46RECONFIGURING ANIMAL SKINSbe considered taxidermy.”^13 It seems that to many authors, an essential
definition of taxidermy requires the evaluation of technical and aesthetic
qualities. But this distinction is generally unsatisfactory because of its
sweeping nature—it totalizes all mummified and taxidermy objects into
general categories that do not account for the fact that objects refuse to re-
main constant through history; that they split into multiple objects; and
that they morph, diverge, and sometimes converge again through time,
geographical spaces, and institutional practices and discourses.^14 In many
ways, it is true that Egyptian mummification of human bodies might have
little to do with modern taxidermy. However, a closer focus on the Egyp-
tian mummification of animals can reveal some intriguing analogies.
Salima Ikram, a distinguished professor of Egyptology and animal
representation, has shown that in many cases, the viscera of animals were
mummified separately and returned to the animal body as it was “fur-
ther stuffed with soil and sawdust, giving the [animal] the shape [it] had
enjoyed in life.”^15 Although the reproduction of “life-like form” may not
have been the primary motivator behind the process of animal preserva-
tion in Egypt, examples such as the dog found in the Valley of the Kings^16
and dating to 1500 bce prove that mummification, in its diverse range of
purposes and applications, went well beyond the wrapping of bodies into
lumpy bundles.^17 Considering that cultural connections between Egypt
and Italy predate the ascent of the Roman empire, it is plausible to con-
template that such animal preservation techniques might have been
shared, as was true for some burial practices popular in the south of Italy
that originated in Egypt. So why is this connection usually overlooked,
and why do authors insist on this historiographical maneuver?
The need to address the connection, or lack of thereof, between Egyp-
tian mummification and taxidermy seems to be caused by a desire to le-
gitimize, characterized by a deep, yet unnecessary, preoccupation with
the separation of the secular from the spiritual. Distancing taxidermy
from mummification only attempts to validate the former as a rational,
secular, and thus scientifically valid epistemic tool—it reassures the au-
thor (and thus the reader) that they are not dabbling in the mystifying
spirituality of mummification, something that might diminish the seri-
ousness of their subject of study.
It is, perhaps, not a coincidence that Montagu Browne, curator of the
Leicester Museum, instrumentally identified Sir Hans Sloane’s bird col-