Two-hundred-year-old mummy discovered in Sao Paulo

SAO PAULO, BRAZIL -  Exterminators looking for termites in a monastery in Brazil's biggest city of Sao Paulo found a mummy and a skeleton believed to be at least 200 years old, the head of the monastery said on Tuesday (February 26).

The bodies, believed to be two nuns, were found weeks ago, but officials at the Mosteiro da Luz (Monastery of Light) decided to keep them secret while the Institute for National Artistic and Historical Heritage did further research.

Museum director Mari Marino believes that the women were nuns because they still had flowers that were used in burial ceremonies.

"They died and they were buried. Until today they (the nuns) received a crown of flowers and this crown of flowers appeared on their heads (when they discovered the bodies)," she said.

Archeologist Silvia Piedade said the conditions in the monastery helped to preserve the bodies.

"They were covered by a layer of clay, which I think probably created an environment that helped to preserve them," she said.

The Catholic monastery was founded in 1774 by Brazil's first saint, Antonio Galvao, about 50 years before the nation's independence from colonial power Portugal.