Mummy Research Center.
The future in the past.
The past in the future.
The International Foundation Mummy Research Center (MRC), established in 2024, serves scientists from many fields who study mummies and human remains around the world, from ancient medicine and disease to the history of viruses and cancer.
With MRC, Cloudly Culture is exploring how layered and segmented 3D scans could become public experiences: interactive object viewers, augmented reality and spatial exhibition design.
Visit mummyresearch.center
Built on one of the world’s
largest mummy studies.
MRC grows out of years of work by the Warsaw Mummy Project, which MRC describes as one of the largest Egyptian mummy research projects in the world. In December 2015 the project, working with the National Museum in Warsaw, Affidea Polska and Grey Group Polska, examined all human and animal mummies in the museum’s collection and deposit using CT and X-ray.
That work led to a discovery heard around the world: a mummy long believed to be a man was shown to be a woman who died while about seven months pregnant. The results were published in 2021 in the Journal of Archaeological Science, followed by the exhibition The Mysterious Lady. Studies and Perspectives in 2022 and 2023 and a documentary film in 2023.
The Warsaw Mummy Project, directed by Marzena Ożarek-Szilke and Wojciech Ejsmond, continues to study further mummies in cooperation with MRC.
- ESTABLISHED
- 2024, as an international foundation
- FOCUS
- Interdisciplinary studies of mummies and human remains
- METHODS
- CT, X-ray, 3D scanning, segmentation, AI
- UPCOMING
- 4th ISAAE, Warsaw, 23–28 May 2027
A research institute.
A support system. A hub.
- Research into the diseases, health and living conditions of people who lived thousands of years ago, and how illnesses have evolved over time.
- Support for researchers: standardised methods and data, shared libraries of results, access to specialists, help with funding and dissemination, and legal supervision for projects.
- Virtual autopsy: manual segmentation of CT scans to separate fabrics, substances, tissues and bones without unwrapping a body.
- Making Mummies Visible: weather- and touch-resistant 3D-printed copies that let blind and visually impaired visitors explore a mummy with their hands.
- Popularisation through publications, lectures, workshops, exhibitions and documentary films.
- New tools: AI and machine-learning systems for research management, communication and data digitisation.
- Conferences: MRC’s website hosts the call for papers for the 4th International Symposium on Animals in Ancient Egypt, to be held at the Museum of the Earth, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, from 23 to 28 May 2027.
Mummies are
time capsules.
Examined carefully, a mummified body reveals far more than ritual and belief. It holds evidence about disease, health and daily life thousands of years ago, and that knowledge can help us understand the health challenges we face today.
MRC brings together archaeology, medicine, imaging and law, and insists that research is shared responsibly with the public. Its approach also reflects respect: digitisation and replicas protect fragile remains and allow exhibitions that follow the ethics of displaying human remains.
From the scan
to the story.
A segmented CT scan already contains layers a visitor never normally sees. Together with MRC, we are exploring ways to bring those layers into museums, expos and online spaces: object viewers that let people move from the surface to what lies beneath, augmented reality and exhibition spaces built around discovery.
This collaboration is in exploration. The interpretation study shown on our home page uses a fictional object, not MRC research data.
See the research study on our home pageAn independent photography foundation at Fort Mokotów, Warsaw, with one of the largest photography galleries in Poland.
GALLERY PRACTICEvan den Berg Galeria SztukiA Warsaw gallery opened at Emilii Plater 12 in 2012, now returning with two virtual exhibition spaces.
ONLINE EXHIBITIONSVan den Berg Fine Art GalleryThe gallery of painter and pianist Riaan van den Berg at Vaal Marina, South Africa, and the online exhibition A Life in Colour.
Different worlds.
A shared curiosity.
We work with institutions, galleries and researchers who want to give culture more room. Tell us about the space, the collection or the story you are preparing.
info@cloudlyculture.com