Hi! Welcome to Digging the Dead! I’ve explained a bit about myself and my love of mummies in my intro post, but for those who are curious here’s a bit more about me and this blog.
First of all, I’m L. I come from the land of people who still like to stay somewhat anonymous on the internet and not tell you my name, address, social security number, and what I ate for breakfast. So you can call me L. Or maybe a cool nickname like Digger, but I don’t think I’m bad ass enough to pull that off. Maybe Dead Head…
Anyway, as for this blog: I’ve been interested in mummy studies for a while and all that information has just been circling inside my head. Finally I just got the urge to share what I’ve learned over the years and compile it all in one place. This blog is mostly for me to continue to research mummies as well as to give voice to my opinions on it, and I’d love it if my ramblings could inspire and inform others, even if it’s only one other person (Hi, Mom!). I’m not an expert, I want to stress that point. I’d love to be able to travel the world, visiting the places where famous mummies are kept and explore the sites where they were initially found, but I’m not exactly making the money for that so I just read a lot of books. Nothing that I’m writing is new and I don’t have access to any groundbreaking news sources, but there’s so much information out there about mummies that it can be hard for most people interested in the topic to be able to dip their toes in without getting overwhelmed. There are so many different topics, from the different methods of preservation to the ethics on the display and dissection of bodies to what we can learn from it all. So I want to try and have a place where everything comes together and in a way that’s readable even by novices.
We have a habit of dehumanizing the dead. We turn them into monsters, hideous beasts bent on the destruction of life. The thought of death frightens us and corpses are a vivid reminder of that, so in our minds we separate ourselves from the dead. We don't see the dead as once having lived like us, because then it would only be too easy to see ourselves becoming as they are now. I want to show that that they were human, that they did live normal lives, and that they were once like us. I want to celebrate their humanity, so I mean no insult by writing about them or displaying their pictures. Mummies are a subject I’m passionate about so I’m going to treat it with respect and great care, but I also have a morbid sense of humor (I think if your interests involve death in some way, the ability to laugh at it is kind of a requirement) so be warned about that.
We have a habit of dehumanizing the dead. We turn them into monsters, hideous beasts bent on the destruction of life. The thought of death frightens us and corpses are a vivid reminder of that, so in our minds we separate ourselves from the dead. We don't see the dead as once having lived like us, because then it would only be too easy to see ourselves becoming as they are now. I want to show that that they were human, that they did live normal lives, and that they were once like us. I want to celebrate their humanity, so I mean no insult by writing about them or displaying their pictures. Mummies are a subject I’m passionate about so I’m going to treat it with respect and great care, but I also have a morbid sense of humor (I think if your interests involve death in some way, the ability to laugh at it is kind of a requirement) so be warned about that.
To sum it all up, I’m just fascinated by mummies and want to share that fascination with others, bring attention to things that I care about but that often go unnoticed, and hopefully teach a few things as well as learn a few myself in writing about it.
