Egyptologist: Egyptian remains were used in strange ways

Many museums in Great Britain, such as the British Museum in London, have stopped using the term “mummy”, which is considered inhumane. Instead, the remains are presented as a “mummified person”. This is a way for museums to come to terms with parts of their colonial history.

Sofia Hagemann is an Egyptologist and curator of the Mediterranean Museum in Stockholm, where the term “mummified person” has been used for a long time. Häggman welcomes the discussion, which she believes is important, but hopes the discussion will evolve.

– This is something that needs to be raised. But perhaps not the term in the first place, but the whole view of the people and the view of history that we represent, tells Kulturnyheterna.

Sophia Hagmann also believes that the remains of Egyptian mummies in particular have historically been treated more as objects than as real people.

– It has often happened that museums have removed human remains from their exhibits and returned them to their countries of origin more or less. who wanted to recover the remains of their ancestors so that they could bury them. But she says dealing with Egyptian mummies was a little different.

Mummies are treated as if they were not human. They were displayed in cabinets as curiosities, emptied as entertainment, and Egyptian corpses were taken to medicine. Paint and paper were made. Ancient Egyptian cadavers were used in the most bizarre and disrespectful ways, says Sophia Hagemann.