This 1886 portrait looked playful until historians saw the toy in her hands.
The afternoon sun filtered through the tall windows of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts photographic archives as Dr.
Rachel Foster carefully examined another Victorian era portrait.
It was midepptember 2024 and she was 2 months into cataloging a recently acquired collection of 19th century American family photographs donated by a Boston estate.
Most images were typical for the period.
Stiff formal portraits, serious-faced subjects, elaborate studio backdrops, but this particular photograph immediately stood out as unusual.
It showed a young girl, perhaps 8 years old, seated outdoors in what appeared to be a garden setting.
Unlike most Victorian child portraits, the girl was smiling, a genuine, warm expression that was extraordinarily rare in photographs from that era, due to long exposure times and cultural conventions favoring serious demeanor.
The girl wore a beautiful white dress with elaborate lace trim, her dark hair arranged in careful ringlets.
She sat on an ornate garden bench surrounded by flowering plants and dappled sunlight.
The overall impression was one of innocent childhood joy, a charming snapshot of Victorian prosperity and family happiness.
But what drew Rachel’s attention most was what the girl held in her hands.
Cradled carefully in her lap was a small wrapped object.
Something bundled in dark cloth or aged fabric.
At first glance, it looked like it might be a doll or perhaps a small pet wrapped in a blanket.
Rachel turned the photograph over.
On the back, written in faded ink, was a simple notation.
Elellaner, Boston Garden, summer 1886.
She returned the photograph to her examination table and began the standard digitization process, scanning the image at high resolution for the museum’s digital archives.
As the scan completed and appeared on her monitor, she zoomed in to examine details, documenting the clothing style, the garden setting, the photographic techniques used.
She enhanced the girl’s face first, noting the unusual smile and the brightness in her eyes.
Then she focused on the object in the girl’s hands, increasing magnification to examine what exactly she was holding.
As the image enlarged, Rachel’s initial impression began to shift.
The wrapped bundle didn’t look [music] quite right for a doll.
The proportions were odd, too small, too irregularly shaped.
And visible at one end of the wrapping, partially exposed, was something that made Rachel pause and lean closer to her screen.
It looked like a tiny withered hand or perhaps a foot, something brown and desiccated, clearly very old, wrapped in ancient looking bandages or cloth.
Rachel felt a chill as a disturbing possibility occurred to her.
She had read about the Victorian fascination with Egyptian antiquities, about the trade in mummies and ancient artifacts.
But surely this couldn’t be what it appeared to be.
She enhanced the image further, focusing on the exposed portion of the object, and her suspicion deepened into near certainty.
Rachel spent the next hour meticulously examining every detail of the object in the girl’s hands.
Using advanced digital enhancement tools, she brought out details that would have been invisible to 19th century viewers, but were now clearly visible with modern technology and highresolution imaging.
The wrapping around the object was definitely ancient linen.
She could see the distinctive weave pattern and the discoloration consistent with fabric thousands of years old.
The exposed portion at the end showed unmistakably organic material.
Small withered appendages that could only be the hands or feet of a very young child preserved through mummification.
The size was horrifying to contemplate.
Based on the proportions compared to Eleanor’s hands holding it, the mummified remains were of an infant or very young child, perhaps no more than 2 or 3 years old.
The tiny fingers were partially visible, curled and darkened with age, the wrappings loosened enough to reveal this ghastly detail.
Rachel pulled up historical references on her computer, searching for information about the Victorian trade in Egyptian antiquities.
[music] What she found confirmed her worst suspicions.
During the 19th century, particularly between 1850 and 1900, there had been a massive, largely unregulated trade in Egyptian artifacts, including mummies.
Thousands of mummies, both human and animal, had been removed from Egypt and shipped to Europe and America.
They were sold to museums, collectors, and even ordinary wealthy families.
Some were purchased for legitimate scholarly study, but many were bought simply as exotic curiosities or macob decorations.
Even more disturbing was what Rachel found about the practice of unrolling parties.
Wealthy Victorians would host social events where an Egyptian mummy would be unwrapped in front of guests as entertainment.
These gatherings were advertised in newspapers, attended by hundreds of people, and treated as fashionable amusements rather than the desecration of human remains that they actually were.
She found documented cases of mummies being ground up and sold as medicine, a practice called mumia that dated back centuries, but reached commercial peaks in the Victorian era.
She found records of mummies being used as fuel for steam engines in Egypt when wood was scarce.
