How Egyptian Mummies Reached Europe: Two Centuries of Trade and Excavation

Recent decisions by British museums to remove ancient Egyptian mummies from public view have renewed attention to how these preserved bodies left Egypt and reached European collections.

The question reaches beyond today’s museum displays. It opens a historical inquiry into two centuries of trade and excavation, and the routes through which Egyptian mummies were taken abroad.

Tracing that history requires examining more than their arrival in Europe. It also means looking at the circumstances of their discovery, sale and transfer, rather than treating their presence in museums as the starting point of the story.

The latest display decisions bring those questions back into focus. Alongside the issue of whether visitors should see the mummies is a broader one: how the bodies became museum holdings in the first place.