Meet the Mummies: Cultural Ambassadors from Beyond the Grave
Picture a mummy in your mind. You’re probably thinking of a preserved and bandaged corpse from ancient Egypt.
But the word today has a wider meaning, covering preserved bodies, whether of people or animals, from across the globe.
The frozen corpses of the Franklin expedition crew in the Arctic, Dutch bog bodies, or a desiccated mouse, snuggled in the corner of a dry attic, are just as much mummies as the Egyptian pharaohs Tutankhamun and Rameses II. There’s more to mummies than bandages, magical amulets and tombs.
Apollo Magazine
February 13, 2019
© Jean Christen / REM
So it’s always refreshing to visit an exhibition dedicated to the subject as a whole, rather than just to ancient Egypt. The current show at the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen, ‘Mummies: Secrets of Life’, presents the ongoing work of the German Mummy Project, based at the museum.
Since 2004, when the museum rediscovered a forgotten group of mummies that had belonged to the artist Gabriel von Max, researchers have used the latest scientific methods to uncover as much information as possible about these and other figures, revealing new details about their lives and deaths. This exhibition highlights these discoveries and their significance, as well as the science behind them.
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