And most relevant to the photograph before her, she found references to small mummies, particularly those of children, being given to Victorian children as educational toys meant to teach them about ancient civilizations.
Rachel felt sick.
The cheerful photograph of young Eleanor in her garden, smiling as she held what appeared to be a playful toy, was actually documenting something far darker.
A child casually handling the mummified remains of another child who had died thousands of years ago in Egypt now reduced to the status of an exotic play thing.
She needed expert confirmation.
Rachel contacted Dr.
James Wei, a colleague at NYU who specialized in Egyptology and the history of the Egyptian antiquities trade.
She also reached out to Dr.
Patricia Morrison, a historian who studied Victorian material culture and collecting practices.
Dr.
James Wei arrived at the Metropolitan Museum the following morning, bringing with him extensive knowledge of Egyptian mummification practices and the 19th century trade in Egyptian artifacts.
Rachel showed him the photograph and her enhanced images of the object Elellanor was holding.
James studied the images carefully, using his own expertise to examine the visible wrappings and the exposed portions of the mummified remains.
After several minutes of silent analysis, he sat back with a grim expression.
“This is definitely an Egyptian mummy,” he confirmed.
“Based on the wrapping technique and the size, I would estimate this is the mummified body of a child between 18 months and 3 years old, dating probably to the late period or tomic period, roughly 730 B.CE.
The linen wrapping style and the degree of preservation are consistent with child mummies from that era.
He pulled up reference images on his laptop showing examples of similar child mummies in museum collections.
Child mummies from ancient Egypt are relatively rare in surviving collections because they were often the ones treated most disrespectfully during the Victorian period.
Their small size made them collectible in ways that adult mummies weren’t.
People could display them in homes, transport them easily, or as in this case, apparently give them to children as toys.
Dr.
Morrison arrived shortly after, bringing historical documentation about Victorian collecting practices.
She examined the photograph with a historian’s eye, noting details about Eleanor’s clothing, the garden setting, and the casual way the mummy was being handled.
This fits a well doumented pattern, Patricia explained.
During the 1880s and 1890s, there was a massive craze for Egyptian antiquities among wealthy American and European families.
Having Egyptian artifacts in your home was a status symbol.
It showed you were cultured, welltraveled, and wealthy enough to acquire exotic objects.
She showed Rachel and James historical cataloges from antiquities dealers of the period.
The prices and descriptions were shocking.
Child mummies were advertised alongside pottery and jewelry with prices ranging from 20 to $100 depending on condition and decorative wrapping.
The advertisements treated them as objects, not as human remains deserving respect.
What’s particularly disturbing, Patricia continued, is that these child mummies were often marketed specifically for educational purposes for children.
Parents believed that allowing their children to handle these ancient remains would teach them about history and archaeology.
There are documented cases of Victorian children being given small mummies as birthday or Christmas presents.
She found a particularly relevant example in her research files.
An 1883 advertisement from a Boston antiquities dealer.
Egyptian child mummy finely wrapped suitable for educational display in nursery or school room.
An [clears throat] excellent tool for teaching young minds about ancient civilizations.
$45.
The casual commodification of a dead child’s body as a teaching tool for another child was breathtaking in its callousness.
With the confirmation that the object in the photograph was indeed an Egyptian child mummy,Rachel began researching to identify Elellanar and her family.
The notation on the back of the photograph, Elellanar, Boston Garden, summer 1886, provided a starting point.
But Boston was a large city with many families who could have afforded such an expensive artifact.
Dr.
Morrison took the lead on this research using her expertise in Victorian era Boston society.
She started by examining the photograph for clues about the family’s social status and identity.
The quality of Elellanor’s dress, the elaborate garden setting, and the professional photography all suggested a wealthy family with significant resources.
She also noted something else.
Visible in the background of the photograph, partially out of focus, but identifiable under enhancement, was a distinctive architectural feature, an ornate greenhouse with a specific style of iron work that Patricia recognized as the work of a particular Boston craftsman who had created green houses for only the wealthiest Beacon Hill families in the 1880s.
Using this architectural detail, Patricia cross-referenced property records and city directories from 1886 Boston.
She identified three Beacon Hill properties with documented green houses matching that style.
Further research into families with young daughters named Elellaner narrowed the search to one likely candidate, the family of Harrison Blackwood.
Harrison Blackwood was a prominent Boston merchant who had made his fortune in international trade, particularly importing luxury goods from Europe and the Middle East.
