Mummified - by Angela Stienne

About the Book

Mummified explores the curious, unsettling and controversial cases of mummies held in French and British museums. From powdered mummies eaten as medicine to mummies unrolled in public, dissected for racial studies and DNA-tested in modern laboratories, there is a lot more to these ancient remains than first meets the eye.

Book Synopsis

The unsettling stories of how Egyptian mummies came to be held in British and French museums.

We all know what a mummy is - or do we? In Mummified, Angela Stienne explores the little-known stories behind the Ancient Egyptian remains displayed in British and French museums.

Taking the reader on a journey between Egypt, Paris and London, Stienne exposes a murky world of grave-robbing, theft and black-market deals over human remains. Mummies have been unrolled in public, dissected for race studies and even eaten for their supposed health-giving properties. But does the fact they are thousands of years old mean they can be treated as objects, or do we owe them the same respect we would any other human body?

Investigating matters of life and death and the ethics of collection and display, Mummified offers a fresh perspective on these ancient bodies, which have fascinated Europeans for centuries.

From the Back Cover

A coffin that rotates, a man collecting preserved heads, skulls amassed in a natural history museum for dubious research: what if the most interesting stories behind Egyptian mummies in museums are not the ones you already know?

Mummified explores the curious, unsettling and often controversial history of the Egyptian mummies held in museums in France and Great Britain. From powdered human remains eaten as medicine and bodies hastily buried in gardens, to mummies unrolled in public, dissected for race studies and DNA-tested in modern laboratories, there is a lot more to these iconic figures than meets the eye. The book travels from Paris to London, Leicester and Manchester, from the apothecaries of the Middle Ages to the dissecting tables of the eighteenth century, and behind the screens of today's computers, enriching our understanding of these bodies that have fascinated Europeans for so long.

Mummified explores stories of life and death, of collecting and viewing, and of interactions - sometimes violent and sometimes emotional - that question the essence of what makes us human.

Review Quotes

'Who would have thought that Egyptian mummies are alive and well all around us? Angela Stienne's book helps us to see the ancient mummy in the brown paint of gallery paintings, in anatomy lectures, even in modern discussions of race and ethnicity. This brilliantly written book proves that the mummy has reawakened within our own social spaces as a material link between past and present. A must read.'
Kara Cooney, Professor of Ancient Egyptian Art & Architecture, University of California Los Angeles

'Mummified is a refreshing take on ancient Egyptian human remains. Inviting readers to reflect on and question the history behind the modern Western fascination with "mummies", it will help museum visitors see them as human beings rather than objects of display.'
Dr Heba Abd el Gawad, Egypt's Dispersed Heritage Project, University College London

'A compelling, captivating and complete book: it takes us on a journey through which we discover, enchanted, what it is about Egyptian mummies that has captured our imaginations and the imaginations of those who preceded us.'
Dario Piombino-Mascali, Research Professor in Anthropology, Vilnius University

'Stienne's book is important because it takes seriously the perspective of the observer rather than attempting to reconstitute the ancient person. This results in some fascinating and genuinely insightful reflections on the reception of the ancient Egyptian dead in museums.'
Dr Campbell Price, Curator of Egypt and Sudan, Manchester Museum

'This rather unusual book is a very personal exploration of a major ethical and philosophical study. [...] The author explores the history of the displacement of ancient Egyptian individuals, always treating each as a real person.'
Ancient Egypt magazine

About the Author

Dr Angela Stienne is a cultural historian, museum researcher and storyteller. In 2016 she created the website Mummy Stories, which aims to reshape the discussion around human remains in museums by collecting people's stories of their own encounters.