The state's famous mummies are bodies of people who died during a 19th century cholera outbreak.
A team of experts will attempt to establish the identity of the mummies on display at the Museum of the Mummies of Guanajuato and two other locations in the capital of the Bajío region state.
The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) announced Monday that it had formed a commission of four specialists in physical anthropology and conservation to work on a research project aimed at identifying the more than 100 mummies in the museum’s collection as well as those held at the Sangre de Cristo tourism center and the Santa Paula Cemetery Museum.
Their work will be supervised by INAH’s physical anthropology chief Juan Manuel Argüelles San Millán.
In a statement, Argüelles noted that the mummies are the bodies of people who had a name, age and family when they died during a 19th century cholera outbreak in Guanajuato city.
However, the identity of the mummified victims – some of whom possibly have living descendants – is unknown today, leaving many to be referred to by nicknames such as “El ahogado” (The Drowned Man), “La china” (The Chinese Lady) and “La bruja” (The Witch).
Argüelles said that establishing their identity will help restore dignity to the bodies, which have deteriorated over the years due to a lack of specialist care.
He said the INAH team – made up of two men and two women described as “specialists in mummified human remains” – will trawl through municipal, state and church archives to aid their efforts to identify the mummies, whose mummification occurred naturally after entombment due to the absence of moisture or oxygen exchange.
They have already made a first visit to Guanajuato city to obtain information they will use to draw up their plan of action, Argüelles said.
He said the experts will use a “precise” methodology to examine the mummies and stressed that their commitment to the identification task is “complete and impartial.”
Most of the famous mummies of Guanajuato – the first of which was exhumed almost 160 years ago – are displayed nude because their clothes disintegrated over time. The Museum of the Mummies of Guanajuato is a major tourism attraction, with over 600,000 visitors in 2019.
The reason for Izamal's nickname, The Yellow City, is obvious, although how its walls first got painted yellow is not.
Looking for an ideal day trip for your friends visiting Mexico who are keen on exploring pre-Hispanic and colonial sites? The small town of Izamal in Yucatán is a great choice.
Categorized as one of Mexico’s magical towns, Izamal has been a pilgrimage site since before the conquest. Situated around 70 kilometers from Mérida, off the Mérida-Cancún highway, it’s often known as The Yellow City.
This history of the town’s yellow-painted walls with white touches is unclear. Different theories exist: one says they were painted yellow to represent a Maya sun god, while another claims they were painted ahead of Pope John Paul II’s visit to Izamal in 1993.
One of Izamal’s nicknames is The City of Three Cultures – alluding to its mix of pre-Hispanic, colonial, and present-day characteristics. It’s also referred to as the City of Hills – which refers to its overgrown pyramids that the Spanish colonizers thought resembled hills.
Izamal is named after its founder, who according to UNESCO was a priest called Zamná, associated with the Maya creator god Itzamná.
The upper pyramid of Kinich Kak Moo.
Izamal is believed to be one of the Yucatán peninsula’s earliest Maya cities. According to the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), the city was first occupied around 2,700 years ago, and its significant constructions took place in the early and late Classic period (A.D. 250–900).
Ancient Izamal had a large network of Maya white roads. One notable road is the one that connects to the Maya site Aké, situated to the west.
According to INAH, Izamal was a place of worship since it was considered Itzamná’s place, and since Zamná was believed to be buried there. It remained a key place of worship for the ancient Mayas even after it was mostly abandoned in the Postclassic period, which was likely the reason for the colonizers to settle there. The town remains a pilgrimage site to this day, especially for those of the Catholic faith.
There are several pre-Hispanic structures to explore in Izamal, in addition to the beautiful town and its colonial buildings. The ancient Maya structures are spread out, so prepare for extensive walking.
North of the main plaza is a large pyramid called Kinich Kak Moo, which means “fire macaw with solar face.” The ancient Maya believed that the sun deity to whom the Kinich Kak Moo pyramid was dedicated descended daily as a fire macaw to collect its offerings.
With a massive base measuring 200 by 180 meters and its upper pyramid reaching over 34 meters in height, it is the third-largest pyramid in Mexico. It is built over a cave that is considered a holy place. The pyramid once had stucco decoration, but no signs of it exist today.
