Great works of 16th-20th century art painted with ground-up mummies

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/09/20/great-works-of-16th-20th-centu.html

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Now boarding the mummy-powered steam locomotive – next stop, Cairo Museum of Art!

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This feels like a Geist: The Sin-Eaters plot hook…

I hear they make good jerky.

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Here’s the part I don’t get. I think I learned in 4th grade that only the royal family rated mummification. So where does this endless parade of mummies come from? I think they were just grinding up the homeless.

Explains why liberty is cursed.

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No, mummification was a long and expensive process, but not a privilege exclusive to the ruling class. Anyone who could afford it could have themselves or their family members mummified. That said, it stands to reason from the law of supply and demand that more than a few of these ghastly “tourists” brought home more recently deceased bodies that were desiccated and oiled up to sell to Western weirdos.

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According to various sources workers who built the pyramids and other monuments were highly respected craftspeople who even mounted the first record labor strike. They were given pretty nice tombs which some even designed themselves. I also remember reading in at least one of my books on ancient Egypt that the climate is so dry that pretty much any corpse could be “mummified” even if they didn’t get the elaborate wrappings.

Also…

ETA: Thanks @GulliverFoyle for beating me to it.

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Who knew the critics were right all along? Art really is dead.

I’m here all week folks.

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Gah.

Stories like this make me doubt that “basic human decency” is as fundamentally basic or as fundamentally human as the term implies.

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Mummy pigment? Still cheaper than HP printer ink…

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Are you sure they aren’t the same thing?

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