ST. The Nicholas Church in the small German town of Nedlitz looks like any other church, but inside are seven mummies that have been preserved without using embalming methods and in a bone-dry crypt by the wind.

Two of the church’s best-preserved mummies, those of Johanna Juliane Pforte and Robert Christian von Hake, both more than 200 years old, were put on display for the public to see in April 2013. They are a study in the region’s 18th-century burial culture as well as modern symbols of the region’s history.

These gruesome corpses have the appearance of being straight out of a zombie movie thanks to their rotting clothing and eyes, but they are actually mummies that have been preserved for over 200 years. Additionally, you can now gaze directly into their sunken faces.

These 200-year-old mummies came from a dry crypt and a cool breeze, not from complicated embalming techniques. Under these circumstances, seven natural mummies were discovered beneath the St. Nicholas Church in Neditz, Germany, instead of decomposing corpses.

Whether natural or not, preserving a mummy is expensive. As per The Nearby, the safeguarding project was financed by 45,000 euros in chapel gifts. Since 2010, the mummies have been meticulously cared for by restorer Jens Klocke and a team of experts. They are likewise concentrating on the grave’s uncommonly dry circumstances that make it ideal for normal preservation. Klocke claims that the crypt at St. Nicholas Church is comparable to the famously dry Tomb of the Emperors in Italy’s Palermo cathedral, which contains a variety of naturally preserved mummies.

The preserved remains of Pforte and von Hake serve as a surviving (relative term) example of burial practices that were prevalent in the country over 200 years ago, despite criticisms that the display is inappropriate.