Derby Museum and Art Gallery – How to Display the Mummified Bodies of Pa-Sheri and Pypyu

There’s a whole wave of debate on how to display mummified bodies and indeed human remains in general. A few museums seem to deal with this in a slightly clunky manner which seems more patronising than useful, but I really rather liked how Derby Museum has dealt with this. The helpful man at the entrance to the museum had already mentioned that they give visitors the choice of whether they want to see the mummified remains or not, placing them behind screens.

The two mummies are Pa-Sheri and Pypyu, although the text on the external displays is a little muddled about what relates to each mummy with conflicting information on-line and indeed within the museum, I rather suspect there was a wider exhibition here and they’ve kept some of the displays and not all. The museum also seems confused about whether they have two male mummies or one female and one male, something which feels sub-optimal in terms of accuracy as they refer to both situations. Historically though, there has been one male and one female, I’m not sure why they now refer to two male mummies or if something has changed.

The mummies have been on display in the museum since 1879 and were likely brought over from Egypt by a collector in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. In keeping with the entire point of their display, I decided against photographing the mummies and the imagery is easy to find on-line anyway. However, I rather liked that I could still take photos if I so desired, although the staff member at the museum entrance told me they’d had problems with people taking selfies with the mummies. Talk about keeping it classy…..

There’s a really detailed article in the Derby Daily Telegraph from 17 November 1892 about the two mummies, with quite engaging content about a close study of the two mummies. There’s actually more information about the mummies presented in this historic newspaper article than there is in the museum today though, something which probably needs some form of correction when the new exhibition is opened.