City records showed he had traveled extensively to Egypt in the early 1880s during the height of the Egyptian antiquities craze.
Patricia found newspaper society pages from the Boston Globe archives that mentioned the Blackwood family.
One article from April 1885 described a lecture Harrison Blackwood had given at the Boston Aaniumabout his travels in Egypt during which he displayed several artifacts from his personal collection.
Most tellingly, Patricia discovered an estate inventory from 1895 when Harrison Blackwood died.
Among the itemized possessions was an entry that made Rachel’s blood run cold.
One small Egyptian mummy child acquired Cairo 1883 displayed in library.
By 1895, the mummy was apparently being kept in the library as a display piece.
But the 1886 photograph suggested it had earlier been given to young Elellanar as a toy or educational object.
Patricia found additional evidence in the form of a memoir published in 1920 by Elellanar Blackwood herself, now Elellanar Blackwood Chandler, writing about her Victorian childhood.
In a brief passage, Ellaner mentioned, “Father brought back many curiosities from his Egyptian travels.
I remember being both fascinated and frightened by the small mummy he kept in the library.
As a child, I was told it was a princess from ancient times, and I would sometimes speak to her as if she could hear me.
With Elellanar Blackwood identified, the research team turned their attention to the other child in this story, the Egyptian child whose mummified remains had become a Victorian toy.
Doctor, we took the lead on this investigation, attempting to determine if there were any records that might identify where this particular mummy had come from.
The task was nearly impossible.
During the 1880s, thousands of mummies had been removed from Egypt with little to no documentation about their origins.
Most dealers and collectors kept minimal records, and many mummies were stripped from their original burial contexts with no attention paid to preserving archaeological or historical information.
However, James found one potential lead.
In archives at Boston University, there were papers from Harrison Blackwood’s 1883 trip to Egypt, including a diary he had kept during his travels.
The diary mentioned his antiquities purchases, though in frustratingly vague terms.
One entry from March 1883, written in Cairo, stated, “Visited the antiquities dealer Abdullah in the old market.
purchased several fine pieces, including a remarkably wellpreserved small mummy, which Abdullah claims is from Akm.
The wrappings are intact and the preservation excellent.
Cost me 30 sterling.
Expensive, but a unique piece for my collection.
Akm was an ancient Egyptian city known in antiquity as Kent Min, located in Upper Egypt.
It had been a significant religious center and had extensive necropolises, burial grounds that were heavily looted in the 19th century to supply the antiquities trade.
James contacted colleagues at Egyptian universities and museums, asking if there were any records of burial sites at Akm that had been looted in the early 1880s.
The response he received was both informative and tragic.
A professor at Cairo University confirmed that Akm had been systematically looted between 1880 and 1885 with thousands of mummies removed and sold to European and American dealers.
Among these were many child burials.
The ancient Egyptians had taken great care in burying their children, often including toys, amulets, and other precious items to accompany them in the afterlife.
The child mummies from Akm were particularly sought after by Victorian collectors.
the professor wrote.
Because they were often beautifully wrapped and well preserved, but this also means we have lost invaluable archaeological context.
We will never know who these children were, who their families were, or what their short lives were like.
They were robbed not only of their burial rest, but of their identities and histories.
James shared this information with Rachel and Patricia.
They sat in somber silence, contemplating what they had uncovered.
The cheerful Victorian photograph was actually documenting multiple forms of violation, the looting of an ancient burial, the commodification of a child’s remains, the cultural appropriation of Egyptian heritage, and the casual disrespect for human dignity that characterized so much of 19th century colonial attitudes.
But they also realized they had an opportunity and perhaps a responsibility to tell this story.
To give voice to the Egyptian child who had been silenced twice.
First by death over 2,000 years ago and then by being turned into a Victorian curiosity.
Dr.Morrison delved deeper into researching the Victorian trade in Egyptian mummies, uncovering a network of dealers, collectors, and practices that revealed the massive scale of this cultural plunder.
What she found painted a disturbing picture of how common and accepted the commodification of Egyptian human remains had been.
In Boston alone, she found records of at least 15 families who owned Egyptian mummies in the 1880s and 1890s.
These ranged from complete adult mummies displayed in private libraries and parlors to partial remains and skeletal material kept as curiosities.
Several wealthy Boston families had hosted unrolling parties where guests gathered to watch a mummy being unwrapped, often destroying irreplaceable artifacts and human remains in the process for mere entertainment.