The indoor atrium of the St. Anthony of Padua monastery, built by Franciscan monks.
The base has several stairways. The present-day entrance is from the south.
The upper temple of Kinich Kak Moo offers breathtaking views from its peak, allowing you to imagine the great ancient Maya city that Izamal once was. Climbing this pyramid is allowed, but the stairs are not in good condition, so climb with care.
South of the plaza, you’ll find the widely photographed St. Anthony of Padua monastery. Painted in yellow and white, it was built in the 16th century by Franciscan monks on what was once a pyramid called Paap Hol Chak.
The famous priest Diego de Landa supervised the beginning of its construction, and the project architect was also a priest – Juan de Mérida.
There are three ramps to access the monastery, with the main entrance on the west side. It features a beautiful rectangular atrium with four chapels. After the one in the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Square, this site is considered to have the world’s second largest indoor atrium, and the largest in the Americas.
A notable feature of the monastery is a gold-plated altarpiece with religious scenes. On this altarpiece is the sculpture of the Virgin of Izamal, which de Landa had brought from Guatemala.
The priest had brought two identical sculptures of the Virgin – one of which was kept in Izamal and the other in Mérida. However, the statue in Izamal was destroyed by a fire in the early 19th century, so the one in Mérida was later moved here.
What else can you check out in this beautiful town? The mural paintings in the monastery, believed to have been the artwork of the Spanish, are worth seeing. Also, make time to take a walk in nearby Itzamná park and its widely photographed landmark sign welcoming visitors to Izamal.
East of the main plaza is Izamal’s second-largest pyramid, Itzamatul. Multiple building phases can be identified here. INAH says this pyramid was dedicated to Itzamná. On our recent visit, this pyramid was closed to visitors.
West of the main plaza is another temple called Kabul. When the explorers Frederick Catherwood and John Lloyd Stephens visited Izamal in the 1840s, Catherwood – an artist and architect – drew the image of the large stucco mask of the sun god, Kinich Ahau, that was on this building but no longer exists. South of the plaza is a structure called Habuk that is also worth seeing.
There are other pre-Hispanic structures to see in Izamal, in addition to exploring the yellow city. Also, the crafts museum in town is particularly interesting. And don’t forget to indulge in some local food.
Thilini Wijesinhe, a financial professional turned writer and entrepreneur, moved to Mexico in 2019 from Australia. She writes from Mérida, Yucatán. Her website can be found at https://momentsing.com/
Mónica Díaz, 46, of León, Guanajuato, died of COVID on October 16, 2020. 'She was a hard working and lovely woman. 1st college graduate in the family. She loved to knit blankets for every newborn in the family. We miss her so much.' From @FacesOfCOVID February 14
The fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic has declined during three consecutive weeks, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said Tuesday.
Speaking at President López Obrador’s regular news conference, the coronavirus point man said that case numbers fell by over 40% during the past three weeks.
The most recent decline was 48%, “almost half [the number of cases] with respect to the previous week,” López-Gatell said.
“The incidence of new cases is now below what we reached in all the previous waves and is still going down,” he said.
The Health Ministry reported Monday that there were just under 92,000 estimated active cases – less than one-third the peak recorded during the current omicron-fueled wave.
López-Gatell said that hospital occupancy levels are also trending downward.
“The COVID units are emptying out,” he said, noting that the national occupancy rate for general care hospital beds and beds with ventilators is 30% and 22%, respectively.
Some of the beds were freed up because their occupants died. López-Gatell acknowledged that COVID fatalities were up last week compared to the previous seven-day period, but highlighted that the current death rate is 71% lower than the pandemic peak, recorded during the second wave in January 2021.
“As we have commented multiple times, approximately three weeks after cases start coming down, deaths go down,” he said.
According to that prediction, there should be fewer deaths this week than last. The highest single-day death tally of the fourth wave was recorded last Thursday with 927 COVID-related fatalities. More than 500 were recorded on Friday and Saturday, while just 146 and 122 were reported on Sunday and Monday, respectively.
Mexico’s official death toll rose to 312,965 on Monday, the world’s fifth highest total, while the accumulated case tally is just over 5.3 million, a figure considered a vast undercount due to the low testing rate.
