衣服。

'Little Saint Martin', the final infant in the exhibit, who died at birth and was never formally named, was dressed by his parents as Saint Martin, complete with broom, rosary and homespun cassock, in the hope that his outfit might recommend him to a peaceful afterlife.

小圣馬丁是系列展的最后一名嬰兒，他出生就死了，離世的時候甚至還沒取好名字。小圣馬丁的父母把他打扮成圣馬丁，穿著樸素的袈裟、放上掃帚、念珠，希望這些服飾能讓他獲得一個平和的來生。

Arturo Tabares, Guanajuato government head spokesperson, defended the museum. He said: 'The museum is an important part of Guanajuato's tourist appeal. The museum breaks no laws in displaying its exhibit to visitors, who are given fair warning of its graphic contents.

'We have a different cultural approach to death in Mexico, here we celebrate the cycle of life and accept death as inevitable. 99% of the visitors leave the experience pleased with what they saw.'

瓜納華托政府發言人負責人阿圖羅·塔巴瑞斯說：“這座博覽館是瓜納華托重要的重要旅游名勝，它展出的所有展品并不違法，對參觀者也有合理的提醒。在墨西哥，我們的文化對死有不一樣的看法，我們贊頌生命的輪回并且接受死亡不可避免的特性。99%的游客都對這這種體驗表示滿意。”

Vocabulary

mummify: 將……做成木乃伊

cadaver: 尸體

disinter: 發掘

parchment: 羊皮紙

genital: 生殖器

effigy: 肖像

putrefy: 腐爛

slacken: 松弛

（譯者：菠蘿油八戒 編輯：丁一）