Patricia found newspaper advertisements from the period that treated mummies as ordinary commercial goods.
A Boston antiquities dealer advertised in an 1885 newspaper, “Fresh shipment of Egyptian mummies just arrived.
Adult specimens $200, $500.
Child mummies, $50, $150.
Also available, scarabs, pottery, and genuine fragments of ancient scrolls.
Visit our showroom on Tmont Street.
She also discovered medical records from the period showing that mummified tissue was still being sold as medicine, a practice called mumia or mumia.
Powdered mummy was marketed as a cure for various ailments despite having no actual medicinal value.
Pharmacies kept it in stock alongside legitimate medicines, and doctors sometimes prescribed it to patients.
The photographs from unrolling parties were particularly disturbing.
Patricia found images showing well-dressed Victorian men and women gathered around tables where mummies were being unwrapped, treating the desecration of human remains as casual entertainment.
In one photograph from an 1886 Boston unrolling party, children were visible among the spectators, watching as adults pulled apart ancient wrappings to reveal the body inside.
James contributed research on the Egyptian side of this trade, documenting how colonial powers had facilitated and profited from the looting.
British colonial authorities in Egypt had initially done little to prevent the removal of antiquities and in some cases had actively participated in or profited from the trade.
Egyptian mummies and artifacts were treated as resources to be extracted much like other colonial commodities.
The irony, James explained to the team, is that while Victorians were fascinated by ancient Egypt and claimed to be preserving and studying this heritage, they were actually destroying it on a massive scale.
For every mummy that ended up in a museum where it could be properly studied, dozens were destroyed through commercial exploitation, amateur research, or simple neglect.
He showed them documentation of how many museum collections acquired mummies during this period.
Even legitimate institutions had participated in what was essentially colonial era looting, purchasing artifacts with little concern for how they had been obtained [music] or what archaeological context had been destroyed in the process.
The research revealed that the Egyptian government had attempted to establish antiquities laws in the 1880s, but these were poorly enforced and easily circumvented.
[music] Rachel found additional information about Elellanar Blackwood’s life after the 1886 photograph was taken.
Using genealogical records, newspaper archives, and the memoir Elellanar had published in [music] 1920, she pieced together a picture of how Elellanar’s relationship with the Egyptian Mummy [music] had evolved over her lifetime.
In her memoir, titled A Beacon Hill Childhood, Elellaner had written several passages about the mummy, though always briefly and with apparent discomfort.
She described her father’s Egyptian collection with a mix of pride in his worldliness and unease about the nature of the objects themselves.
I was perhaps 10 years old when I began to understand that the small wrapped [music] figure father had brought from Egypt was not simply an ancient doll or curiosity, but the actual body of a child who had lived and died thousands of years ago.
[music] Elellaner wrote, “This realization troubled me greatly, though I dared not speak of my feelings to father, [music] who valued his collection immensely.” Later passages revealed that as Elellaner matured, [music] her discomfort grew.
In my teenage years, I could no longer bear to enter father’s library where the small mummy was displayed.
I had dreams, nightmares really, in which the ancient child would speak to me, asking why she had been taken from her home and her family.
I began to feel that what father presented as educational and cultured was actually something darker, a violation of the dead and a theft from a great civilization.
Rachel found that Elellanar had married in 1898, becoming Elellanar Blackwood Chandler.
After her father’s death in 1895, she had inherited his estate, including his Egyptian collection.
Records showed that in 1900, Eleanor had donated most of her father’s Egyptian artifacts to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, including one small mummy child origin Akm.
But there was a letter in the museum’s archives written by Elellanar at the time of the donation that revealed her true feelings.
I donate these objects not with pride but with profound regret.
She wrote, “My father believed he was preserving Egyptian heritage by collecting these items.
But I have come to understand that he was actually participating in the destruction and desecration of another culture’s sacred traditions.
I hope that by placing these remains in a museum, they might at least be treated with the dignity they deserve.
Though I recognize this cannot undo the harm of their removal from Egypt.” [music] The museum records showed that the child mummy had been in their collection from 1900 until 1978 when it had been part of a repatriation program.
In the 1970s, growing awareness of the ethical issues surrounding Egyptian human remains in Western museums had led to increased pressure for repatriation.
[music] Several mummies, including the child mummy that had once belonged to Harrison Blackwood, had been returned to Egypt and reeried.