López-Gatell told reporters that 90% of Mexicans aged 18 and over are vaccinated, while the rate among minors who have been offered shots– those aged 15 to 17 – is 52%. He also said that 68% of people aged 60 and over, and 36% of those aged 40 to 59, have had booster shots.
The event is ready to go if the mayor gives the word.
Mazatlán’s annual carnival is likely to go ahead even if Sinaloa remains yellow on the coronavirus stoplight map, the mayor said this week.
Luis Guillermo Benítez Torres said that if the stoplight remains yellow, the final decision will be in his hands. “We are going to wait for the result of the stoplight because remember that being in yellow, it is no longer the power of any committee, it is the [power of the] municipal council,” he said.
However, Benítez insisted that he would follow the guidance of the governor: “I will respect what Governor Rubén Rocha Moya thinks. If in a given case he thinks it prudent, we will stop it.”
The news site Debate reported that Rocha supported the event going ahead if the stoplight remained yellow, but that Health Minister Héctor Melesio Cuén was against it.
Benítez said the stoplight color would be confirmed on Friday and that the signs were positive, given that the pandemic was declining. “I am sure that things will be on the right track … the pandemic is continuing to decline. While it’s true that there was a small fluctuation, it continues to fall,” he said.
The economic hit of canceling the event would be severe, Benítez added. “It would be quite bad for Mazatlán … for the local businesses. Imagine the hotel owners, who already received their deposits, giving back money in these times we are living in … [if it’s] yellow it’s very probable that it will go ahead.”
The planning of the event is already 90% complete and more than 70% of hotel rooms are taken, according to the news site.
Carnival is the biggest event of the year in Mazatlán and is reported to be the third largest in the world after Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans. It was first held in 1898 and is set to run from February 24-March 1.
A previous edition of a collective wedding in Nezahualcóyotl.
Six hundred and sixty-one couples married en masse at a Valentine’s Day ceremony in México state on Monday.
The service in Nezahualcóyotl, 20 kilometers east of the center of Mexico City, revived an annual tradition made redundant by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, among the wedding dresses, rings and flowers, the newlyweds-in-waiting still had to wear face masks and use antibacterial gel.
The event was still relatively small: the maximum number of couples in other years was 1,200, while in 2021 a virtual service was held online.
The couples were married at no charge and professional makeup was provided by local beauty schools. The municipal government also raffled gifts and trips among the newlyweds.
Jonhatan García finally tied the knot with his partner of 10 years, with whom he has a child. He said the timing was right: “We would have liked to get married before, but it [the pandemic] was worse then,” he said.
José Luis Ibarra married María Edith Peña after the couple met in a shopping mall two years ago. “Really happy. Really proud to have a partner like her and hopefully it will be for life,” he said.
“We already treated each other like a couple. There was always good chemistry, good communication and above all, a lot of love,” Edith said.
Meanwhile, Dolores Bojórquez married a professional wrestler called Flama Roja (Red Flame), the newspaper Infobae reported. She said the public service had enabled them to say their vows. “We wouldn’t have been able to marry due to the economy … we took advantage of these weddings,” she said.
Bojórquez added she was grateful to have the opportunity to marry, despite the pandemic. “We wouldn’t have ever expected to marry in face masks but we have to be thankful that we are here and that we could marry,” she said.
However, the mood in Mexico was less festive than normal. Only 17% of people planned to celebrate Valentine’s Day and 57.5% were set on staying home, according to a survey by the insurance website HelloSafe México. The survey of 985 Mexicans was compiled from January 21-February 1.
Governor Vizcaíno announced new security measures on Sunday.
Many Colima city residents are staying home after dark due to a surge in violence last week as two criminal groups face off in the capital and nearby areas of the small Pacific coast state.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the the Independent Cartel of Colima are fighting each other after the latter organization, also known as Los Mezcales, switched its allegiance to the Sinaloa Cartel.
At least 22 people have been murdered since the start of last week, according to a report published Tuesday by El Universal.
The newspaper reported that an unofficial, self-imposed curfew is in place in Colima city, home to approximately 150,000 people.
Most businesses are closing early and/or allowing employees to go home before their usual knocking-off time, while few bars and restaurants remain open after 9:00 p.m.
