This research project aims to gain a deeper understanding of different publics attitudes and responses to the display of ancient human remains at the Chau Chak Wing Museum, with an initial focus on Egypt.
Between July and November 2022, 200 visitors were invited to complete an online survey upon their departure from the Museum. The questions, which were predominantly qualitative and naturalistic in nature, aimed to capture the way visitors engaged with, reacted, and responded to the curation and display of human remains in physical and 3D visual formats within the Museum鈥檚 exhibitions. This component of the research was approved by the 爆料王's Human Research Ethics Committee. Project No. 2022/379.
Concurrently, we are working closely with Egyptian descent communities.听To date, this has included two weekends of intensive focus groups held with 25 members of the Egyptian community from Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide (September 2022 and April 2025), a co-authored discussion piece for Egypt鈥檚 largest English-language online media platform, 'Egyptian Streets', and a meet and greet followed by a survey with people identifying as Egyptian from the local Sydney area.听Learn more about our Egyptian community engagement initiative here.
In October 2024, we launched a new strand of research by undertaking roundtable discussions in Egypt with 16 specialists who work closely with human remains in museums and the field. Participants included decision makers in the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, museum curators and conservators, field archaeologists, and university academics. These bilingual discussions (English and Arabic) were facilitated by Dr Faten Kamal, Curator, Egyptian Museum Cairo.听In November-December 2025, the project team returned to Egypt undertaking further bilingual focus groups at the Mummification Museum in Luxor (15 participants - facilitated by Gehad Shawki Ali), Egyptian Museum Cairo (18 participants - facilitated by Dr Faten Kamal) and the Nubia Museum in Aswan (25 participants - facilitated by Sara Hany Abed).
Between mid-December 2025 and late January 2026, the Human Remains Research Project team and Chau Chak Wing Museum staff undertook anonymous observations in the Egyptian gallery around visitor engagement with the display of human remains and their digital imaging. We were interested to understand how visitors interact in the space, including the amount of time spent,听what they chose to look at and read, and also their behaviour e.g. taking photos of the displays. We were interested to see if we could determine any changes or patterns of engagement before and after the re-naming and re-labelling of the gallery (see phase 2 of our study above) which introduces new narratives around ethical considerations for the care and display of ancient Egyptian human remains.
As we were unable to obtain personalised consent for this study because of the risk of influencing visitor behaviour in the gallery, visitors were randomly observed based on every third-fifth person. School and OOSH groups were not within scope in this sampling process.
If you participated in this study, and would like to receive more information, including a summary of the results, or want to opt out, please contact the Principal Investigator in this study:
Dr Melanie Pitkin,听melanie.pitkin@sydney.edu.au,听9036 6485
This study has been approved by the 爆料王鈥檚 Human Research Ethics Committee, 2022/HE0006.
The data gathered from this research informs a set of culturally specific guidelines for the display, care, treatment and interpretation of ancient Egyptian mummified human remains at the Museum.
Following on from this work, we have devised a three-phase plan听to reframe the Chau Chak Wing Museum's approaches to ancient human remains.
Removal of the body parts on display in Pharaonic Obsessions and听The Place of Truth听(set Maat, 听丿丕乇 丕賱丨賯賷賯丞 ) (formerly known as The Mummy Room)听and the installation of a new replacement display in the latter focused on funerary masks.
This was completed in 2024 and new labels were installed in the gallery to explain our decision making and invite further contributions to our visitor survey.
Reframe the language and messaging seen across all physical and online platforms of the Museum.
This is being incrementally implemented. In late 2025, we re-named The Mummy Room,听The Place of Truth (set Maat, 听丿丕乇 丕賱丨賯賷賯丞 ). We also established a new Human Remains Advisory Group and overarching set of guidelines that situates how we care for ancient human remains (Nicholson Collection) on Gadigal land.
Review, adapt and implement the project model to the wider Nicholson Collection of human remains from Cyprus, France and Jericho.
Throughout this process we are presenting and publishing widely at national and international conferences, and other public forums and community events, in peer-reviewed journals, and as part of media interviews.
In April 2024 we published the first of our culturally specific guidelines: Guidelines for the care of Ancient Egyptian Mummified Human Remains (pdf, 335KB). (Last updated February 2026.) This document articulates how the Museum is responding to community input and details our holistic research methodologies, current philosophies regarding exhibition and display, how we store, conserve and provide access to the collection.
In July 2025, we published Chau Chak Wing Museum Guidelines for Ancient Human Remains (Nicholson Collection) (pdf, 389KB).听It provides CCWM鈥檚 overarching approaches to caring for human remains from Europe, North Africa and the Middle East and is designed to complement the culturally specific guidelines in development. This document allows us to articulate overarching principals in our practice and aims to provide an ethical, responsive, and transparent framework for international human remains in CCWM鈥檚 care, ensuring that human remains are given appropriate respect on Gadigal land.
With thanks to the 爆料王鈥檚 Multilingual Translation Project programme, led by Associate Professor (School of Languages and Cultures), the Chau Chak Wing Museum Guidelines for Ancient Human Remains (Nicholson Collection) are also available in Chinese (pdf, 1MB) and Japanese (pdf, 950KB). This work was undertaken by students Eugene Gong and Serena Lin in 2025.
Grant funding
Community consultation and engagement in Australia
Community consultation and engagement in Egypt
Published guidelines
Publications
Museum curation
Vistor engagment - Evaluation
Visitor engagement 鈥 Focus groups with Egyptian Descent communities
Australia
Egypt
Conference convening听
Public talks and conference papers
Teaching
Visiting scholar invitations
This is a collaborative project comprising:听
This project has been approved by the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt.
This project has been approved by the 爆料王's Human Research Ethics Committee. Project No. 2022/379听and 2024/HE001124.
Header image:听The Place of Truth (set Maat, 听丿丕乇 丕賱丨賯賷賯丞 ), (formerly known as听The Mummy Room), at the Chau Chak Wing Museum.
Phone:听+61 2 93512812
Email:听ccwm.info@sydney.edu.au
Chau Chak Wing Museum
University Place
Camperdown NSW 2050
