Display of ancient mummies disrespectful?

BBC News

Thanks very much to Chris Townsend for bringing this piece to my attention (together with several other articles mentioned in today's posts). It looks at the somewhat disturbing idea (and prospect) of removing ancient Egyptian mummies from display in Manchester Museum if the display of the mummies should be deemed disrespectful.

Manchester Museum could remove its display of ancient Egyptian mummies, if people decide it is disrespectful.

Museum bosses are debating the ethics of showing human remains as part of the Egyptology collection and want to hear public opinion on the issue.

The consultation comes as the museum prepares to show Lindow Man, an Iron Age man found in a Cheshire peat bog.

It also follows controversy stirred up by the arrival of the Body Worlds 4 exhibition at another city museum.

The Gunther Von Hagens display at the Museum of Science and Industry drew criticism from the Bishop of Manchester.

The bishop's belief that the human body should be treated with more respect sparked the debate at Manchester Museum.

Bosses have been consulting academics and other groups on the issues surrounding exhibits including human remains and whether they should be on display in museums.

It means the museum's Egyptology collection, which contains a number of mummified bodies, could be redisplayed or, if people feel strongly enough, removed.

There is a video to accompany the piece on the above page (Museum visitors' views on the mummies), or at the following URL:

http://tinyurl.com/ysuec6

Personally, I believe that it is a great shame when well meaning organizational pressure leads to the artificial sanitization of the way in which we perceive past societies and their cultural output, particularly as regards the exhibits that museums can and cannot have on display. The way in which people behaved in the past does not always mesh with our own present day ideas and tabus, but it is unhelpful and counter productive to "protect" the public from the reality of the past. Doing so merely prevents us from gaining insights into an important part of the cultural spectrum of a given society. The treatment of death by past socieities is an important way of understanding how life was perceived, and it is completely artificial to conceal the physical expression of belief and ideas. Museums are supposed to inform, not disguise.

I do agree that museums have a responsibility to display mummies (and other forms of human remains) in ways which are designed to inform, involve and interest, rather than to sensationalise - which is why there was some negative reaction to the fanfare approach to laying bare Tutankhamun's naked face to visitors at his tomb in Luxor. But I don't believe that anyone could suggest that UK museums are sensationalising our mummies, and it offends me to sugggest that mummies should be withdrawn from display when they form such an important archaeological dataset.

With Body Works matters are probably somewhat different - it seems to me that the main aim there was to create a reaction to the dead form of the body via a highly sensationalist approach. Take it or leave it, people can always vote with their feet.

In the end, I suppose it comes down to a great extent to how we define "disrespectful". If museums have to start imposing modern western ideas of respect on past archaeological objects and sites we are potentially going to be in for a few costly and contraversial changes.