The “Mortals of Last Millennium” exhibit — aside from having been named by H.P. Lovecraft, apparently — was devoted to mummies.
It was creepy.
My first walk through the exhibit, I refrained from taking any pictures because I thought it might be disrespectful. And because there might be a curse or something. But then I thought there might be a Tom Cruise movie tie-in and walked through a second time.
The dry Xinjiang climate in the deserts helped dessicate these corpses in their graves. 
This old woman was found in a tomb dated to 800 B.C.E. She shows — and I’m just quoting the English translation of the placard here — a mix of “Europoid and Mongoloid traits.” She wore her hair in four plaits and her long robe was meticulously sewn. Maybe she was a person of some importance.
But all of these people were important to someone. All of these people had friends and family that wept at their passing. This infant didn’t live to be one year old. That was 2800 years ago.
This baby was buried carefully wrapped in a blanket from head to foot with only its face visible.
You could make out the facial features and beard of this man with disturbing clarity.
I’m a little ashamed to admit that one of the things I kept thinking of, over and over and over as I walked from body to body, was Robin Williams whispering “Carpe Diem.” 
The exhibit was quiet, as the cliche goes, as a tomb. That made the diorama interspersed between the bodies all the more unnerving.
