University of Mississippi Medical Center discovers thousands of unmarked graves of insane asylum patients from the 19th century buried beneath its campus

• At least 7,000 bodies could be buried on the University of Mississippi Medical Center campus
• Officials have reported that the graves belong to former insane asylum patients
• Although UMMC buildings now take over the area, the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum was built in the same location in 1855
• Researchers first began to discover the coffins in 2013 during road work

At least 7,000 bodies of former insane asylum patients could be unearthed on the University of Mississippi Medical Center campus, experts have reported.

UMMC officials first began to discover the scores of unmarked graves in 2013 during renovations at the school. That year, 66 coffins were found during construction for a road on the sprawling 164-acre campus.

In 2014, during work on a parking garage to the east of the dental school, roughly 3,000 more coffins were discovered through underground radar. 

Estimates for the number of bodies have now reached as high as 7,000, and the coffins could be spread across 20 acres of the campus, The Clarion-Ledger reported on Saturday.

The reason behind UMMC's mass network of forgotten graves dates back to 1855, when the state's first mental institution was built in the very same spot that university buildings now stand.

The Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum was created to give patients a better quality of life; until that point, people suffering from mental illnesses could often be chained in jails and attics to keep them away from others.

Though the Lunatic Asylum was a step in the right direction, living there remained a brutal existence. More than one in five of the 1,376 patients admitted between 1855 and 1877 died.

In 1935, the asylum was moved to the present-day location of State Hospital at Whitfield. Construction for UMMC began two decades later.

After this weekend's discovery, experts are hoping to create a lab and visitors center to study the remains and garner important historical information from even the coffins and clothing. A memorial would also be built to pay tribute to the former patients. 

But along with the promise of scientific findings, officials have run into a financial roadblock. It would cost $3,000 to exhume and rebury each body, which could total as much as $21 million.

Instead, the center is considering handling the exhumations itself to cut costs, leaving a $400,000 bill per year for at least eight years.

For many of the researchers who have been studying what the asylum was like in the late 19th and early 20th century, the cost is worth it.

'It would be a unique resource for Mississippi,' Molly Zuckerman, associate professor in Mississippi State University's Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures, told The Clarion-Ledger.

'It would make Mississippi a national center on historical records relating to health in the pre-modern period, particularly those being institutionalized.'

Dr. Ralph Didlake, who oversees UMMC’s Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities, also believes a lab with the remains could yield groundbreaking discoveries.

'We have inherited these patients,' Didlake said. 'We want to show them care and respectful management.'