They are among the most popular exhibits in museums worldwide, with a name so resonant, blockbuster films have been built on it.
But some museums in Britain are now using words other than “mummy” to describe their displays of ancient Egyptian human remains.
Instead, they are starting to adopt terms such as “mummified person” or to use the individual’s name to emphasise that they were once living people.
Using different language to describe these human remains can also distance them from the depiction of mummies in popular culture, which has tended to “undermine their humanity” through “legends about the mummy’s curse” and by portraying them as “supernatural monsters,” Jo Anderson, ᴀssistant keeper of archaeology at the Great North Museum: Hancock in Newcastle, northeast England, wrote in a blog posted in May 2021 that outlined her museum’s language change.
Although the field “has been looking at the most appropriate way of displaying human remains for about 30 years…in terms of the use of the word ‘mummy,’ I think that’s been more recent,” Daniel Antoine, keeper of the department for Egypt and Sudan at London’s British Museum, told CNN.
