Museums might exist because we are hoarders. Or, maybe they exist because we are somehow tied to pasts that aren’t even ours. We can’t let go. Can’t clean out our junk drawers. But keeping bodies on display? We visit the mummy exhibit and look because we’re driven to look. Notice how on one hand we talk seriously about human dignity and on the other hand about embalming fluids and instruments used to extract the brain without damaging the skull. That “on the other hand” sounds a bit morbidly hypocritical, doesn’t it? “Hey, I’m dignified, but I just gotta take a look.”
In 1834 Lieutenant E. C. Archbold of the Bengal Light Cavalry sent a letter to Secretary James Prinsep in India that announced a gift of a mummy he was sending to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. That mummy is now in need of some repair as it lies in the Jadughar (Jadu Ghar), a museum in Kolkata, India. Archbold had to send the mummy on a separate ship from the one on which he sailed because the crew had misgivings about transporting a 4,000-year-old corpse. It was the nineteenth century, so who can blame them? Seamen had enough superstitions plaguing their lives. They certainly didn’t want some sort of mummy’s curse to condemn their ship. A dead shipmate was one thing to deal with; a mummy, another.
What’s this obsession with mummies? Why do they fascinate so many? Books, movies, legends, curses! We seem to have devoted considerable living time to these dead. Think of the hours (years) spent finding, digging up, transporting, and displaying mummies in museums around the planet, and add to that the hours studying, caring for, and viewing these lifeless forms from antiquity. And in imitation of the Egyptians, we mummify.
In Kolkata one can look into the eye sockets of the mummy. The death mask has been removed from the skull and placed on the mummy’s chest. Eyeless sockets look up, seeing nothing of the world that looks down in wonder for whatever reason: Anthropology, art, history, science, ghoulish interest, or innocent curiosity? What can the mummy convey about its life and times? What can it convey about its beliefs? We look for meaning in any objects or remnants of messages inside or surrounding the sarcophagus. Was the person mummified and given objects to use in the other world? (Curiously, we ask, “How will it know that it has them if the brain has been removed?”)
Do we wonder about our own mummified fate? Four thousand years will pass. Some group will dig us up and say, “There, that’s curious. What do you think that was used for? It has a reflective surface and a metal back with a little hole. Surely, these people meant for this object to travel with the deceased into the next world because the deceased thought it was important. It has markings, and they don’t seem to be random. Is it language? If we can decipher the language, we might be able to explain its significance. And the object’s position in the sarcophagus, placed in a hand positioned near the side of the skull, might be a clue. Language? There’s a vertical mark, I, and then there are other marks beside it. A circle with a stick, p, and a stick with an arch, h. the next mark looks like a wheel, but it might just be a circle. Is that another mark, maybe a little arch, n? It lies beside a circular mark, one that is not a completed circle, but is interrupted by a chord or a diameter inside a circle, e. Does the circle represent some Heraclitean cycle between states of godhood, the Pyr Aeizoon, and humanity? Does that last interrupted circle indicate death’s barrier? Doesn’t make any sense, but I’m sure the writing is a clue to the importance of this no doubt religious object buried with the mummy. And what is this? It looks like an engraving of a piece of fruit. Is it a fertility symbol. Could it be an apple with a missing bite? Is it possible that this strange object was meant as symbolic food or as an instrument to connect the dead to the living? is it a belief that those in some other world can communicate, are still interested in communicating, or, like our having a 4,000-year-old corpse on display, an indication that we just can't let go?”
In 1834 Lieutenant E. C. Archbold of the Bengal Light Cavalry sent a letter to Secretary James Prinsep in India that announced a gift of a mummy he was sending to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. That mummy is now in need of some repair as it lies in the Jadughar (Jadu Ghar), a museum in Kolkata, India. Archbold had to send the mummy on a separate ship from the one on which he sailed because the crew had misgivings about transporting a 4,000-year-old corpse. It was the nineteenth century, so who can blame them? Seamen had enough superstitions plaguing their lives. They certainly didn’t want some sort of mummy’s curse to condemn their ship. A dead shipmate was one thing to deal with; a mummy, another.
What’s this obsession with mummies? Why do they fascinate so many? Books, movies, legends, curses! We seem to have devoted considerable living time to these dead. Think of the hours (years) spent finding, digging up, transporting, and displaying mummies in museums around the planet, and add to that the hours studying, caring for, and viewing these lifeless forms from antiquity. And in imitation of the Egyptians, we mummify.
In Kolkata one can look into the eye sockets of the mummy. The death mask has been removed from the skull and placed on the mummy’s chest. Eyeless sockets look up, seeing nothing of the world that looks down in wonder for whatever reason: Anthropology, art, history, science, ghoulish interest, or innocent curiosity? What can the mummy convey about its life and times? What can it convey about its beliefs? We look for meaning in any objects or remnants of messages inside or surrounding the sarcophagus. Was the person mummified and given objects to use in the other world? (Curiously, we ask, “How will it know that it has them if the brain has been removed?”)
Do we wonder about our own mummified fate? Four thousand years will pass. Some group will dig us up and say, “There, that’s curious. What do you think that was used for? It has a reflective surface and a metal back with a little hole. Surely, these people meant for this object to travel with the deceased into the next world because the deceased thought it was important. It has markings, and they don’t seem to be random. Is it language? If we can decipher the language, we might be able to explain its significance. And the object’s position in the sarcophagus, placed in a hand positioned near the side of the skull, might be a clue. Language? There’s a vertical mark, I, and then there are other marks beside it. A circle with a stick, p, and a stick with an arch, h. the next mark looks like a wheel, but it might just be a circle. Is that another mark, maybe a little arch, n? It lies beside a circular mark, one that is not a completed circle, but is interrupted by a chord or a diameter inside a circle, e. Does the circle represent some Heraclitean cycle between states of godhood, the Pyr Aeizoon, and humanity? Does that last interrupted circle indicate death’s barrier? Doesn’t make any sense, but I’m sure the writing is a clue to the importance of this no doubt religious object buried with the mummy. And what is this? It looks like an engraving of a piece of fruit. Is it a fertility symbol. Could it be an apple with a missing bite? Is it possible that this strange object was meant as symbolic food or as an instrument to connect the dead to the living? is it a belief that those in some other world can communicate, are still interested in communicating, or, like our having a 4,000-year-old corpse on display, an indication that we just can't let go?”
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