Should Mummies Be in Museums?

Hundreds of people lined a street in Cairo, Egypt, last spring to watch an unusual parade. Custom-designed golden trucks rolled through the city, each carrying the mummy of an ancient Egyptian ruler. The 22 pharaohs and other royalty—mummified more than 3,000 years ago—were on their way to a new resting place: the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, where they would be put on display.

The people of ancient Egypt carefully preserved the bodies of the dead, including by wrapping them in strips of specially treated linen. They believed people would need their bodies in the afterlife.

For more than a century now, museumgoers around the world have visited mummy exhibits to learn about the people and culture of ancient Egypt. Today, however, many museums are rethinking such exhibits, wondering if mummies are too sacred to display. Last fall, for example, the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum in Maryland removed a mummy from an exhibit. Sanchita Balachandran, the museum’s associate director, says the staff no longer felt it was right to display the mummy.

“We are really trying to think more carefully about how to be responsible to people of the past,” she explains.

Is it OK to display mummies? Keep reading, then decide what you think.

Many archaeologists point out that mummified human remains provide a valuable link to the past.

“Mummies are an important part of history,” says archaeologist Peter Lacovara. “It is amazing to be able to see people who lived thousands of years ago.”

Viewing mummies in a museum brings the past to life for museumgoers in a way that reading a history book or looking at pictures cannot. Seeing ancient history firsthand can help people care about and value it.

Lacovara and other experts say that as long as mummies are treated respectfully and properly cared for, there is no reason to remove them from museums. They say the dead were mummified in order to live on and be remembered.

“To have their bodies preserved, visited, and remembered was very important,” Lacovara says. “Museums are doing exactly what they would have wanted.”

But some historians say that’s not the case. They argue that ancient Egyptians preserved bodies to prepare them for the afterlife. Displaying unwrapped bodies in museums, they explain, disregards the wishes of the dead.

“We know what Egyptians wanted to happen after death, and it never included such a public display,” says Heba Abd el Gawad, a historian who studies ancient Egypt. “They wanted their bodies left undisturbed.”

Plus, Abd el Gawad points out, such displays are unnecessary because experts can study mummies behind closed doors, then share their findings with the public.

Many scholars say it’s not OK to disturb a body in its final resting place to satisfy people’s curiosity.

“Mummies are not things—they were humans, like us,” says Abd el Gawad. “It’s disrespectful to display them like objects that museum visitors use as backgrounds for selfies.”

Consider the pros and cons of mummy exhibits in museums. Are they learning opportunities? Or are they disrespectful to the dead?