I have just
released a short story, Death on Display,
on Amazon Kindle. The premise: “An
archaeologist and physician recreate an Egyptian mummy using a modern cadaver
and ancient embalming methods. Then they put the finished mummy on display at an
international conference reception...what could possibly go wrong?”
This
story is a tribute to the most fascinating conference I ever attended, the
World Congress on Mummy Studies. Where else can you hear about a waxwork on display out west that
turned out to be a mummy, or “piggies in peat” (experimental animal
mummification using piglets in peat bogs in Europe)? I can truthfully say I
attended more papers than I usually do because I was absolutely mesmerized with
the subject matter.
The first session was on the ethics of
mummies—both the study of dead bodies and the display of them. The concept of
stakeholder theory was introduced: who are the stakeholders in a mummy
display? The scientists, the museum staff, the public, the mummy
itself…and the descendants of the mummy, if they can be identified. And here is
a lesson for the unwary: a protest about a “stuffed Eskimo” in a museum case
incensed Greenlanders until a DNA analysis proved that the body in question was
of Dutch origin. Then, the protesters said it was okay to call it a “stuffed
Dutchman,” just not an Eskimo. But, as we all agreed, it was clearly not
respectful to label any mummy, a dead human being, a “stuffed” anything.
Another session told the story of Mumab, a human
cadaver embalmed Egyptian-style in modern times. This project, a collaboration between Dr. Bob
Brier, an Egyptologist, and Dr. Ronn Wade of the University of Maryland School
of Medicine, tested everything we thought we knew about Egyptian embalming. The
two scientists had a heck of a time getting the necessary permissions to
eviscerate the cadaver, embalm it, and preserve it for posterity. The finished
mummy was eventually loaned to the San Diego Museum of Man, just in time to become the
centerpiece of an exhibit and the star of our Mummy Congress conference
reception.
The bizarre experience of observing a freshly
made mummy in a museum case while sipping white wine with other mummy fans inspired my story, Death on Display. I’m giving away ten
copies on Amazon here over the next two weeks. After that, it
will be only 99 cents.
