Occupation Nuuk I Had to Fly to Nuuk So That I Could Have...

Occupation Nuuk

I had to fly to Nuuk so that I could have some medical test procedures done at the Nuuk Hospital facilities there. I will probably talk about this at a later time. For now I want to write about my visit to the Nuuk National Museum and discuss some of the things I saw there and was able to photograph.

I was a bit surprised at how much bigger the museum here in Nuuk is. The facility displays were done in good taste and many examples of the Inuit life is shown in this museum. One of the neatest parts of the museum is the mommy display case. I have never seen a mommy up close like this. I found it to be fascinating but at the same time a little well disturbing as well. I have never seen bodies put on display in this manner. If the soul could actually see this and have feelings about it, I wonder what it would feel? I am not sure how they are able to maintain the right environment to prevent degradation of the mummies. I have taken a few photo's and I hope that no one gets offended by my display of what I saw in the museum. I realize that I cannot please everybody.

About the mummies:
The museum says there is six women and two children. We saw three of the six. Apparently the rest of them are in another part of the museum. We didn't finish the entire museum tour. The mummies have been dated back to the 1400's. They were discovered in 1972 in an old Inuit settlement called Qilakitsoq which is located on the Nuussuaq peninsula on the west coast of Greenland. The location of the settlement is about 450 km north of the Artic Circle. There were no men buried with the women and children. There seems to be a mystery surrounding why there weren't any men with them. One of the children was about six months old and buried alive with its mom.
The mother died from a turmor on the brain. The custom back then was to bury children with their mothers if there was no one to nurse and raise the child while the fathers were out hunting and trying to provide for their families.
If you are interested in more information you can visit the following links to read more about this interesting subject.
http://www.greenland.com/en/about-greenland/kultur-sjael/fangerkulturen/qilakitsoq-mumierne.aspx
http://www.ourheritage.net/great_adventures/marine_expedtions/northwest_passage/Uummannaq/Mummies.html
http://mummiesofqilakitsoq.weebly.com/
http://iportal.usask.ca/docs/Native_studies_review/v7/issue1/pp149-154.pdf
I will be posting more blogs with photographs that I took while visiting the Nuuk National Museum.
KathyApril 2014