Buyer beware: Those mummified remains might carry toxic spores

Squires et al. scoured the Internet for public posts related to the sale or collection of mummified remains, both human and animal: public and business pages on Facebook, public Instagram pages, websites of brick-and-mortar stores, a Dutch e-commerce platform, and online auctioneers. Only 24 of the 128 posts included in the study came from non-Meta platforms. All the posts were anonymized to protect any personal information, although unaltered versions were stored on an external hard drive not connected to the cloud.

Most of the items for sale were mummified human remains, usually body parts such as hands and feet, or heads (like Peruvian shrunken heads); six were animals, specifically a cat, a falcon, an ibis, a perch, and a primate skull. Only one seller was offering a complete mummified body. The authors note that such items are extremely rare and hence very costly; such transactions would not usually be handled via public social media posts.

The resulting analysis showed that sellers were very much aware of any legal issues associated with the sale and shipment of mummified human remains, often specifying geographical locations where laws forbid such transfers. Typically, such sellers would not openly declare shipment contents to avoid seizure by authorities. There was also often no provenance offered for such items.

The authors were particularly alarmed to note 13 Facebook posts offering mummified remains with visible fungal colonization in the photos, likely due to improper storage conditions: yellow spots, white spots, white spots on a black patina, white and gray spots, black and pink patinas, and so forth. Because such growth is not always immediately visible to the naked eye, the problem may be widespread.

“There is evidence to show that mummified remains are being mailed to buyers, both nationally and internationally, with little (if any) consideration of the health and safety implications of these actions,” said Squires. “Clearer, more prominent guidelines are needed to ensure buyers and sellers are unable to misinterpret or find loopholes in shipping policies.”

International Journal of Cultural Property, 2026. DOI: 10.1017/S0940739126100393 (About DOIs).