The Egyptian mummy, Bog bodies and Relics : Contested and Uncontested Human Remains in Collections

This study examines uncontested human remains from a staff- and institutional perspective in Scandinavia. Focusing on Sweden and Denmark, this study aims to understand more of the practice and approach concerning the Egyptian mummy, Bog bodies and Relics. Today, human remains are debated and treated in different ways depending on different ethical issues concerning the category. Here, we can talk about contested and uncontested human remains. Contested human remains is, for example, ancestral remains belonging to indigenous groups or remains of a more modern date that are deemed for have been inappropriately handled historically. The uncontested human remains however, are remains that do not fit in given examples above and that have not been seen as problematic as the contested human remains. With that said, the uncontested human remains are more prone to be covered, moved around or discussed, but in the end of the day they are still there in the exhibition or in the collection and not removed. This study is based on Tiffany Jenkins (2011) definition about the contested and uncontested and Berit Sellevold’s (2013) figure of ethical aspects in which groups of people and researchers view certain remains. Arisen from these theories and the earlier research of human remains this study attempts to examine the practice and the approach about uncontested human remains. The result of the nine case studies in this thesis shows that the Egyptian mummy, Bog bodies and Relics are used and being used for bringing human beings closer the human remains as the individuals they are and for telling stories of the past. In a concrete way of understanding this, it is the staff of the institution that makes this use and approach possible neither if it’s connecting humans to the individual, the history or the religious sphere. Two main results from this study are that the appearance and context are highly affecting whether the institution, mainly the museum, chooses to exhibit uncontested human remains or not. This is a two years master’s thesis in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies