Talk of getting consent from mummies is bizarre - but they still shouldn't be on display

Over on X, a new account was set up this week under the name of the Kelvingrove Mummy.

“I would like to give my informed consent to be put back on display at Kelvingrove, I don’t like it in this cupboard with the mops and buckets,” it said. Some of the mummy’s subsequent posts have got a little more political and a little less funny, so we’ll just stick with this one for now.

But the social media mummy is, of course, referring to news that real mummies - the remains of Egyptian priest Nekht, a mummified right hand recovered from the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt, and a male head and right foot - have been removed from display at the Glasgow museum.

Visitors to Kelvingrove this week found a sign had replaced the Egyptian displays, informing them they had been removed “as a mark of respect” as the mummies had not given consent.

The Hunterian Museum has followed suit, covering Lady Shep-En-Hor's body in a specially-designed textile to stop it from being seen by visitors.

The museums have both indicated that they would consider repatriating the remains if that was requested.

Glasgow Life, which operates Kelvingrove, said that its draft Human Remains Policy proposes that “human remains should only be displayed where there is documented and informed consent from the deceased individual or, in appropriate circumstances, their descendants”.

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (Andrew Milligan/PA)

The move has angered many, who have branded it “woke” - with Scottish Tories culture spokesman Murdo Fraser claiming Egyptian mummies had been “cancelled...by a society so obsessed with modern sensibilities”.

Glasgow Life is not alone in its decision. Last month, Manchester Museum removed its last mummy saying the move “aligns most closely with what we understand about her own wishes”.

Meanwhile, The Louvre in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, have not moved their mummies. Nor has the National Museums of Scotland (NMS), which tells me it continues to display mummified human remains”, but only where they are “key to telling an important story about a place, object, practice, person or people”.

Changes in museum displays appear to have followed the International Council of Museums’ revised Code of Ethics. Although the code does not explicitly recommend museums should remove remains, it does say museums should “uphold the inherent dignity of human remains and promote respect for their significance”.

I have to say, while my first reaction, along with most of Scotland, was one of bewilderment, I’m now coming around.

On a recent visit to The Louvre in Paris, days before the Kelvingrove debacle kicked off, I do remember wondering briefly, walking through the Egyptian galleries, what was the point. What did I, as an ordinary person on a tourist day out, get out of seeing the remains of a human being apart from potentially some kind of macabre kick?

Centuries ago, when mummies were first put on display, there was no internet, photographs, video or other digital tools. Teaching the incredible techniques used by the Egyptians to preserve bodies could arguably not be done in any other way.

Of course the idea of offending a mummy is plain bizarre. Respect, on the other hand, is not. These people, like the rest of us, were living humans once. They were someone’s children, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. Putting their remains on public show like the dolls in the Barbie exhibition which was also on at Kelvingrove until last week is somewhat jarring.

Instead of asking why they have suddenly been removed, perhaps the question is why they have been there for so long in the first place?