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Europe's morbid 'mummy craze' has been an obsession for centuries
Whether ground up as medicine or on display at 'unwrapping parties,' Egyptian mummies fascinated Europeans, giving rise to what's known as Egyptomania.
In an 1891 painting by Paul Dominique Philippoteaux, one of the first Egyptologists, Gaston Maspero (center), observes as the mummy of an ancient Egyptian priestess is unwrapped before members of the French Egyptology Society and their guests.
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