Comments on: Mummy Rights: Do Ancient Dead People Deserve Medical Privacy?

By: Almafuerte

Almafuerte — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 02:07:46 +0000

There is no god, and there is no afterlife. When you are dead, you are dead, and if there’s something we can learn from you, we are going to do it.

I am sick of idiots, religious or otherwise, interfering with science.

By: Bertrum

Bertrum — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 08:59:49 +0000

In the case of mummies, they went to extraordinary lengths to make sure they were preserved so they could live forever. If you consent to having your brains pulled out through your nose in order to achieve immortality, then you are unlikely to object to folk knowing you had nookie with your relatives to maintain that immortality.

By: Rhacodactylus

Rhacodactylus — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 05:50:16 +0000

No, they don’t, get on with the research.

By: Sheridan

Sheridan — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 02:24:40 +0000

Wow it’s freaky that we no that much

By: Brian Too

Brian Too — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 00:48:24 +0000

I don’t know, it feels weird that we know their names, their families, and there’s the person in a recognizable body. We know exactly who these mummies are, or were.

Their goal was to live eternally in the afterlife, and they were awfully successful by most measures.

More than anything it’s knowing their name, knowing their history, and reading their story in their contemporary writing. It’s intimate and creepy at the same time.

By: mike o

mike o — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 20:03:58 +0000

good comments. further, echoing DJB, there is not and has not been a single person alive for thousands of years remotely tied to mummies who have been deceased for thousands of years. they’re not violating any living families wishes and there is no potential for private information to be gained about any specific living relatives; in fact we’re likely all living relatives.

the only ‘entity’ that stands to be harmed by this invasion of ‘privacy’ is the disembodied soul of the deceased. and I have about as much respect for that nonsense as the souls of the dead grass i trudge over in my front yard.

By: Meg

Meg — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 17:39:12 +0000

You have to have some sort of statute of limitations on these things. The dead deserve some dignity (such as not taking dead bodies Halloween parties), but there’s a difference between undignified horseplay and scientific and historical research. It actually is useful to look for clues in mummies for things like family history and cause of death. This type of research is important for times when the historical record is incomplete and / or suspect. At this point, I don’t think King Tut cares a whole lot what we think, but we should strive to treat bodies with respect.

By: DJB

DJB — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 17:10:08 +0000

I think we should give a certain amount of time say 500 yrs after death. Then the people who knew the person would be gone. I think research into family history and illness in fine. I do not think it is an ethics question at that point.
Some times I think people bring these things up to make a name for them selves. I fighting for rights for a being that did not have those rights, but it sounds good to be on the right side of a none issue.