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Taking Ann Macy Roth’s 2019 ARCE paper, “Lady Parts & Lions,” as a jumping-off point, this paper looks at the power of burial within the sacred landscape from ancient Egyptian perspectives and discusses what that means in terms of the stewardship and display of ancient Egyptian human remains in museums. Building on the work of Roth and others, it seeks to address the significance of the Nile Valley and surrounding landscapes in Egyptian funerary practices and examines the relationship between the final resting place of the deceased and their ability to access or enjoy their Hereafter. Reframing these concerns for a museum context means considering what happens when someone’s body is removed from their placement in death, from their tomb, and from the sacred landscape that they sought to be a part of for eternity—issues with which I have been grappling as I reevaluate display practices at Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH).
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Sullivan, Elaine A. and Rita Lucarelli. “From the Museum Back to the Tomb: The Virtual Rejoining of a 26th Dynasty Sarcophagus and Its Burial at Saqqara.” In Abusir and Saqqara in the Year 2020, edited by Miroslav Bárta, Filip Coppens, and Jaromír Krejčí, 371–379. Prague: Charles University, 2021.
Swain, Hedley. “Museum Practice and the Display of Human Remains.” In Archaeologists and the Dead: Mortuary Archaeology in Contemporary Society, edited by Howard Williams and Melanie Giles, 169–183. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
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Troche, Julia. Death, Power, and Apotheosis in Ancient Egypt. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021.
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