Mummy Unwrapping Parties

[Tara]

I was just watching a special on PBS the other day (The Mummy Who Would Be King) and there was something about the Europeans conducting Mummy Unwrapping Parties. That is so disgusting. Ugh! #puke#

Had these people no shame?

[moonchain]

It wasn't so much a lack of shame as a lack of political correctness. They were of an era where they thought these people were heathens whose bodies were quaint artifacts. Personally, had I been in Victorian times (and was of the upper class), I'd probably be at all the unwrapping parties I could. It's part of the human fascination with death and looking horror in the eye.

It's also hard for us to deal with that today in part because of the lack of presence in dealing with the dead. When a family member dies, there aren't as many deathbed scenes and the bodies are usually sent immediately from morgue to mortician for redecoration or cremation. We don't see death unless its on the T.V. or internet anymore (which is why I think there's more obsession these days with seeing dead or undead on video). We have separated ourselves from direct views.