Unwrapping Ancient Egypt : The Shroud, the Secret and the Sacred

In ancient Egypt, wrapping sacred objects, including mummified bodies, in layers of cloth was a ritual that lay at the core of Egyptian society. Yet in the modern world, attention has focused instead on unwrapping all the careful arrangements of linen textiles the Egyptians had put in place.

This book breaks new ground by looking at the significance of textile wrappings in ancient Egypt, and at the way their unwrapping has shaped the way we think about the Egyptian past. Wrapping mummified bodies and divine statues in linen reflected the cultural values attached to this textile, with implications for understanding gender, materiality and hierarchy in Egyptian society. Unwrapping mummies and statues similarly reflects the values attached to Egyptian antiquities in the West, where the colonial legacies of archaeology, Egyptology and racial science still influence how Egypt appears in museums and the press.

From the tomb of Tutankhamun to the Arab Spring, Unwrapping Ancient Egypt raises critical questions about the deep-seated fascination with this culture – and what that fascination says about our own.

“Each chapter of this book represents one lecture from a series delivered in 2012 at All Souls College, Oxford [...] With 79 pages of notes and bibliography, the extensive research behind this book is well documented [...]The issues discussed go beyond the art historical. Riggs covers the psychology of entombing, hiding, and revealing in artistic, religious, and political contexts” —N. J. Mactague, Aurora University, CHOICE

“Riggs' critique of the academic treatment of mummies is well taken, but its implications reverberate far beyond Egypt, mummies, archaeology, or the museum. As anthropologists, we are compelled to ask whether, how, and to what extent our disciplinary practices and gazes have misconstrued and actually damaged the very knowledge that we set out to reveal.” —Jack David Eller, Anthropology Review Database

“Unwrapping Ancient Egypt is an original and powerful volume. Until now, critical histories of Egyptology have mostly been written by non-Egyptologists.† In her book, Christina Riggs has altered this status quo … Informed by her experiences as an Egyptological practitioner, in addition to her work in museology and her reading of a variety of anthropological literature, Riggs provides a (very) critical history of Egyptology and related curatorial practices. The result is a book that not only wears its erudition lightly, but also challenges the legitimacy and apparent exceptionality of what it is that Egyptologists do.” –William Carruthers, Museum Anthropology Review