Ginger is back.
I was in the British Museum last week and discovered that 'Ginger' (at 5,000 years old, their oldest mummy) is back on display following a disappearance while the Egyptian rooms were being rearranged for several months last year.
Ginger's nickname comes from the colour of his hair - which amazingly you can see discern. We'll probably never know what his real name was but to school children for the last 104 years he has been one of their enduring memories of the Museum.
To be honest, I'm not entirely comfortable with the notion of displaying corpses, even for educational purposes. There's something ghoulishly close to voyeurism about it. However, these guys went through the whole process of getting mummified in order to achieve immortality and I guess now, in an odd way they've got it.
posted at 9:14 PM
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