Kelvingrove mummy Nekht may return to Egypt after display removal

By Olivia Hart

The Scottish newspaper The Sunday Post reports that Egyptian authorities have asked Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum to repatriate the mummified remains of the ancient Egyptian priest Nekht. The museum removed those remains from public view last month.

Glasgow Life, the charitable organisation that operates the museum, confirmed to The Art Newspaper that it received a request to send the remains back to Egypt. The organisation has not confirmed the request’s origin. What is established, therefore, is receipt of a request, not agreement to repatriation.

What changed at Kelvingrove?

Last month, museum officials removed both the coffin and the mummified corpse from public view. The removal changes what visitors can see, but it does not settle where the remains will ultimately rest. No final repatriation decision has been announced.

Glasgow Life’s spokesperson supplied the museum’s reasoning:

“Glasgow Life Museums’ draft Human Remains Policy proposes human remains should only be displayed where there is documented and informed consent from the deceased individual or, in appropriate circumstances, their descendants. In the absence of such consent, we believe removing ancient Egyptian human remains from display is more respectful to the deceased individuals.”

Because the policy is a draft, it is not yet a settled museum rule. It also makes the proposal’s immediate application clear: in the absence of consent, the policy favours removing ancient Egyptian remains from display.

What does the consent argument change?

The removals at Kelvingrove and other museums feed a current UK debate across the museum and heritage sector. Stuart Robertson, the former director of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society in Glasgow, wrote on LinkedIn that:

“applying modern, 21st-century bureaucratic consent standards retrospectively to ancient history is an absurd and impossible standard. It completely undermines the educational mission of public museums”.

Robertson’s objection is to the retrospective reach of modern bureaucracy. Glasgow Life’s draft answers from the opposite direction: without documented and informed consent, removal from display is, in its view, more respectful. Neither proposition settles who should decide when the deceased left no usable consent and how living communities’ wishes should weigh.

What does Icom’s June revision say?

The International Council of Museums (Icom) revised its code of ethics in June, recommending that the “inherent dignity” of human remains be upheld. Icom does not state, however, that all remains should be removed from display.

That distinction matters for museums. Kelvingrove’s draft sets a consent test for human remains and specifically favours removing ancient Egyptian remains when consent is absent. The gap is institutional as well as ethical: Glasgow Life has drafted a specific test, while Icom’s June wording supplies no blanket instruction.

Is Glasgow acting alone?

The Hunterian gallery in Glasgow confirmed to Museums Journal that it covered an open sarcophagus containing the mummified remains of Lady Shep-En-Hor after an internal ethical review. The sarcophagus itself remains on display.

The contrast between them is exact. Kelvingrove removed Nekht’s coffin and corpse from view; the Hunterian covered the open sarcophagus while keeping it in the gallery. It is a more cautious gesture, but still a change to what visitors see.

What happened to Asru?

Last year, officials at Manchester Museum asked visitors whether the mummified remains of an Egyptian woman should remain on display. The mummy, known as Asru, was subsequently taken off public view.

The museum’s website says Asru now lies in its stores within her outer coffin, which remains closed. It stresses that this is not intended as her permanent resting place, and says the museum is considering how to care better for ancestors in line with the wishes of the dead and living communities.

Manchester’s visitor consultation and Kelvingrove’s policy-led removal answer the same ethical problem in different ways: one asks the public, while the other invokes institutional review. The Hunterian’s covered sarcophagus offers a third course. None of the three accounts describes the mummies as settled.

Where does this lead?

For Nekht, the immediate question is whether Glasgow Life turns the request into a permanent return to Egypt; the request’s origin and the draft policy remain unresolved. Across Kelvingrove, the Hunterian and Manchester Museum, the institutional pattern points towards more selective display, explicit consent tests and closer attention to living communities.

The next decisions will show whether that means repatriation, covering or a carefully argued case for keeping these remains visible. The mummy has left public view; the argument has not.