It’s no easy matter resolving the current ethical debate over the retention and public display of human remains. But attracting growing attention is the public exhibition of Egyptian mummified persons.

For the past two months, the Manchester Museum has encouraged their visitors to share views on whether an Egyptian mummy in their collection should be removed or retained on public display. Is it possible these conversations may start to shift the dial in a new direction?

In March this year, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations (APPG-AR) joined others who are campaigning for an overhaul in UK museum practice. Its report, Laying Ancestors to Rest, recommends the end of the sale, public display and non-consensual uses of African ancestral remains, as well as their full repatriation from UK institutions.

The display of Egyptian mummified persons, argues the report, is unethical ‘due to the consistent disregard of the potential wishes of the ancestors and the intention of the communities that originally laid them to rest’. It goes on to criticise their modern evolution into ‘the popularised, haunted ‘mummy’ figure, which reduces Egyptian heritage to exoticised mystique for the Western audience’.

Who can doubt that today’s popular culture has succeeded in exploiting the public's fascination with the physical remains of individuals from a civilization thousands of years in the past? And whose appetite to learn more about this civilization was not kick-started by the sight of their first Egyptian mummy? As a result, the case in favour of removing Egyptian mummies from public display is more nuanced than clear cut.

The Manchester consultation invites visitors to share their views on whether the naked body of a woman named Asru, one of the Museum’s impressive collection of Egyptian mummies, should remain on public display.

Asru’s mummified body, donated in 1825 by Robert and William Garnett, the sons of a Manchester cotton merchant and slave trader, arrived lying within two decorated body coffins. Inscriptions on these coffins indicate she was a temple musician who probably died around 650 B.C.E. (around 2,700 years ago during Egypt’s 25^th Dynasty). On arrival, her body was unwrapped at the Manchester Natural History Society, the forerunner to the Manchester Museum. She has been kept on public display in some form for much of the last two hundred years, although as the Museum explains, in a manner that hasn't always offered a contextualised view of ancient Egyptian funerary practices.

Asru was also the subject of an intensive medical examination in 1980, when Dr Rosalie David, who founded the pioneering Manchester Mummy Project, used her examination to show the viability of endoscopy as a technique for the medical investigation of ancient Egyptian remains.

With clearer knowledge of Asru’s medical condition and to mark two hundred years since the mummy’s original unwrapping, the Museum says it is now keen to rethink “how we care for those who have been entrusted to us and how we share their stories with respect and sensitivity.”

The case in favour of removing human remains from public exhibition is based on a deep-rooted belief in and respect for the dignity of the dead. It is one of the reasons why the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford decided to remove their collection of tsantsa (‘shrunken’) heads and other human remains from public display in 2020 and is one of the reasons why the Manchester Museum launched the Asru consultation in June this year.

Preserving the body in the most lifelike manner as possible was believed by ancient Egyptians to improve their chances of a form of rebirth, helping them to complete their journey into the afterlife. Could the public exhibition of their remains jeopardize this spiritual journey? Manchester is also aware of the distress that some visitors and members of staff experience at the sight of an unwrapped body. It is hoped that bringing a wider range of voices into the conversation might help address both these sensitivities.

                                                Mummies in the Egyptian Galleries at the British Museum

The case for retaining Egyptian mummies on public exhibition appears just as strong, albeit equally complex. I doubt museums will take lightly the visible excitement, fascination and curiosity that many visitors experience in the presence of an Egyptian mummy. Those I spoke to in the Egyptian Galleries at the British Museum last week referred to the educational value of a mummy's physical presence, together with the connection they provide to a better understanding of the rich history and customs of ancient Egypt. It’s the very survival and visibility of mummies that help command our respect.

Full repatriation lies a lot further down the road. Compared with the number of appeals to return human bodies wrenched from Indigenous communities during the 19th and early 20th centuries by supporters of racist pseudosciences, there are no descendants or surviving communities appealing for the return of Egyptian mummies.

Mummies are popular museum exhibits and popular opinion may not always align with ethical developments. So the results of this Manchester survey will be followed closely. As the Museum looks beyond its colonial background, making changes to reflect new society requirements, the Asru conversation may help the Museum navigate the future of other ancestral remains in its collections. Taking this approach is considered “critical... and one we feel must be addressed with transparency, taking into account the perspectives of communities and visitors.”

By the beginning of this month, the Museum had received 862 responses to their consultation. However, it remains open until the end of August. and the Museum is encouraging as many people as possible to go online and share their views on Asru’s future.

Whatever the results, don’t expect dramatic and immediate changes. But it could be another small step that drives a gradual shift in museum policy. Alternatively, it could point to ‘no change’.

Photo: Outer coffin of the temple musician, Asru (circa. 650 B.C.E.)

Courtesy of Manchester Museum