To the north of the popular tourist destinations below the River Liffey, in an industrial section of the growing city, stands a somewhat unimpressive church. St. Michan’s church was founded in Dublin, Ireland in 1095. Parts of the structure date back almost 1,000 years ago, but the current church building was constructed the 17th century. Today, the Anglican church conducts services, and is open to the public for tours of the historic collections, including an 18th century pipe organ, upon which...

How do mummies, or the broader spectrum of burial rituals (in Egypt and further afield), fit within the context of the art museum?

Human mummies have never been all that fascinating to me, sure, I had the little kid fascination, but I think I always knew there was something a bit dubious about showing off human remains. The Bog Bodies toured my home town and I had already seen them and was very uncomfortable with them so I conveniently lost my school permission slip and stayed at school watching a film that day. I did go through a period of fascination with animal mummies, I liked that they were a way to honour gods that I...

I first heard about the “West Virginia Mummies of the Insane” on a podcast, and I immediately knew I needed to know more. The podcast described the mummies as home-made experimental mummies, made from the remains of two patients bought from the nearby Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, also known as the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane . Today, the mummies are on display in a bathroom of a train station which serves as the Barbour County Historical Museum in Phillippi, West Virginia. I had so...

Having been an Alabama native my entire life, I know that it is a weird state. Alabama became even weirder when this past summer I learned the story of Hazel Farris, the mummy of Bessemer. Half urban legend and half-truth, I’m surprised I had not heard of her before now given my fascination with the macabre. Before I begin, please know that I have never seen Alabama’s infamous mummy and much of what I know has just been passed on to me via word of mouth.

With that out of the way, let’s begin the...

My first encounter with the mummy Neskhons, also known as Djed-Khons-Iwef-Ankh, was in the 1990s on a field trip to the McClung Museum at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. I was in either first or fourth grade; the details are hazy, but I do remember my mom chaperoned the trip and I remember her and the other adults whispering about a certain detail of this mummy that she wasn’t keen to share (it had something to do with the Osiris/penis/catfish cosmology, but I’m still not sure of the d...