A waiter at a restaurant in the center of Colima told El Universal on Saturday that the greatest risk was the possibility of getting caught in the crossfire of a gunfight between the feuding criminal groups.
“But nothing has happened here yet,” he said before noting that violent incidents had occurred “four or five blocks away.”
The waiter said that the restaurant’s receipts decreased significantly between Monday and Friday. “Today has been a little bit better but normally at this time [3:00 p.m.] half the tables are taken,” he said.
However, the restaurant was only about one-quarter full, El Universal reported, noting that other establishments located around Jardín Libertad, a pretty square in the city’s downtown, were similarly empty.
A battle-scarred state police officer who spoke with the newspaper said that the current wave of violence wasn’t comparable to what he has seen in Mexico’s north, where he used to work, but warned that the situation could deteriorate.
Last week’s spate of armed attacks “is not even a quarter of what I saw in the north, but this is how it starts,” he said.
Hoping to stop a repeat of last week’s violence, or any deterioration of the security situation, are Colima and federal authorities, who are collaborating on a special operation.
Governor Indira Vizcaíno, who has been the subject of threats by both the CJNG and Los Mezcales, announced Tuesday that more than 600 additional soldiers, marines and National Guard troops were deployed to Colima over the weekend, increasing the total number of federal security elements in the state to over 3,600.
“… The central objective is to protect the safety of all working families in Colima,” she wrote in a Twitter post featuring a slickly-produced video about the joint state and federal security operation.
She said shortly after she was sworn in that the state became the country’s homicide capital during her predecessor’s term, but noted that murders were down in 2021 compared to the previous year.
Indeed, Colima was Mexico’s most violent state on a per capita basis for five consecutive years between 2016 and 2020, before losing that unenviable title to Zacatecas last year.
The state ranked as the third most violent in 2021 with 65.8 homicides per 100,000 people, according to data compiled by the crime monitoring website elcri.men. For total homicides it ranked 20th out of the 32 states with 518, according to federal data presented last month.
Ternium is one of the foreign companies that has announced increased investment in Mexico this year. (Ternium)
Latin American’s leading steelmaker is set to make a billion-dollar investment to enlarge its plant in Nuevo León, President López Obrador announced at his morning news conference on Tuesday.
Ternium will expand its factory in the Ternium Industrial Center in Pesquería, 50 kilometers east of Monterrey.
“Yesterday Paolo Rocca was here, an investor who works in steel, his company is called … Ternium. They came to tell me that they’re going to expand their plant in Nuevo León and that they’re going to invest a billion dollars … they manufacture pipe and work in the automotive industry …” the president said.
He added that the investment plan was evidence of Mexico’s bright economic future. “In their research and market analysis … they saw a promising economic and commercial future for Mexico, they came to inform me of that … this means jobs, it means well-being.”
The president also said signs were good for the Mexican economy, despite a technical recession and high inflation. “We are also verifying the data on foreign investment which will soon be released … in January there was record job creation, and see how we are doing in February … the economy is growing,” he said.
In 2017, Ternium invested around 1.1 billion pesos (US $58.2 million in 2017) to install a hot rolling plant at its site in Pesquería.
The almost one kilometer hot roller produced its first million tonnes of laminated steel in January. It can produce 4.4 tonnes of laminated steel per year, the newspaper El Financiero reported.
In 2019, the electroplating and painting lines at the Ternium Industrial Center went into production. The company had already invested US $2.52 billion prior to the president’s announcement.
Ternium has plants in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, the United States and Central America. It belongs to the Argentinian conglomerate Techint.
Governor Carlos Joaquín said that representatives of U.S. and Canadian security agencies would exchange intelligence and discuss strategies with Mexico.
Mexican, United States and Canadian officials will attend a security summit in Quintana Roo this Friday, Governor Carlos Joaquín announced.
Joaquín said in late January that personnel from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police would travel to the Caribbean coast state this month to meet with local authorities.
Asked about the meeting on Monday, the governor confirmed it would take place in Cancún this Friday. Federal and Quintana Roo security officials will meet with representatives of the U.S. and Canadian security agencies to exchange intelligence, review international crime trends and discuss anti-crime strategies.
A similar meeting attended by military personnel from Mexico, France, Canada and Belize took place in Chetumal in early February.