[music] Rachel contacted the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities to confirm this information.
They confirmed that in 1978, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts had returned several items, including one child mummy, [music] which had been rearied in a ceremony at Akm, returning the child to the region where she or he had originally been buried over 2,000 years earlier.
As the research team compiled their findings, they realized that Eleanor Blackwood’s story was not unique, but part of a much larger pattern of Victorian colonialism, cultural appropriation, and the commodification of human remains.
Dr.
Morrison began documenting similar cases to provide context for their discoveries.
She found dozens of comparable examples.
Children given mummified cats, scarabs, or even human remains as educational toys.
families displaying Egyptian artifacts as parlor decorations with no understanding of their sacred or cultural significance.
Amateur collectors destroying irreplaceable archaeological sites through treasure hunting.
One particularly relevant case was that of Margaret Benson, daughter of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been given a small Egyptian mummy as a birthday gift in 1888 when she was 7 years old.
Like Elellanar, Margaret had later written about her discomfort with this gift, describing in her diary how she had found it simultaneously fascinating and disturbing to have a dead child’s body as a possession.
Patricia also found evidence of a shift in attitudes during the early 20th century.
By the 1920s and 1930s, there was growing criticism of the Victorian treatment of Egyptian mummies.
Anthropologists and archaeologists began arguing that human remains deserved respectful treatment regardless of their age or origin.
Egyptian nationalists demanded the return of their cultural heritage.
The 1920 discovery of Tutin Kamoon’s tomb marked a turning point.
While it sparked renewed interest in ancient Egypt, it also led to new Egyptian laws strictly controlling excavation and export of antiquities.
The days of casual commercial trade in mummies effectively ended.
Though the damage to archaeological sites and the dispersal of artifacts around the world would take decades to even partially address, James contributed research showing how museums were still grappling with these issues.
He documented the ethical debates about whether Egyptian human remains should be displayed in museums at all [music] or whether all such remains should be repatriated and reeried.
Different institutions had taken different approaches [music] and the questions remained contentious.
what Ellanar Blackwood experienced.
That growing awareness and discomfort about possessing another person’s body as a curiosity is something our entire field has had to grapple with, James explained.
[music] We’re still working to undo the damage of colonial era collecting and to treat these remains with appropriate dignity and respect.
The research team decided they needed to share their findings publicly, not to shame the Blackwood family specifically, but to use this one well doumented case to illuminate a broader historical pattern [music] that had affected thousands of mummies and countless archaeological sites.
They also wanted to tell both stories, Eleanor’s and the unknown Egyptian childs, in a way that [music] acknowledged the human dimension of both.
Eleanor had been a child herself when photographed with the mummy, unaware of the ethical implications.
The Egyptian child had been a real person with a real life reduced to a commodity.
The Metropolitan Museum organized an exhibition titled The Other Child, Victorian Colonialism and the Egyptian Mummy Trade, opening in November 2024.
[music] The centerpiece was the 1886 photograph of Elellaner Blackwood holding the small mummy displayed alongside extensive contextual materials explaining what the image actually depicted.
The exhibition included Dr.
Wei’s analysis of Egyptian mummification practices and the looting of aim burial sites, Dr.
Morrison’s research on the Victorian antiquities trade, documentation of other similar cases, and materials explaining the later repatriation of the Blackwood mummy to Egypt.
Most importantly, the exhibition framed the story around both children, Elellanar and the unknown Egyptian child, treating both as human beings affected by historical forces beyond their control.
The opening drew significant media attention.
[music] News outlets covered the story, focusing on how a seemingly innocent Victorian photograph actually documented cultural appropriation and the commodification of human remains.
The response was mixed but largely reflective.
Some viewers expressed shock that such practices had been so common and accepted.
Others drew parallels to ongoing debates about museum collections, cultural heritage, and the ethics of displaying human remains.
Egyptian cultural heritage advocates used the exhibition to renew calls for more comprehensive repatriation of artifacts and human remains.
The museum also partnered with Egyptian scholars to create an educational component, [music] explaining ancient Egyptian beliefs about death and the afterlife.
This contextualized why the Victorian treatment of mummies was so profoundly disrespectful.
>> [music] >> These weren’t simply artifacts, but carefully prepared bodies meant to ensure eternal life according to Egyptian religious beliefs.
The unwrapping parties, commercial trade, and use as toys or medicine violated not just modern ethical standards, but ancient Egyptian cultural and religious values.
