Mummies: a new exhibition exploring science, culture and memory
At the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, the Mummies exhibition provides a rare and unique encounter with mummified individuals from around the world. The exhibition was designed and imagined by a multidisciplinary team and co-directed by Éloïse Quétel, Head of Medical Collections at Sorbonne University. It explores the many facets of mummification; a universal practice combining science, culture and memory.
Image: Mummy of an Egyptian infant @ MNHN - J.C. Domenech
A discussion with Éloïse Quétel
“Mummies have always aroused fascination and revulsion”, explains the exhibition’s co-scientific curator, Éloïse Quétel. By placing this ambivalence at the very heart of the exhibition, alongside the exhibition’s co-scientific curator Pascal Sellier and the museum’s curators Eve Bouzeret and Bérivan Ozcan, she invites visitors to reflect on the reasons why, for thousands of years, humans have sought to preserve the human body. “Mummification is not an oddity, it is a profoundly human practice”, says Éloïse Quétel. “It answers the same need everywhere: to maintain a link between the living and the dead.”
With this theme, and for the tenth anniversary of the reopening of the Musée de l’Homme, the exhibition is showcasing one of the four largest collections of mummies in the world. “The Musée de l’Homme has preserved 70 complete mummified bodies”, says the co-curator. A heritage conservator-restorer, trained in the conservation of human remains and organic material, Eloïse Quétel spent four years working on these collections. Following an internship at the mummy and organic human remains workshop at the Musée de l’Homme in 2013, she was responsible for their management and conservation, before becoming Head of the Medical and Pathological Anatomy collections at Sorbonne University.
Unpicking the clichés and rediscovering meaning
Far from the Egyptian myth or the image of Rascar Capac, the Mummies exhibition highlights the diversity of funerary practices around the world. Visitors discover a cultural fresco where Andean, Egyptian, Guanche, European and Asian mummies come together. The oldest, the Chinchorro mummies in Chile, date back some 9,000 years, while the most recent, dating back to 17th century Europe, showcase the beginnings of modern embalming.
The exhibition aims to go beyond the clichés conveyed in popular culture, as the visit is structured into four main areas: encounters with the mummified deceased; funerary rituals and technical practices; the history of museum collections, and modern scientific research.
Nine unique destinies
Of the 70 mummies preserved at the Musée de l’Homme, six have been chosen for the exhibition. Three additional mummies have been loaned from other collections. These nine individuals represent the geographical and cultural variety of mummification, and each one has a unique story to tell. The lady known as of the “Chulpas” from Bolivia, wrapped in cloth and adorned with a silver necklace of a condor, demonstrates the special status of certain Andean elites. A young warrior from the Chachapoya culture, known as “the cloud people” from Peru, was found in a foetal position, with a visible trepanation at the back of his skull. The “Guanche Queen” of the Canary Islands, carefully wrapped in goatskins sewn together with tendons, stands out for the remarkable preservation of her veins, hands and nails. Next to her, an Egyptian infant wears a golden mask and a pearl breastplate. The little boy from Martres-d’Artière, discovered in 1752 in a lead sarcophagus near Clermont-Ferrand, reminds us of the superstitions of Enlightened Europe: sometimes perceived as a saint, sometimes as evil, his body was shunted between believers and scientists before being added to the first royal collections at the Jardin des plantes.
The exhibition also presents Myrithis, an Egyptian woman from the Roman period discovered in Antinoöpolis, recognisable by her flower-adorned shroud and mirror sceptre; a Ptolemaic mummy on loan from the Musée des Confluences; a funeral bundle containing an infant mummy from the Chancay culture in Peru, entirely swaddled and placed upside down in its bundle, on loan from the Musée du Quai Branly, and a young girl from the 17th century, from the Strasbourg collections, in a silk dress with jewellery.
Through these figures and using digital and illustrated media, the exhibition portrays a unique panorama: natural mummifications, enhanced by cold or dry conditions, fumigation techniques (smoking) and salt or resin-based embalming. These techniques reflect the diversity of beliefs and attitudes towards the body and the sacred.
Images of the exhibition
When science listens to the dead
The exhibition also highlights recent scientific advances. Since the first X-ray of a mummy in 1895, research has shown that mummified remains are important biological archives. Thanks to imaging techniques and non-invasive analysis, researchers can now study these bodies without altering their physical integrity, and observe historic pathologies, such as tuberculosis, clubfoot and tooth disorders, study diets using isotope analysis, particularly carbon and nitrogen, and identify the composition of embalming products. Insect pupae found inside shrouds sometimes reveal missing steps in the preparation of the bodies. “We no longer dissect today; we observe and listen to what the body has to tell us,” adds the specialist.
This approach , which attempts to “reconstruct entire lives”, combines archaeology, biological anthropology and forensic medicine. To do so, the four curators surrounded themselves with a scientific committee made up of historians specialised in death, embalming specialists, funerary archaeologists and anthropologists. Laboratories from the Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France, the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle and independent researchers produced analysis and images displayed in the exhibition. Collaborations also included researchers working on the Canary Islands and in South America, curators at the Musée du Quai Branly, the Louvre and the Musée des Confluences, as well as PhD students and technicians who carried out archival research on the mummies at the Musée de l’Homme.
Exhibition ethics: displaying without distressing
Aside from research, the exhibition explores a very key question: how can we show a human body without objectifying it? The team imagined a museographic and scenographic narrative which was sensitive, ethical and respectful. At the entrance, a text warns visitors about the presence of human remains. At the end of the exhibition, visitors can leave their thoughts and impressions in an urn.
“The way in which we show someone who has died, and the reasons why we are showing them, are vital”, says Éloïse Quétel. Each body rests in an individual display case, around which visitors can move and turn. On one side, a semi-transparent veil partially obscures the view, leaving visitors free to walk around the display case to the see the deceased or not. “We did not want to create a spectacle or make visitors feel uncomfortable, but ensure a respectful encounter,” emphasises the curator.
Each body has been meticulously archived and analysed by the researchers. An identity card explains the age, origin, mummification method, state of preservation and the museum history of the mummified person. “The idea is that visitors don’t just look at a mummy but meet a person,” explains the curator. “These people are not objects for study, but witnesses”. The deceased are also surrounded by artefacts associated with the funerary practice: “in numerous cultures which practice mummification, amulets are made, bandages are woven, vases are created and funerary motifs are painted. These objects reflect the sense of social cohesion and the collective relationship with death,” adds Eloïse Quétel.
Contemporary works to feed further thought
Throughout the exhibition, visitors can also enjoy contemporary works of art, which resonate with the cultures, practices and rituals linked to the mummified individuals. These include works by artists from the Canary Islands and Europe which question the materiality of the body, decomposition and memory. These works are not just aesthetic interludes; they echo funeral practices and remind us that creation, like mummification, is an attempt to resist being forgotten.
A universal perspective on death
Through the practice of mummification, the exhibition explores how societies deal with death. Certain practices aim to ensure that the soul lives on, others strive to ensure the continuity of memory or the legitimacy of power. Some cultures still display their ancestors, while others honour them in processions or annual rituals. “Preserving the body means preserving a bond, allowing us to grieve,” explains the specialist. In Europe, this relationship changed drastically after the world wars, as the vision of death became gradually more removed from daily life.
By reintroducing these bodies into a public, scientific and respectful space, the exhibition invites us to experience what it means to see “a dead person”. “Encountering a mummified body means facing death. It is a physical experience, which reminds us of our own condition. It is a face-to-face encounter with our humanity,” concludes Eloïse Quétel.
