A previous hypothesis suggested that the earliest evidence of kissing came from what would be modern-day India in 1500BC.
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mummies are cool!
but here is an interesting side note with regard to mummies:
talking to Dear Brother friday night and he was telling me that the museum there at Penn has informed them that they will no longer disply any human remains. no bones, jewel-encrusted skulls or mummies. further, the term “mummies” is deemed disrespectful to the dead and will be referred to as “mummified persons”.
DB was all like:
ETA: so Egypt seems all in on mummies as a tourist draw, yet Penn Museum is too afraid the display might offend delicate sensibilities of the guests. what a country we usians have created!
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We can project offense onto the long dead, but aren’t bothered about offending the living. Makes sense.
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Ancient grain bread.
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The origin of this is understandable. For centuries museums displayed the bones of indigenous people robbed from their graves and from archaeological sites, causing offense and spiritual pain to their descendants.
The museum seems to have taken the approach, “Okay, we won’t display anything, and see how you like it then”.
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As a baker, I like this story.
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“What’s more, Transcaucasia cultures sometimes used flour for divination…”
Ah. Ritual purposes. 
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I’d think that bakeries would be a common find in agricultural centers with grain. 
It’s a lot more efficient to keep large communal ovens at temperature during the day rather than one-offs in individual dwellings, especially if there’s also central grain storage. Made out of durable materials, because straw and wood ovens didn’t work. Not particularly targeted for destruction, barring waves of gluten-intolerant barbarians.
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I don’t know… I don’t find Penn’s decision to be a bad one. I’m guessing that this has more to do with controversies over artifacts from Indigenous Americans (including remains that have been stolen from graves) than it does with Egyptian artifacts. The taking of Indigenous dead is an ongoing issue that American museums really need to think more critically about.
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while i (and DB) wholeheartedly agree on the remains of the Indigenous should be returned to their people (where possible) to have a 4000 year old mummified Mesopotamian body displayed (respectfully) with relevant information as to why this is an important artifact should be allowed. there are no tribes or other groups of people that claim direct decendancy from these Sumerian or ancient people of say, Ur - not Arabs, not Iraqis, Kurds, Turks or even Yazidis claim a direct line of ancestry to those long-dead settlers of the fertile crescent. 
the jewel encrusted skulls found by Wooley in the 1920s as part of what came to be known as Princess Puabi’s treasures bear significant importance and are stunning to view and ponder. maybe i am too colonialist in my thinking on the matter? i am willing to consider that and its ramifications. perhaps Penn should return it all to Iraq and the SBAH? of course replicas could be shown, but short of gutting the entire Near East Antiquities gallery, what can be considered ethical display of these fascinating artifacts? what is the role of a modern museum of ancient history?
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There is the problem of those artifacts found in the ME having been looted, too, though. Though the connection might be more tentative to modern ethnic groups, it is part of the cultural heritage of the ME that Europeans and Americans often took out of the region to display in western museums.
Plus, some of the artifacts of Indigenous Americans are that old or even older, so if it’s distance from modern groups, that same argument can be made?
Yeah probably so…
This is an ongoing discussion that people in history and archaeology are having about the, as you say, the role of a modern (western) museum in shaping our public understanding of ancient history (or hell, even modern history!)… I don’t think we can dismiss just how so much of this material was brought to the museums, because they were part the larger colonial, eurocentric project to erase certain understandings of history. If we’re to undo the damage done, we are gonna have to engage in that difficult conversation about how colonialism and the building of these fields of study intersect.
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Is that the rationale? I figured it was because the remains should probably be repatriated, or are subject to some federal law like NAGPRA. Or, if they’re mummies, perhaps they were taken without consent, way back when.
ETA: note to self, read down before replying. Lol. Others covered this first.
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Maybe they’re worried that someone will snatch them to make mummy paper? /s
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Oh, they did much worse things with mummies than steal the wrappings. Fuel for locomotives, patent medicines, you name it.
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Paper though…
“The Curse of the Mummy’s Tome.”
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Dear lord. That’s awful.
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Mummified remains were shipped en masse to Europe for use as fertiliser until the German chemical industry really got going.
That also went some very, very dark places.
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