One particularly moving element of the exhibition was a memorial wall dedicated to [music] the children of Akmim and other Egyptian sites who were taken from their rest and scattered across the world as curiosities.
The wall listed the known cases of child mummies in western collections, their current locations, and whether they had been repatriated.
The exhibition ran for 6 months and attracted over 100,000 visitors.
It generated extensive discussion in academic circles, museum professional organizations, and among the general public about the ethics of collecting, displaying, and studying human remains.
Rachel received correspondence from several descendants of other Victorian collectors who, inspired by the exhibition, [music] researched their own family collections and discovered similar stories.
Some chose to donate artifacts to museums.
Others worked with Egyptian authorities to arrange repatriation.
The exhibition also sparked an important conversation in Boston, specifically where several families still privately held Egyptian artifacts acquired during the Victorian era.
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts created a program to facilitate ethical donation or repatriation of these items, providing guidance to families who wanted to address this problematic legacy.
6 months after the exhibition opened in May 2025, a memorial ceremony was held in Akm, Egypt, where the small mummy from the Blackwood collection had been reeried in 1978.
The ceremony was organized by Egyptian cultural heritage officials with participation from Rachel, James, Patricia, and several descendants of Eleanor Blackwood, who had reached out after learning about the exhibition.
The ceremony took place at the ancient necropolis site where the child had likely been originally buried over 2,000 years earlier.
Egyptian religious scholars led prayers according to both ancient traditions and modern Islamic practice, [music] honoring the unknown child and all those whose remains had been taken from Egypt.
Sarah Chandler West, Elellanar Blackwood’s great great granddaughter, spoke on behalf of her family.
We cannot undo what was done.
We cannot restore the dignity that was taken when this child’s body was removed from its resting place and treated as a commodity.
But we can acknowledge the wrong, express [clears throat] our profound regret, and honor the memory of this child who deserved to rest in peace.
She presented a memorial plaque funded by the Blackwood family descendants to be placed at the rearial site.
The plaque written in both English and Arabic read, “In memory of the unknown child of Akmim, taken from rest and scattered far from home.
May you finally know peace.
We remember you and all the children of Egypt whose dignity was violated by those who should have known better.
” An Egyptian scholar spoke about the importance of remembering both the victims of colonial era looting and the fact that many of those who participated like Elellanar Blackwood eventually recognized the wrong and tried to make amends.
History is complex.
He said [music] we must acknowledge the harm while also recognizing those who worked to change course.
The ceremony concluded with the placement of flowers at the rearial site.
traditional Egyptian lotus flowers and American white roses symbolizing both cultures coming together to honor a child who had belonged to both in different ways.
Back in Boston, a smaller memorial was dedicated at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, [music] recognizing the institution’s role in the Victorian mummy trade and its later efforts at repatriation.
The memorial acknowledged that the museum’s Egyptian collection, while valuable for education and scholarship, had been built partially through colonial era practices that would now be considered unethical or illegal.
Rachel continued her work cataloging the photograph collection, but the experience of researching the Eleanor Blackwood photograph had changed her approach.
She now examined every image with awareness that seemingly innocent photographs might document darker historical realities.
She found several more images related to the Victorian antiquities trade and worked with colleagues to provide appropriate historical context for each.
The 1886 photograph of Elellanar Blackwood remained on permanent display at the Metropolitan Museum, but now with comprehensive information about what it truly depicted, visitors would look at the smiling girl in her garden holding what appeared to be a playful toy [music] and learn the complex, troubling story of colonial exploitation, cultural appropriation, and the long journey toward understanding and restitution.
The exhibition’s educational materials included a section specifically for young visitors, explaining in age appropriate terms why the photograph was significant and what lessons could be learned from it.
Both children in this story deserve our respect, the materials explained.
The Egyptian child whose body should have been allowed to rest undisturbed and Elellanor who eventually understood the wrong and worked to make it right.
We learn from their story to treat all cultures with respect and to recognize that all people from all times and places deserve dignity.
The story of the playful-looking portrait had become a teaching moment about ethics, colonialism, and the complex ways that history affects the present.
The toy in Eleanor’s hands had indeed told a different story.
A story about two children separated by millennia, but connected by the Victorian era practices that had brought them together in that 1886 photograph.
And a story that continued to resonate in contemporary debates about cultural heritage, museum ethics, and how we remember and honor the
