Museums in Scotland, specifically the Kelvingrove and the Hunterian, are no longer displaying certain Egyptian mummies. The move follows updated international standards regarding the rights of the deceased and their descendants.
The removal of Nekht and Lady Shep-En-Hor
The Kelvingrove Art Gallery has specifically chosen to hide the remains of an ancient Egyptian priest named Nekht from public sight. According to a spokesperson for the gallery, the decision was made because there was no evidence of consent from the deceased individual or their ancestors. The museum expressed that such a move is a more respectful way to handle ancient human remains.
Similarly, the Hunterian Museum, which is operated by the University of Glasgow, has restricted access to the remains of Lady Shep-En-Hor. While her ornate sarcophagus had been a part of the museum's collection since 1820, the museum decided that her corpse deserved privacy in death. As the BBC reported, this shift focuses on the inherent dignity of the indviidual rather than the spectacle of the display.
The June ICOM ethics update and the colonial legacy
These institutional changes are being driven by a recent update to the International Council of Museums (ICOM) code of ethics, which was released in June. The revised guidelines advise that museums must uphold the dignity of human remains and work closely with the communities or descendants from which these items originate. The ICOM press release explicitly notes that addressing the legacies of colonialism remains a primary challenge for mdoern museums.
The new code suggests that when human remains hold significant cultural or spiritual importance, institutions should actively consider repatriation or restricted use.. This represents a growing movement to move away from the "collection-first" mentality that characterized much of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The spiritual stakes of Egyptian mummification
The decision to hide these remains carries weight because of the religious significance of mummification in Ancient Egypt. as the Smithsonian has noted, the Egyptians viewed the mummified body as the essential home for a person's soul or spirit. The preservation of the body was not merely a funerary custom but a theological necessity to ensure the spirit was not lost after death.
By removing these bodies from the gaze of tourists and students, the Kelvingrove and Hunterian museums are acknowledging a form of spiritual agency that was previously ignored in Western curation. this recognizes that for the original owners, these were not just artifacts, but living components of a religious afterlife.
Will other institutions follow the Kelvingrove model?
A major point of uncertainty remains regarding how widely these ethical shifts will be adopted across the globe. Because the ICOM code of ethics consists of guidelines rather than mandatory requirements, the final decision rests entirely with each individual museum. Academic Steph Scholten, an expert on the ICOM ethics committee, clarified to the BBC that the code does not prescribe a single outcome, such as removing all human remains from display.
This leaves several questions unanswered: will museums in other nations feel the same pressure to comply? How will institutions balance the educational value of displaying remains against these new privacy standards? Without a mandatory enforcement mechanism, the movement toward "private" mummies may remain a localized trend rather than a global standard.
Comments 0