Mummy Stories is a movement.
I created Mummy Stories in 2016 with a simple but ambitious idea: to create a space where people could share their encounters with human remains in museums, and where those encounters could become part of a broader conversation in the museum sector. At the time, there was little room for reflection, for hesitation, for the kinds of questions that stir unease, wonder, or curiosity. Museums displayed mummified bodies as objects, and the public was expected to admire, to marvel, perhaps to be entertained — but rarely to reflect, to question, to feel. I wanted to change that. I wanted your stories to come first.
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In the early days, as I launched what was then called #MummyMonday inviting weekly story submissions, people wrote to me from across the globe — from Sydney to Cairo, from Leiden to Birmingham, from Iceland to Thailand — describing the moment they first saw a mummified body, the emotions it stirred, the questions it raised. Some were researchers, some curators, some children, some casual museum-goers who never imagined their perspective could matter. Together, these stories began to form a map of human reactions: awe, fear, fascination, discomfort, curiosity, care, and even dissent. The stories were different, sometimes contradictory, but each was a thread in a larger conversation about humanity, ethics, and our relationship with death.
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Over the years, Mummy Stories has grown. What started as a platform for Egyptian human remains became a project encompassing displaced and displayed human remains more broadly. The project evolved to foster conversations — not just collecting stories, but hosting guest blogs by emerging museum leaders, curating events across the UK and Europe, and sharing insights in public talks. In June 2022, this work took a new form in the book Mummified: The Stories Behind Egyptian Mummies in Museums, published by Manchester University Press, weaving together research, reflections, and the voices of contributors from around the world.
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Through it all, the ethos of Mummy Stories has remained the same: meaningful change in museums does not come from directives or regulations alone. It begins with conversations — conversations that are more human, more accessible, more reflective, and more inclusive. Conversations that consider history, contemporary ethical debates, and, crucially, the perspectives and feelings of the communities connected to these remains and those who visit the museums that host them.
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Mummy Stories is a conversation about being human.​​​​​​​​
You may notice that there are no pictures of human remains on this website.
There used to.
In fact, at the inception of Mummy Stories, every story was accompanied by the photograph of human remains. I am sharing this with you because Ibelieve in practice and transparency. So at the start, I did participate in the dissemination of human remains photographs, and now I do not have a single one on this website, on in my books.
Why? Because Mummy Stories is about challenging practices and raising new standards for an ethical and inclusive practice in museums, both in-person, and perhaps more crucially, digitally.
The dissemination of photographs of human remains poses ethical challenges; but photographs also make some people uncomfortable for cultural, religious, and personal reasons and that would be excluding a lot of people from the conversations I want to have.
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If you want to search for photographs, or to share them, I do not think that it is inherently wrong, but that's just not what I do here with Mummy Stories! I made this little doodle to explain why!
