Do the Dead Deserve Privacy?
On 3rd October, a team of archaeologists from Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities prised open a sealed sarcophagus to the delight of a gathering crowd. The slumbering mummy had been resting peacefully for some 2,600 years alongside 59 other sarcophagi. All were pulled out of the dark in the Saqqara necropolis, an ancient graveyard south of Cairo.
These mummies are thought to be priests, government officials, and individuals from the upper echelons of Egyptian society. It’s a sight we’re so used to that we don’t even question it. But what does this unearthing millennia later mean for the bodies we so publicly exhume? What can it tell us about ownership, dignity and our afterlife wishes? I guess for all the ancient Egyptians’ extensive funeral planning, no amount of bottled bodily parts could prepare for or predict the twists that humanity has taken.
But it’s not as if the Egyptians didn’t leave us ample evidence of their religion and interpretation of the afterlife. We know that they mummified the dead because the body had to remain intact for the soul to receive judgment by the gods. And, that should a tomb be neglected, the body it enclosed may have its soul return to reap vengeance on its lazy caretakers. We’re certainly all familiar with Tutankhamun and his vengeful curse. So, is it just think that we think hexes and religions have a sell by date?
Would we be banished from the Fields of Reeds if our tombs are plundered? Do we get yanked across the River Styx and have our pennies thrown back at us if…