Let’s start soberly with news: The Gustav Lübcke Museum in Hamm will be showing an exhibition on mummies from 3 December. тιтle: “The Dream of Eternal Life”. But that’s not all.

Exhibited in Hamm and not from the 3D printer: mother and male baby as crypt mummies from the Dominican Church in Vác (Hungary). Tragic background: The mother had died in childbirth. The child died a few hours after it was removed from the body by caesarean section. © ( Natural History Museum Budapest)

Extended term

Experts today use the term “mummy” with a much broader meaning. It’s by no means just about Ancient Egypt and embalmed pharaohs. Rather, any body whose decay process has been (partially) stopped is called a “mummy”. First of all, it is irrelevant whether the preservation occurred through favorable natural circumstances or through deliberate treatment of the corpse in the context of cults and rituals.

With around 100 exhibits, the Hammer exhibition, which was created in cooperation with the Reiss-Engelhorn Museum in Mannheim, explores the extensive field of mummification. The examples come from Egypt, Asia, Oceania, South America and Europe. Who offers more?

Pre-Columbian mummy group: Woman with two children, 12th to 14th century AD, Andean coastal region in South America. © (Reiss-Engelhorn-Museum, Mannheim, Jean Christen)

So far, so interesting and (perhaps) a little creepy here and there for sensitive minds.

Enthusiastic Mummy ᴀssociation

But there is also a special circumstance that raises some questions: Hamm presents a reconstructed mummy head from a hypermodern 3D printer. Yes, you read that right.

Local history: In 1881, 50 mummies were discovered near the Egyptian city of Luxor. The find spread all over the world, including as far as Hamm in Westphalia. Some citizens there were so enthusiastic that they (we are in Germany) founded a mummy ᴀssociation that issued shares. Those who bought share certificates contributed their part to the acquisition of a real mummy.

And indeed: On December 14, 1886, the “Hammer Mummy” arrived with timpani and trumpets, although it could only be exhibited in a restaurant due to the lack of a museum. It was destroyed in the war in 1944. Only a black-and-white pH๏τograph documented its former existence. And even then, you can only see the head area.

Museum speaks of a “resurrection”

It was precisely this pH๏τograph that served as a template for 3D printing. The Gustav Lübcke Museum speaks of a “resurrection” in this context. If we disregard the logical wobble that a corpse that remains a corpse, so to speak, can hardly have been resurrected, one would possibly have to think once or more fundamentally (we are in Germany) about the trial itself.

It is not only the question of recording, labeling and cataloguing such an exhibit that arises. Of course, it must be made crystal clear that this is not an original, as deceptively real as it may look. Of course, such demands are met in Hamm.

Will criminal counterfeiters soon concoct something?

However, this does not mean that the advanced technology of 3D printing will always be used in a serious sense in the future. It is conceivable that – also in view of the insane prices on the art market – counterfeiters will soon be making criminal considerations and concocting sophisticated duplicates.

I am a technical layman and ask myself quite naively whether there may be or will soon be scanning methods with which masterpieces (such as sculptures) can be “read” all around and later “printed” three-dimensionally. Perhaps it is only a matter of time before the right materials are available and the surface treatment is further refined. Or should I be wrong? Well, hopefully.

What actually happens to such replicas after they have been exhibited? Do they come into the depot and are properly booked, with a complete history of origin, provenance and all the comforts? Or are they even removed so that they do not get into dubious cycles?

Art and copy from Benjamin to Warhol

And with all this, we haven’t even discussed the fact that there are also numerous copies of conventional nature in this field, i.e. those that do not come from 3D printers, but were made by hand. But they are usually not a problem.

In any case, it is quite conceivable that new horizons will open up here in the long run, not only for academics, but also for lawyers.

Oh, and what was the name of that essay by the great Walter Benjamin again? Exactly. “The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility”. In principle, he has already thought a lot ahead. Not to mention the thoughtless copying spirit of Andy Warhol… Or about the ubiquitous copy and paste on the Internet. Or about the ubiquitous copy and paste on the Internet. Or about the ubiquitous copy and paste on the Internet. Or about the ubiquitous copy and paste on the Internet. Or about the ubiquitous copy and paste on the Internet. Or from…