Mexico’s most powerful cartels, including the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Gulf Cartel, as well as smaller local gangs, operate in the state, which for decades has been used as an intermediate destination for cocaine headed to the United States from South America.
Criminal groups from at least eight foreign countries, including China, Russia and Colombia, also operate in Quintana Roo, according to a recent report by the newspaper Milenio. The state – a major tourism destination for domestic and foreign tourists – recorded just over 650 homicides last year, making it the country’s 18th most violent federal entity.
“In light of recent security incidents and criminal activity in popular tourist destinations, including Cancún, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum, U.S. citizens are reminded to exercise increased caution when traveling to the state of Quintana Roo. Criminal activity and violence may occur throughout the state, including areas frequented by U.S. citizen visitors,” the alert issued by the U.S. Consulate General in Mérida, Yucatán, read.
In the first 31 days of the year, 3.25 million people flew through Mexico City's airport, up from just over 2 million in January 2021. AICM
Passenger numbers were up 56% at Mexico City International Airport (AICM) in January in annual terms.
Just over 2 million people traveled through the airport in the first 31 days of 2021, compared to the 3.25 million that flew over the same period this year.
The spike is partly due to an increase in international travelers: last month, almost half were from outside Mexico, whereas fewer than a third were in January 2021. The overall low passenger numbers at the beginning of 2021 trended upward throughout the year, peaking at 4.1 million in December.
However, the number of January 2022 flyers was still relatively few compared to the same month in 2020, before any COVID-19 restrictions on travel were introduced.
The spike in passenger numbers still didn’t beat January 2020’s pre-pandemic figure of 4.2 million. Edgor TovarVmzp85/Creative Commons
That month saw 4.2 million passengers pass through Mexico City’s airport, 29.6% more than in January 2022.
By April 2020, passenger numbers had plummeted as restrictions were introduced: only 295,654 people traveled from AICM that month.
The air hub may see another hit to its traffic soon: the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA), located about 50 kilometers north of downtown Mexico City in México state, is slated to open in late March.
Tourism largely recovered in Mexico in 2021. Quintana Roo, home to Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum, played host to 84% of the tourists it had welcomed in 2019.
A soldier seeks out land mines in Michoacán's Tierra Caliente region. Sedena
The army has deployed a bomb squad to clear land mines in two Michoacán municipalities after an elderly farmer was killed in an explosion on Saturday.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) is believed responsible for laying mines, or improvised explosive devices (IEDs), in at least 10 communities in the notoriously violent Tierra Caliente municipalities of Tepalcatepec and Aguililla.
Soldiers are painstakingly searching for mines hidden under dirt or camouflaged among weeds. When one is detected, a bomb squad member wearing a heavy-duty protective suit is called in to deactivate or safely detonate it.
Among the communities where IEDs have been detected or are known to be present are Naranjo de Chila – the birthplace of CJNG leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, El Bejuco, El Cansangüe and El Aguaje, where 78-year-old Cristóbal N. was killed Saturday afternoon.
Don Cristóbal and his 45-year-old son were on their way to their farm in a pickup truck when a mine they drove over exploded.
Naranjo de Chila is just one of at least 10 communities in the Tepalcatepec and Aguililla municipalities with explosives.
The former was killed instantly while the latter was seriously injured and taken to hospital before being discharged by his family because they were unhappy with the treatment he was receiving.
According to Don Cristóbal’s son-in-law, the deadly IED was located five minutes from the farm, which his father-in-law hadn’t visited for two years due to violence in the area.
“He was hoping to grow limes again,” José told the newspaper Milenio.
The CJNG fled Aguililla, the municipality where El Aguaje is located, last week after the army retook control of the municipality last Tuesday.
The explosion on Saturday came two weeks after an IED damaged an armored army vehicle and injured 10 soldiers when it exploded in El Cansangüe, Tepalcatepec.
Aguililla residents told Milenio that one has to step carefully in the municipality, where the CJNG has been engaged in a turf war with a rival criminal group known as the Cárteles Unidos.
The military has a large presence in places like Aguililla, and some residents say they want it to stay that way. SEDENA
“There are mines all over the place,” one El Aguaje woman said, adding that people are afraid of working on their land.
