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Unrolling Egyptian mummies in nineteenth-century Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 September 2013

GABRIEL MOSHENSKA
GABRIEL MOSHENSKA*
Affiliation:
UCL Institute of Archaeology, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, UK. Email: g.moshenska@ucl.ac.uk.
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Abstract

The unrolling of Egyptian mummies was a popular spectacle in mid-nineteenth-century Britain. In hospitals, theatres, homes and learned institutions mummified bodies, brought from Egypt as souvenirs or curiosities, were opened and examined in front of rapt audiences. The scientific study of mummies emerged within the contexts of early nineteenth-century Egyptomania, particularly following the decipherment of hieroglyphics in 1822, and the changing attitudes towards medicine, anatomy and the corpse that led to the 1832 Anatomy Act. The best-known mummy unroller of this period was the surgeon and antiquary Thomas Pettigrew, author of the highly respected History of Egyptian Mummies. By examining the locations, audiences and formats of some of Pettigrew's unrollings this paper outlines a historical geography of mummy studies within the intellectual worlds of nineteenth-century Britain, illuminating the patterns of authority, respectability, place and performance that Pettigrew and his colleagues navigated with varying degrees of success.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , September 2014 , pp. 451 - 477
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 2013 

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