DETROIT — Thirty-six mummies on loan from a Mexican museum are making their U.S. debut at a $2 million exhibition in Detroit.

The "Accidental Mummies of Guanajuato" opens this weekend at the Detroit Science Center. The museum is the first of seven planned U.S. stops for the mummies.

The Science Center is in talks to finalize the touring exhibit's other stops.

The bodies had been accidentally mummified in the Mexican mining town of Guanajuato more than a century ago.

Local lore contends the bodies were preserved because the city's water is rich with minerals and sulphur. But Ronald Beckett, former co-host of "The Mummy Road Show" on the National Geographic Channel, says researchers believe hot weather dried out the bodies.