My position is shaped by both privilege and trauma. I am privileged, because I can open the boxes and access documentation archives.
But there is trauma in seeing my own ancestors described as “archaeological specimens” and in asking myself daily if I am complicit in the violence enacted on ancestors through the everyday practices of museum work.
So, while I fully support – and work within – calls for radical transparency and proactive return, I also urge the sector to expand its ethical responsibilities beyond the two poles of the display case and the repatriation ceremony.
Across workshops held since 2020 in Cairo, Luxor, Sharqiya, London and online through Horniman/UCL partnerships, communities articulated consistent expectations grounded in cultural continuity orientation – bodily integrity, ritual completeness, privacy, naming, and spiritual protection.
Ancient Egyptian funerary texts record explicit wishes for the afterlife, concerns contemporary communities continue to recognise as ongoing.
No other Indigenous community would routinely be excluded from defining how their ancestors are treated, while visitors are surveyed on their preferences.
Yet museum systems continue to prioritise visitor experience and material stability over the dead’s and their descendants’ authority regarding care and dignity.
