Mummified explores the curious, unsettling and controversial cases of mummies held in French and British museums. From powdered mummies eaten as medicine to mummies unrolled in public, dissected for racial studies and DNA-tested in modern laboratories, there is a lot more to these ancient remains than first meets the eye.

A coffin that rotates, a man collecting preserved heads, skulls amassed in a natural history museum for dubious research: what if the most interesting stories behind Egyptian mummies in museums are not the ones you already know?

Mummified explores the curious, unsettling and often controversial history of the Egyptian mummies held in museums in France and Great Britain. From powdered human remains eaten as medicine and bodies hastily buried in gardens, to mummies unrolled in public, dissected for race studies and DNA-tested in modern laboratories, there is a lot more to these iconic figures than meets the eye. The book travels from Paris to London, Leicester and Manchester, from the apothecaries of the Middle Ages to the dissecting tables of the eighteenth century, and behind the screens of today’s computers, enriching our understanding of these bodies that have fascinated Europeans for so long.

Mummified explores stories of life and death, of collecting and viewing, and of interactions – sometimes violent and sometimes emotional – that question the essence of what makes us human.

Mummified explores the curious, unsettling and controversial cases of mummies held in French and British museums. From powdered mummies eaten as medicine to mummies unrolled in public, dissected for race studies and DNA-tested in modern laboratories, there is a lot more to these ancient remains than first meets the eye.

This book takes you on a journey from Paris to London, Leicester and Manchester, from the apothecaries of the Middle Ages to the dissecting tables of the eighteenth century, and finally behind the screen of today’s computers, to revisit the stories of these bodies that have fascinated Europeans for so long.

Mummified investigates matters of life and death, of collecting and viewing, and of interactions – sometimes violent and sometimes emotional – that question the essence of what makes us human.